batmagadanleadoff

Well, I'm not Brian Ross, and I'm probably about to start a topic that can't be adequately addressed here, but do you think that MLB's antitrust exemption is fair, or at least consistent with the Supreme Court's other rulings?

Reyes, Healthy Again, Reclaims Crown as the Fastest Met Excerpt: PORT ST. LUCIE, Fla. � For the first time in two years, Jose Reyes has his winged shoes, and with no restrictions or limitations, he is showing his burning speed once again. In a head-to-head heat with Angel Pagan, his stiffest competition in the sprints � as well as for most of the other starters � Reyes reclaimed his crown as the fastest Met during a mostly fun race held during wind sprints at the end of practice Friday. The drill was a 60-yard dash, but Reyes and Pagan were told to start 5 yards behind the rest of the staggered crew, and Ike Davis was told to stand a few yards in front. Reyes and Pagan came from their positions on the blocks to pass everyone, with Reyes catching Pagan at the end to win by a fraction of a second. �It�s no fun running with those guys,� Davis said. �They make me look like a kindergartner.� http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/26/sports/baseball/26citifield.html?src=twrhp

Brian Ross Writer, journalist, documentarian, and political satirist Posted: March 1, 2011 11:48 AM What's the difference between the mob and Major League Baseball (MLB)? You know, that's a really good question. Writers were gleefully typing away last week, with the New York Post reporting the $25 million bailout by MLB of the New York Mets and owner Fred Wilpon. Wilpon and his team have been embroiled in the Bernard Madoff ponzi scheme. The trustee for the Madoff victims, Irving Picard, sued Wilpon trying to recover nearly a billion dollars from him and the Mets. Picard said that Wilpon and his team should have known that Madoff's inflated returns were too good to be true. Yet no one seemed to be asking the obvious question: Where does the league, not the teams, get that kind of jack? What allows Bud Selig, who, as Commissioner, is supposed to be there primarily to uphold the ethical standards of the game, to act as the Don Vito Corleone of baseball, and dole out that kind of money on behalf of the individual owners? To get its exemption from antitrust law, baseball was defined as a bunch of separate businesses. Do they meet that standard today? Having read baseball's antiquated rule book from cover to cover, there is no explicit authorization that I can find in the establishment of the Commissioner's office that gives Selig broad and sweeping fiscal powers, or that allow him to operate that office as a national center for financial policy that would invalidate the premise of baseball's antitrust deal with the government. According to the Post, not only did Selig authorize the latest $25 million bailout of the Mets, but the team is on the hook to MLB for $75 million, which means that this latest bailout was added to $50 million already owed the league. This isn't the first time this has happened, either. Selig bailed out the Texas Rangers when their fiscal prairie schooner hit the rocks. The mob makes up its own rules as it goes along, and strong men rule by muscling their way into power. The MLB is likewise an old-boy, back-room institution run by fiefdoms of power brokers who do as they will. The difference is that the MLB holds one very big card in their hand: No fear of U.S. antitrust laws. The MLB is the only business entity that has a federal exemption from the same anti-competitive monopoly laws that 99.99% of other American businesses must abide by. The United States Senate Judiciary committee, in a web article, explains how this came to pass: In years prior, a number of laws such as the Sherman Antitrust Act, the Clayton Antitrust Act, and the Celler-Kefauver Act were enacted to prevent companies from illegally forming or maintaining a monopoly in a particular market. Baseball, however, had routinely escaped federal antitrust scrutiny, as courts ruled that organized baseball did not qualify as "interstate trade or commerce," as defined by antitrust laws. The issue required clarification by the Supreme Court, and, in 1922, the Court heard arguments in Federal Baseball Club v. National League. The Court, including former college baseball player and then-Chief Justice Howard Taft, decided unanimously that the Sherman Antitrust Act did not apply to Major League Baseball because the "business [of] giving exhibitions of baseball" did not constitute interstate commerce. That opinion was delivered by a former amateur baseball player, Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes. Congress heaped on to that decision in 1961, when they passed the Sports Broadcasting Act. It allowed the nation's professional teams engaged in baseball, basketball, football, and hockey to negotiate single network agreements for national broadcasting rights for their respective leagues. The precedent for the legislation, though, still hinges around the Supreme Court decision of 1922. MLB's Far-Flung Empire MLB's owners have expanded their centralized operations since the 1960s by creating a whole host of limited liability partnerships and corporate entities outside of the main MLB framework that control everything from merchandise licensing to ticketing to money management to media ownership. These businesses serve MLB, and often work at its direction, whether directly or indirectly, as the same owners make up the majority of the limited partnership interests in these supposed "side" businesses. It is these side businesses that bring in the lion's share of revenue that keeps baseball teams funded and help pay astronomical player salaries and fat paydays for all of the owners in towns great and small. Media Control Over the last decade, MLB Advanced Media, L.P. (MLB.com) solidified its control over news on the sport. Owners view the all of the news of baseball as "content," an extension of the entertainment product which they put out on the field. The owners, no longer content with the revenue from rebroadcast of the games themselves, wanted a piece of the sizable market for chattering about baseball, showing highlights, and reporting the events of the day in the sport. MLB.com, owned by the largely the same owners who own the news source MLB, competes with every major and minor news publication in print, on the web, and on television in the country. They know that media is moving to the Internet. By establishing a huge, dominant television and Internet presence, it gives their authorized media arm huge advantage over other media outlets. Already MLB.com has its own priority news space at events like the Winter Meetings, and first access to everything