Magic Luggie

Keith Hernandez is an idiot. That is all I have to say.

Sports-Communist

I am realizing more and more that I am a left-wing sports ideologue. I think that capitalism in American sports has run awry and is exploiting the labor of the fans (the players make out pretty well). Major league teams enjoy monopolies and use that to screw over everyone they can.

The best example of this has been the situation involving the Montreal Expos / Washington Nationals. From the beginning, this situation did nothing but help current owners at the expense of everyone else. First, Major League Baseball buys the Expos franchise, and has them play half their home games in Montreal, and half in Puerto Rico. During this time, they used their leverage to force any city that wants to be home to the franchise will have to pay most of the costs of the Stadium. I had argued that it was good for DC to offer to pay for it, but in looking back, I was definitely wrong. A city with as much financial trouble should not be building a stadium when most teams are willing to pay for most of it. In New York, The Yankees will be paying for 80% of the cost of their new stadium.

Major League Baseball did this for one reason - to increase the price of the team when they went to resell it. A team they purchased for over $100 million they will sell for well over $400 million. Without a stadium deal, the team would probably sell for much less. So in the eyes of MLB, they make a bigger profit, and the city of DC pays the bill (through taxes raised from business around the new stadium).

The next step was to pay off Peter Angelos, who was worried that me might actually have to make his team competitive with a rival close by. Since that violated the monopoly most of these teams have (unless your team is in New York, San Francisco, or Los Angeles), MLB gave Angelos a huge deal allowing him to take 90% now (66% in the future) of the TV revenue from the Nationals and Orioles. Again, Nationals owners and fans lose out - without all the TV revenue they would normally get, the Nats will be at a significant disadvantage in the powerhouse National League East.

The reason all of this happened is that a few robber-barons were able to use their influence to make as much money as possible after throwing fairness and equity aside. The Wop's explanation of European soccer leagues is more appealing every day.

*If you want the other side of the argument, there are two highly flattering pieces on Angelos in the Washington Examiner - one an interview in which he says the Nationals are getting "fair market value" for the TV revenues, and the other a very supportive column by Rick Snider.

Bowden - DUI

Washington Nationals GM Jim Bowden was charged with DUI on Sunday. Maybe he was drunk for most of the off season also. That would be the only explanation for why the only action the team saw was the trade for Alfonso Soriano.

Gotta Love It

The Onion is probably the greatest publication ever. They always have unique interpretations of the latest news, like this story on the Chicago Cubs hot start this year.

Busch, Jr.

I never made it to a game at the old Busch Stadium (although I went to the Vet, and all of those cookie cutter stadiums were the same), but after seeing the pictures, I can't wait to take a trip to the new stadium. Check out the rest of the pictures here at Deadspin.

In the Dirt

Vice President Cheney is the only person who would look unhappy throwing out the first pitch at a baseball game.

Old School

Not sure if you guys saw any of the Nationals series against the Mets, but it got me pretty excited (probably overly so) about the the team's prospects this season. Not only did Ryan Zimmerman (our new franchise player) go deep off a Billy Wagner fastball to send a game into extra innings, Nick Johnson and his porn stauche launched two 3-run shots in back to back days, and Jose Guillen almost beat Pedro senseless with his bat after an overt beaning. BUT... my favorite moment was when Frank Robinson benched Alphonso Soriano for not running out a routine pop-fly in the 7th inning of a close game that the Nats ended up winning. Soriano may be a perennial all-star and may make $10 million a year, but Frank has serious issues with his attitude and wanted to send him a message. In an age of "players' coaches", when a coach or manager's popularity stems from how much they cater to their team's primadonnas, it's refreshing to see someone that is old-school in every sense. That's what a true "players' coach" should be all about, and those are the type of coaches that players should be lining up to play for...disciplinarians who want to win and aren't worried about hurting feelings or brusing already bloated egos.

The best remedy for an Iverson, a T.O., or an Alphonso Soriano, may just be a Bobby Knight, a Bill Parcells, or a Frank Robinson.

Enough Said

This is why players get worse after signing with the Mets.