Frayed Knot

=Ceetar post_id=37710 time=1591017442 user_id=102]I don't think it really matters what the owners are 'claiming' about revenues, since literally everyone knows it's a lie.

- The players want a longer season since more games means a larger pct of their original 2020 salaries. The owners, who claim they'll be losing X amount per game w/no fans, are just going to see this as losing more money And then you're going to start with expanded playoffs in early Nov?!?! That would have to mean neutral sites which wouldn't help the bottom line either. - Not quite sure how the two years of expanded playoffs fits in here. Maybe players are saying to the owners that that's how they can recoup any lost money, lost money that they (players) have yet to acknowledge is real - Deferred money appears to be the same: we'll give up some money now to help you with the no gate sales thing but only temporarily and we want it back before next year even starts I'm not sure this qualifies as anything resembling progress.

Edgy MD wrote: That's not really what a ponzi scheme is. Close enough: Substitute"Ticket buyers" for "investors" No, it's not even close to being close to being a Ponzi scheme. fraudulent investment operations that pay out returns to investors from money paid in by subsequent investors, rather than from any actual profit earned from the operation of a business. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Ponzi_schemeshttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Ponzi_schemes.

Well one theory is that you intentionally skew the rights fees that the team gets for televising their games which shifts potential profit from the team to the station even as the owners of both are at least partially the same. Other factors include debt service for the building of a stadium and even going back to the buying out of Doubleday and old Cablevision contracts; the paying back of loans that were needed when the new stadium hit at the same time as a major recession so that the anticipated windfall wasn't nearly as high as expected; the Madoff disaster both when lots of on-paper wealth disappeared and again when they were caught by surprise at the aggressiveness of the 'spread the pain' actions to claw back past monies that they had previously realized. If one keeps borrowing against the value of the franchise to finance various things you can wind up digging yourself a hole so deep that it's tough to ever climb out since you're forever paying for last year's projects with next year's money. And paying for things with borrowed money is also an expensive way to run things.

https://nypost.com/2020/05/29/alex-rodriguez-jennifer-lopez-taking-second-shot-at-buying-mets/I'm not sure if we should consider this good news or not The fact that 'JRod' are apparently interested in getting back in isn't by itself a downer, but some of the 'plans' sound maybe like more glitz and glamour than bats and balls ... but of course most of that is still speculation and there's no specific reason that it couldn't be both. Various bits of tid from the piece by Thorton McEnery who has been covering this story all along: - Multiple sources close to the situation tell The Post that Alex Rodriguez and Jennifer Lopez are now working closely with very senior bankers at JPMorgan Chase on a new bid to buy the Mets after their initial approach failed to come together earlier this month. - A strong signal of [the Wilpons'] desperation [to sell] is the inclusion of SNY, the Mets' television network, in a new deal. As The Post has reported, the Mets operate at a major loss, relying on TV revenues to bridge the gap. That makes owning the team without the network prohibitive. People close to the deal now say that the Wilpons are willing to part with enough of SNY to make a deal work but are insistent on keeping at least a slice of the network for themselves ... “Someone has shown the Wilpons the light here,” one person close to the deal said. “Some heavy hitters are getting involved here and it seems Fred and Jeff are listening. - While no specific names have emerged regarding who will be staking J-Rod's latest Mets bid, Chase Private Banking boasts a deep roster of billionaires with whom the bank can play matchmaker. Three people close to the situation confirm that the bank has made real progress for its clients. “The money is there,” one said. “A bid is coming.”

"Most players and agents know that they will have to sacrifice something in order to play. Perhaps they will agree to a much less punishing sliding scale of salary cuts. Perhaps they will accept deferred payments to their prorated salaries, as SNY reported last week was a possibility. The bottom line: Both sides want a season. Expect more rattling of sabers in public over the next several days, while the union lawyers quietly craft a response. By the weekend, the sides could be working hard on their negotiation, and finding compromises and givebacks that facilitate an agreement." The worst thing that the players could do at this point is simply fall back on the, 'we agreed to pro-rated salaries only and will accept not a penny less' line which was stated by several players and agents, almost out of reflex it seemed, when this round of negotiations started. So, to that extent, the above is good news for now ... or at least not bad news. If they decide to push for their all-or-nothing demands then they just may find the owners more willing to quit the season entirely if they believe that they'll simply lose less money that way.