from press releases to access to players and coaches, owners, and power brokers in the game. The only companies which are granted similar access to MLB.com for their reporters and videographers are big outlets like ESPN and Fox, who pay hefty annual access fees, estimated in the millions to obtain the access that MLB.com has. It has been impossible to get MLB.com to answer the question as to whether they pay any fees to MLB for such access. Calls in the past for an answer to that question have always been deflected or deferred. To make sure that these fees for journalists to exercise the First Amendment on MLB fields are paid, new policies for media access were enacted a year or so ago that now limit media credentials as well. Images and video gathered at MLB parks and events have been limited to 72 hours on the Internet. This discourages smaller publications from competing with MLB.com on the web by having any substantial content libraries beyond a day or two. It even keeps giants like Sports Illustrated, which run monthly images, and have an enormous library, off the web unless they pay the hefty rights fees. MLB.com took over Minor League Baseball's Internet & television operations as well. Over the last decade, MLB attendance has kind of flat-lined unless a steroid-induced athlete is chasing a record, but Minor League Baseball (MiLB) attendance soared more than 11 million. So MLB pushed MiLB to join its web empire, picking up millions in managing websites, advertising revenues, additional ticketing fees, and the opportunity to sell major league TV packages to hundreds of thousands who would probably not have otherwise been targeted. MLB, as a news-maker, adopts rules for media credentials which support the owners' competing news business with rules that favor MLB.com. This is exactly the kind of insider corporate behavior that antitrust laws were designed to combat. Merchandise & Ticket Sales Major League Baseball Properties, Inc., their merchandising arm charges high licensing fees, and would seem to negotiate as one entity rather than as a collective of the separate teams. By way of MLB.com's store online, they aggressively market to their email lists of site users and tv package subscribers, encouraging them to shop at MLB.com's online store first and foremost. MLB, through another deal, bought Tickets.com in 2005 to go toe-to-toe with Ticketmaster. Teams, particularly in the minors, were continually arm-twisted to join the Tickets.com network. The more independent minor league owners initially bucked the back-door increase in charges for their ticketing that the owners were taking out of their pockets, but jeopardizing the relationship which brings the players, trainers, and coaches delivered to their doors in the farm system at virtually no cost is a powerful disincentive to complaining about it. Federal Blessing The owners' Kobe beef cash cow is perpetuated by your federal government, which, back when baseball was actually the national pastime, responded to their lobbying and the mania for the game that Americans held in the 1920s with a level of protectionism that even the well-fed oil lobby has to look at with humble awe. The owners would like to tell you that there is no monopoly, because all of their limited partnerships are run separately from MLB. In theory, perhaps, but in practice, everyone tacitly understands that the league makes rules like the 72 hour photo/video use rule to protect its side businesses which reap in the millions that they need to make record profits and pay out ever-increasing salary demands even as the major league game has flat-lined for attendance in any year other than the steroids-laced home run records chases of Bonds, McGwire, and Sosa. The only David that has had the deep enough pockets to face the Goliath sports leagues is a hat and garment manufacturer, American Needle. Their lawsuit against the National Football League (NFL) delivered a huge victory last May when the U.S. Supreme Court by a 9-0 vote overturned the ruling in favor of the NFL in a 2008 decision in the 7th Circuit of the federal appeals courts. The case is now being re-evaluated by the appeals courts in light of the Supreme Court's new direction. Stan Brand, Vice President of MiLB, said as much in remarks in 2009 at the Winter Meetings a few months prior to the decision. His take on its impact was significant: "In the event that the Court validates the lower court ruling and the single entity theory, we should be prepared to ensure that any legislative initiatives that may be undertaken do nothing to undermine the significant protections achieved in the Curt Flood Act. And we should be ready, which I have no doubt we will be, to explain to our fans, the Congress and the public why baseball's antitrust protection has served the public interest and the communities in which we play for almost nine decades." It would be hard to sell Baseball's antitrust exemption as a benefit to consumers. It cuts down competition in what they buy to wear, what they read, and what they watch. It has cost fans and the taxpayers millions, between markups passed along by advertisers who help companies like ESPN eat the millions in rights fees, and the many government bond deals that power the stadium building wave that has hit both major and minor league baseball over the last decade. Their dominance of merchandising and ticketing has driven the costs of the game to unsustainable levels. The Yankees debuted their brand new stadium to empty seats behind home plate because they were simply too costly for even large corporations to pony up for them. The game has suffered as well. Players from the days before free agency, who played for a fraction of the scratch that big-dollar athletes are paid today played far better ball on a regimen of beer, cigarettes, and women, than today's overpaid, often-juiced athletes. Congressmen took an interest in MLB when the Mitchell Report revealed the rampant performance-enhancing substance abuse that mars the game. It was short-lived, high-profile, and probably not under their jurisdiction anyway. The business practices of the owners of MLB and their various businesses are though. It is high time that, in this era of increased accountability, the Congress revisit the trust-bending deals struck by the Supreme Court in the 1920s, and the 1961 session. If Bud Selig can issue a check to the Wilpons and the Mets for millions, along with the many other centrally-run operations by the owners that benefit MLB, then it is a national business entity, and it should no longer enjoy the unfair competitive advantage that it wields. That's my shiny two. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/brian-ross/mets-money-mishap-revives_b_828745.html

