Giuliani and the Yankees

[Gwreck]

The Village Voice reports on Giuliani's dealings with the Yankees, from stadium negotiations to improper benefits to illegal gifts:

http://www.villagevoice.com/news/0719,barrett,76566,2.html/full

[metirish]

Hardly surprising,he's a crook and an arrogant prick.

[Guest Yancy Street Gang]

AND a wanker!

[MFS62]

And those are his GOOD points.

Later

[Guest Kid Carsey]

Too long a column to read, but that caricature is drop dead funny.

[Guest Edgy DC]

That's not entirely fair to print the rings' value as collectors pieces, and not their production cost, which is where it became a gift.

Making the distinction doesn't make it proper, but not making it is a distorition.

[soupcan]

There's some troubling shit in there but nothing that I would say surprises me.

Giuliani's reputation as being one who is not bound to the same morals he expects those around him to be is well-documented.

[soupcan]

="Edgy DC"]That's not entirely fair to print the rings' value as collectors pieces, and not their production cost, which is where it became a gift. Making the distinction doesn't make it proper, but not making it is a distorition.

The collectable value of the rings is a non-issue for me. This paragraph is the real issue:

]What's more troubling is that Giuliani's receipt of the rings may be a serious breach of the law, and one that could still be prosecuted. New York officials are barred from taking a gift of greater than $50 value from anyone doing business with the city, and under Giuliani, that statute was enforced aggressively against others. His administration forced a fire department chief, for example, to retire, forfeit $93,105 in salary, and pay a $6,000 fine for taking Broadway tickets to two shows and a free week in a ski condo from a city vendor. The city's Conflicts of Interest Board (COIB) has applied the gift rule to discounts as well, unless the cheaper rate "is available generally to all government employees." When a buildings department deputy commissioner was indicted in 2000 for taking Mets and Rangers tickets, as well as a family trip to Florida, from a vendor, an outraged Giuliani denounced his conduct as "reprehensible," particularly "at high levels in city agencies," and said that such officials had to be "singled out" and "used as examples."

The rings are just the tip of the iceberg in that article anyway

[MFS62]

="soupcan"] The collectable value of the rings is a non-issue for me. This paragraph is the real issue: What's more troubling is that Giuliani's receipt of the rings may be a serious breach of the law, and one that could still be prosecuted. New York officials are barred from taking a gift of greater than $50 value from anyone doing business with the city, and under Giuliani, that statute was enforced aggressively against others. His administration forced a fire department chief, for example, to retire, forfeit $93,105 in salary, and pay a $6,000 fine for taking Broadway tickets to two shows and a free week in a ski condo from a city vendor. The city's Conflicts of Interest Board (COIB) has applied the gift rule to discounts as well, unless the cheaper rate "is available generally to all government employees." When a buildings department deputy commissioner was indicted in 2000 for taking Mets and Rangers tickets, as well as a family trip to Florida, from a vendor, an outraged Giuliani denounced his conduct as "reprehensible," particularly "at high levels in city agencies," and said that such officials had to be "singled out" and "used as examples."

Hmmm. That's interesting. I used to work with someone whose father was a supervisor at the City Sanitation garage that cleans around Yankee Stadium. She told me that her dad was given free season general admission passes by the team.
But that could have been before that regulation was enacted.

Later

[G-Fafif]

Great linkage, Gwreck. Thanks. (Nothing is too long to read if it's good.)

While this certainly amplifies just about every assumption I hold about Giuliani's nature (a Yankee fan is a Yankee fan is a Yankee fan), there were at least three mistakes in the article that makes me wonder how much else of a more substantive nature may be off, which Rudy apologists could point to so as to dismiss all of it.

--Yogi Berra was presented with newly minted replacements for lost rings in 1999 after he was lured back into the fold. Joe DiMaggio, on the other hand, died early that season, thus making it unlikely that he would need new rings.

--The Mets were sure as shootin' trying to get a new ballpark before 2000. They began their quest in earnest in April 1998 when the retractable-field model was unveiled.

--And, though this is a bit on the fan-pickiness side, the Mets were not "big-time losers" for most of Giuliani's tenure unless not winning four World Series is the same as losing big-time. They had three losing seasons followed by five winning seasons, two of which culminated in a playoff spot and three that had them contending until mid- to late September. Attendance topped 2.2 million four consecutive years, the entirety of Giuliani's second term, giving lie to the notion that Shea was regularly half-empty.

There's a lot of valuable stuff in this piece, yet it always gives me the heebie-jeebies when non-baseball writers blow the baseball details.

[Guest Kid Carsey]

G: >>>(Nothing is too long to read if it's good.)<<<

It was too long to read at work this morning.

I read it tonight, the caricature still steals the show.

[Frayed Knot]

tee-hee ... I get a kick out the wording in KC's posting level






* and, on that note, mine becomes Wally B.!

[Guest Edgy DC]

Wally Backman, dwarf pyscho Met
Wally Backman, puffin� cigarettes
Wally Backman
I don't believe you, it can�t be true
The way you drink, and cuss, and chew

(Mercy!)

Wally Backman, you play so dirty
Wally Backman, with your boy Lenny
Wally Backman
You�re a Redneck, can�t you see?
Just ask Darryl Strawberry

(Arrrrrrrgh!)

Wally Backman, so hostile
Wally Backman, no hairstyle
Wally Backman, rank-and-file 2B
Wally Backman, porn moustache
Wally Backman, when he plays
Wally Backman, hits OK, for me
But I need platoons, he only hits good right
That snot-nosed okie, he likes to fight

Wally Backman, never shuts his trap
Wally Backman, tighter than shrink wrap
Wally Backman�
Don't walk away, hey�
OK�
If that's the way it must be, OK
I guess we�ll trade your ass, you�re done
We got Gregg Jefferies coming up �
What do I see?
We stink like week-old pee
Yeah, we screwed up royally
Oh, oh, Wally Backman

[Willets Point]

Yard Work's take.

[Guest Johnny Dickshot]

whap

[Guest iramets]

Willets Point wrote: Yard Work's take.

Fabulous. As New Yorkers, I believe it is our sworn duty to expose Giuliani's corruption, pettiness, mean-spiritness, self-righteousness, and, yes, his slavish and infantile devotion to glorifying Al-Janquizera and all All Things Yankee for the nation's careful consideration.

What a total **** he is. I think he's a scarier megalomaniac than Hillary, and that's saying something.