In my fantasy, the owners go but the GM stays. I should add, though, that my fantasies never come true.

Benjamin Grimm wrote: I haven't been getting mired in the details of this. All I know is that if the Wilpons can no longer afford to run the team, they have to sell. My biggest fear around all this is that we're going to go through another period like the interregnum between the death of Joan Payson and the arrival of Nelson Doubleday. If the final outcome is going to be a full sale, then let's have it sooner rather than later. I agree but I suspect that the Wilpons will cling to the Mets desperately, placing their personal desire to retain ownership over the interests of the fans and the league. They're gonna have to be pried away from the Mets.

2009 Topps Update, probably from the same photo session that produced the alternate Topps' images, above.

If the Mets can't meet their payroll obligations, I nominate K-Rod as the odds-on likeliest Met to punch out Fred Wilpon.

Ceetar wrote: Ceetar wrote: So, if the Mets got money from a bank, would it negate the money they need from selling a percentage of the team? Is this one of those other options? or is it in addition to? I'm guessing no, this wouldn't negate that. metirish wrote: It's quite possible that the Mets will not meet various payroll obligations without this loan, NT a good working environment for any of the employees. If they secure this loan then how long before they need another? Mr Wilpon, Mr Katz and son of Fred please go, for the sake of the club go. But I wouldn't go that far, either. I have no idea. I give up. The players are doing stuff down there, so I'm done with this storyline until we have something conclusive about the owners, whoever they are, ability to bring in an expensive piece at the deadline, and retain/sign players in the offseason. So now where will we turn to for coverage and commentary on the Mets' Madoff Mess?

Edgy DC wrote: Ceetar wrote: So, if the Mets got money from a bank, would it negate the money they need from selling a percentage of the team? Is this one of those other options? or is it in addition to? I'm guessing no, this wouldn't negate that. It theoretically could depending on the debt service. What would be the terms of this loan? How much time would the Mets have to pay it back?

Questions. Questions. Questions. New York Mets Getting Big Taxpayer Bailout Mar. 1 2011 - By MIKE OZANIAN I realize Major League Baseball has the widest antitrust exemption in professional sports. But when banks like JPMorgan Chase, Citigroup and Bank of America that have received over $200 billion in bailout help are propping up teams like the Texas Rangers (prior to the team�s sale in bankruptcy court last year), Los Angeles Dodgers and New York Mets with direct loans to the teams or via the league�s credit facility, shouldn�t congress be asking some questions? By my count, the Mets have a negative book value when you include the stadium debt not on the team�s balance sheet but must be paid for with revenue from Citi Field. Now the team even wants more money from JPMorgan. Don�t taxpayers have the right to know where the money will come from to pay back these loans, especially when banks have not paid back the money they have �borrowed� from taxpayers and they continue to make huge profits from their borrowing and lending spreads? Why is commissioner Bud Selig, who reportedly did not even tell team owners about the $25 million loan he approved to the Mets last November until recently, allowed to remain secretive on these issues? http://blogs.forbes.com/mikeozanian/2011/03/01/new-york-mets-getting-big-taxpayer-bailout/

Here's Duke Snider's '64 Topps baseball card; his last Topps card and his only card in a Mets uniform as an active player. Topps chose from among these other images when deciding what Snider's '64 card would ultimately look like:

LeiterWagnerFasterStrongr wrote: .388 wOBA You calculated every player's 2011 OBP. Impressive.

And he's only a hop, skip and a jumpthrow away from his next door neighbor.

I own almost every Rolling Stone recording and saw them in concert a few times. But you couldn't pay me to see them today. Rock and Roll lead singing is a young man's game and Mick Jagger looks like a clown vamping on stage. His moves are dated and there's something comical and false about a guy pushing 70 singing about killing kings and palace revolutions. The Academy Awards are a big effin circle jerk to me, the main goal being, it seems to me, that everybody tell everybody else how effin great they are. You woulda thought that these people cured cancer they way they gush about what brilliant geniuses they all are. Geniuses! Why don't they just drop the pretense and get James Lipton to host the thing every year? If I wanna know about any movie, I've got Vic Sage right here on this forum.

batmagadanleadoff wrote: The NY Post reports that the Wilpons and Katz are now willing to sell up to 49% of the team. The situation has gotten so bad that the Mets are now willing to sell up to a 49 percent stake in the franchise -- double what the owners had previously indicated. http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/queens/mets_mil_bailout_Fu4xf6MgfDtVbJVfDqG30O?CMP=OTC-rss&FEEDNAME= It's odd that the Post devoted only one sentence to the Mets willingness to sell 49% of the team, and even odder that no other media outlet is even so much as quoting the Post on this.

TransMonk wrote: Not for nothing, but I'll be a lot happier about our outfield situation when the words "Beltran" and "hobbled" stop appearing in articles together. What would really be nice would be for F-Mart to finally start playing up to his potential and creating a logjam in the outfield. I can't remember the last time the Mets had a good problem.

Does Melissa Rivers know about this?

Some quick notes from the Mets' 5-4 win today over Atlanta: Chris Young looked good. Oliver Perez did not.... After a decent first inning -- one run allowed on a hard-hit double and a well-placed singled -- Perez unraveled in his second inning. He walked three consecutive batters to load the bases and plate a run. Then he gave up a two-run single to a minor-leaguer named Shawn Bowman. A base-running error ended the inning and saved Perez. http://www.nj.com/mets/index.ssf/2011/02/oliver_perez_allows_four_runs.html Expectations for the margarita machine have sunken so low that he's considered to have had a decent inning when he gives up a run on two hits.

The NY Post reports that the Wilpons and Katz are now willing to sell up to 49% of the team. The situation has gotten so bad that the Mets are now willing to sell up to a 49 percent stake in the franchise -- double what the owners had previously indicated. One more percentage point, and we'll have to change the name of this thread from minority stake to half share. Two more points and I'm havin' a party. http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/queens/mets_mil_bailout_Fu4xf6MgfDtVbJVfDqG30O?CMP=OTC-rss&FEEDNAME=

Ceetar wrote: Ceetar wrote: If they trade Reyes, no one will be at the park in August anyway to get the poster. It's looking like nobody might be at the park even if they keep Reyes. A couple of people have reported that they're doing "not bad" with ticket sales. From the NYT: "Moreover, the one potential bright spot � the start of games at Citi Field, the selling of tickets, the sale of hot dogs and beer � appears clouded as well. One person close to the team said that advance ticket sales for the 2011 season were going so poorly that a sense of panic had begun to take hold in the team�s front office." http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/27/sports/baseball/27wilpon.html?src=twrhp

Ceetar wrote: MFS62 wrote: Frayed Knot wrote: Somebody on the radio this morning pointed out that the Mets are holding Latin Appreciation/Jose Reyes Poster Night on August 6th ... one week After the trading deadline. That could get awkward. You're right. But then again this is the team that saluted Mike Jacobs on Jewish Heritage night, then learned he isn't Jewish. I don't think the rest of the front office will hold off on making a trade because a promotional event has been scheduled. Nor do I think the promotional department checks in with the front office when scheduling an event. Later That was the Marlins with Jacobs. If they trade Reyes, no one will be at the park in August anyway to get the poster. It's looking like nobody might be at the park even if they keep Reyes.

More doom, gloom and commentary on "the loan". From the NYT: ...the tens of millions of dollars in loan and bond payments the Mets have on their books will not go away; and Commissioner Bud Selig, having already lent the Mets $25 million, may be unable to continue quietly backing the team. Moreover, the one potential bright spot � the start of games at Citi Field, the selling of tickets, the sale of hot dogs and beer � appears clouded as well. One person close to the team said that advance ticket sales for the 2011 season were going so poorly that a sense of panic had begun to take hold in the team�s front office. The team has recently initiated a broad shake-up of its ticket operations. Over the last several months, Bill Ianniciello, the longtime head of ticket sales, was replaced by Leigh Castergine, an executive brought in to overhaul the department in the wake of last year�s steep decline in attendance. As the Mets finished in fourth place in the National League East for the second straight season in 2010, the team sold about 600,000 fewer tickets, one of the largest annual declines in club history. Last week, the Mets let go a handful of full-time employees in the ticket office, according to a person with direct knowledge of the staff reductions. The team also did not rehire another dozen or so part-time workers who are typically brought in to answer the phones when tickets go on sale, the person said. Asked about the claim that ticket-office personnel had recently been let go, officials with the Mets would not comment. http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/27/sports/baseball/27wilpon.html?src=twrhp From the NY Post: The strategy, from the start, has been a simple one: If you act as if everything's OK, then everything will be OK. Close your eyes, plug your ears, and drink in the merry sunshine of a perfect Florida morning, the healing tonic of all time, and everything that ails the Mets will disappear in a wishful flash. "We are very confident," owner Fred Wilpon said a week ago, "that we will run the New York Mets for many years to come." Now comes another revelation, that without the kindness of strangers the Wilpon family might have had a hard time running the team through Christmas. Yesterday it was revealed that Major League Baseball lent the Mets $25 million last November. The last time baseball made such a loan, to the Texas Rangers, the team had to declare bankruptcy and was soon sold. "We did receive a loan from Major League Baseball in November," the Mets admitted in a statement yesterday, when it was clear they would have no choice but to acknowledge the assistance. "Beyond that, we will not discuss the matter any further." It's just as well, because the longer this goes on, the deeper the Mets careen into debt, the more sad and delusional the proclamations of the Wilpons and Saul Katz become. Forget for a second the billion-dollar anvil hanging over their heads in the form of the complaint Irving Picard has brought representing the victims of Bernie Madoff's fraud; this is about something even greater than that. This is about the viability and the credibility of men who own the Mets. And how can you possibly believe either right now? For two years, the Mets insisted that their financial issues wouldn't have a shred of influence on the baseball team, despite overwhelming pieces of anecdotal evidence to the contrary, always citing their bloated payroll as evidence that they were no cheapskates. And now it turns out they needed to essentially turn commissioner Bud Selig into a loan shark because they are -- in a word -- broke? The Mets continually have patted themselves on the back the past few months, acting like the only honest folk in New York, talking about how they have been upfront and honest about all of their financial issues. Oh, really? Did this loan just slip their minds as they were trying to sell their preposterous propaganda? Did they think that sort of thing would stay underground forever, that major league baseball works under the Sicilian code of omerta? Last week, Fred Wilpon himself shook an angry finger of accusation at a crowd of media, accusing all but the family's fiercest media apologists of trying to bury him and his family. He was speaking, as he does, with a humble, patrician tone but wanting the world to know how angry -- how hurt -- he is to have his honor questioned. If he's that angry, I have a useful suggestion. It's time he started actually acting the part. It's time to be completely forthright, completely forthcoming, to admit once and for all that he has been less than truthful these last two years, ever since Bernie Madoff's fraud was revealed to the world. It's time to admit that the Mets are a financial calamity, that they have been irresponsible to the millions of fans who support the team -- with their hearts and with their wallets. It's time to stop acting as if they are the victim of some complicated conspiracy that involves just about everyone except the other tabloid in town, which continues to serve as their personal town crier. Wilpon wants us to believe that he is an honorable man wronged by dishonest associates, and that would be a lot easier to buy if he only had been upfront about all of this from the beginning. The Wilpons continue to insist that they will be able to keep the team, that dozens of fat cats are dying for the chance to buy a non-controlling interest in the team. Maybe that really is so. We will see. But here's something I want to know: Why would anyone who has the brains and savvy to build a big enough bankroll to write a $250 million check possibly want to simply hand that over to the men who run the Mets? Their defense the whole time has been reduced to this: We're not crooked, just stupid. Yeah. Where do you sign up for that kind of bargain? http://www.nypost.com/p/sports/mets/wilpons_must_fess_up_FKwciaOXxBxYoq1nfuo2kL From Mike Silva's NY Baseball Digest: One consistent theme throughout the Madoff mess has been Fred and Jeff reacting to reported news, downplaying the reports, only to have more damaging news surface shortly thereafter. When they held their press conference in January not a word was said about an MLB loan for $25 million dollars. You would think the Wilpon�s have learned the value of transparency during the ownership, clearly they have not. They seem to enjoy playing semantics with words than just give everyone the truth. Perhaps that is a result of the litigation process. Considering transparency has never been ownerships strength I have reason to believe the worst. Today�s statement was brief and cryptic. It had a feel the �check is in the mail� when it said the loan �will be repaid in months.� Is that assuming the Wilpon�s, to quote Fred, are vindicated by defeating Picard? The history of these claw back lawsuits indicates it�s highly unlikely the Mets will go unscathed. In that case where is this money coming from? A fans worse fear would be it comes in the form of a midseason fire sale. Jose Reyes and Carlos Beltran�s salary should just about cover it. I don�t know where this story is going to lead. Honestly, I rather talk about baseball, but that�s been difficult the last four years of Wilpon ownership. What I do know is that I don�t believe very much of what Fred, Jeff, and Saul Katz say publicly. I don�t believe David Howard, who has been doing PR spin for ownership the last two years. Do I have facts to back that up? No, but this whole thing just smells really bad. That�s a shame because there are some nice vibes coming from Port St. Lucie. The Wilpon�s could be enjoying the beginning of a new era. Instead, they are in a fight for their baseball lives. One that appears to have the deck stacked against them. http://nybaseballdigest.com/?p=34284&cpage=1

Ceetar wrote: Who's making comments against one's own interests? Couldn't it be that comments made against one's own interests are simply comments to which the observer doesn't recognize or know the speakers interests? Doesn't this basically mean no one would be believed if they were speaking honestly in their own favor? A certain amount of skepticism is healthy. So is trust. No one should go through life distrusting everybody and everything. Balancing skepticism and confidence is as much art and intuition and hunch and feel as it is science and logic. But you seem to take the extreme position that everybody always tells the truth. Especially everybody in the Mets organization. I'm sure that those fans that purchased obstructed view season tickets, relying on the Mets representations that there are no obstructed view seats at Citi Field were thrilled to be learned that their view of the game was diminished rather than obstructed. Here's a hypothetical: Let's make believe that Sandy Alderson's wife is murdered and that you're the lead detective in the murder investigation. You have no evidence that Sandy did it, but Sandy has no alibi either. He says he slept through the entire incident. As the husband of the victim, Sandy is automatically considered a suspect. Do you eliminate Sandy as a suspect as soon as he denies his guilt?

In the first televised game of 2011, Ron Darling just clinched the 2011 season wordplay championship award. On whether Keith Hernandez is more Bud Abbott or Lou Costello while riffing on "Hu's on second": Ron: (to Keith) "I'd never call you the straight man".

Ceetar wrote: Alderson's comment might be true. But I tend to ignore it and give it zero weight because Sandy would've made the same comment even if he knew it to be false. The most credible comments are those made against one's interests. Who's making comments against one's own interests? Nobody. That was my point. A murder suspect who confesses makes a statement against his interests. It's not ordinarily in the suspect's interests to confess because he likely faces harsh criminal penalties. A murder suspect who denies any involvement in the crime is not making a statement against his interests. All things being equal, a confession is more credible than a denial of the crime. But this doesn't mean that the denial can't be an honest one. Ceetar wrote: Maybe if Alderson spoke out and said they were cash strapped, he could falsely claim in a trade "Nope, I can't possibly give you any more than that. We're broke." and maybe negotiate down the price. Are you saying that teams might ask the Mets for less because the Mets are tapped out? I don't know. Why wouldn't that work for the Pirates, or the Royals?