That is similar to the tack the NFL recently used to get their new CBA signed. Rather than adding 6.25% to existing contracts across the board for a season 6.25% longer (16 games to 17) they tied the extra money to a percentage increase in the players' share of revenue and then skewed that increase towards the lower paid players. Since the vast majority of NFL'ers are at or near the minimum wage (more so than in MLB) it was enough to push the vote to a slim 51.5%/48.5% approval even though several of the more high profile (and more highly paid) players strongly denounced it in the time leading up to the vote. The biggest different is that while MLB players (assuming they approve) will have to live with it for only 1/2 a season while the NFL agreement is locked in for the next decade.

The 6' 4" Gsellman is often talked about (most frequently by Gary) as a top b-baller among current NYMs

Well at least you were in the right [CROSSOUT]city[/CROSSOUT] [CROSSOUT]area code[/CROSSOUT] [CROSSOUT]state[/CROSSOUT] [CROSSOUT]time zone[/CROSSOUT] [CROSSOUT]country[/CROSSOUT] continent.

I didn't include any of those movies in my mini-Indiana list because I haven't seen any of them aside from Breaking, Bears, & Rudy - and I wish I hadn't seen Rudy. In fact, I never even heard of at least half of those others. I did at least look up 'The Winning Season' ... and what is it with basketball movies featuring stories about redemption through coaching? Ben Affleck made another one this year which, unfortunately for him (though fortunately for the public acc to several reviews I read) debuted just as the country was heading into shut down mode most likely sending it straight to video/streaming-ville. I think the poster for it is still up outside of my local theatre if that's any consolation to him. btw, the coach redemption story in 'Hoosiers' was just one of the elements in that film which was total fiction (as was about 95% of the movie). Nothing wrong with any of that of course, I'd just wish that fans of the flick would stop treating it as if it were some sort of documentary.

I stumbled across two baseball references in today's NYT which, while not specifically from Met-loving big shots (although maybe seeing as how both have/are spent some time in NYC) they were both homages to the game from sources that I wouldn't have necessarily expected - especially seeing as how there aren't any more baseball fans from what I keep hearing. -- From Yo-Yo Ma: 'When I met Pablo Casals when I was 7 and asked for his autograph he gave me some advice: 'Always make room for baseball' -- Steve Earle: 'The first thing that died in New York (after Covid shutdowns) was the culture and it stopped being New York really quick. Within 48 hours there was no live music, no live theatre, and there hasn't been any [expletive] baseball which I consider to be a cultural disaster.'

Also not exactly known as a warm & fuzzy guy.

That Dykstra went on to have the success he did in Philly surprised me, at least the extent of it did. I remember one of his early ABs vs the Mets came against Viola in the middle of Frankie's killer NYM season and I'm anticipating this AB thinking that Viola, the crafty and brainy lefty, is going to make Lenny look stoopid. So he gets him to two strikes and is feeding him change-up after change-up but, rather than fishing and flailing, Lenny is managing to foul each one of them off to the left side. He couldn't do anything more with those pitches and, more importantly, he wasn't trying to. At long last Viola comes inside with a fastball which, as it turns out, was the pitch Lenny was looking for all along and he roped into RF for extra bases. And as I sat there with my jaw opened I was wondering who this guy was and what the hell did he do with Len Dykstra because the Lenny I knew wasn't nearly that smart. But it turned out he was a different player by this stage of his career, both mentally AND physically. Of course that physical transformation took its toll, he had just two full seasons as a Philly and was done as a full-time player by age 30, and his mental transformation (or whatever you want to call it) didn't exactly apply to other decisions in his life.

=dgwphotography post_id=37267 time=1590317160 user_id=78] At the time, I think I was the only one happy with the McDowell/Dykstra trade. I considered them both punks, and was happy they were gone.

"So much begins with Rich Jefferies. He was the baseball coach at Parkside High School in San Bruno, Calif., and the mastermind of The Workout — 17 elements, eight hours a day, six days a week — designed to maximize [Gregg's] performance ..." Holy Fuckin' Wow!!

I believe that statement came in association with the ASG held at Busch II in its inaugural year of 1966. Casey, then less than a year out of the game, could have been invited as a coach or just honored figurehead and likely had more than a few microphones shoved in front of his face during the three day break. I don't Know any of that for a fact but it would make sense that it was from that game as that was right in the window after Busch opened but also still before ASGs went to night starts. And although the BB-Ref boxscores don't have the time of game and weather conditions from that era the way they do for more recent games, the combination of a day game in mid-July, in an enclosed stadium, on artificial turf, and in StL makes it a prime candidate for a scorcher.

So it seems that Aaron's Judge's girlfriend was arrested for "extreme DUI" (BAL north of .15) in Arizona a couple days ago. During the arrest she tried playing the 'Do you know who my boyfriend is?' card to the cop. Not a good move sweetheart.

Hey I got a good idea ... let's build a stadium with architectural tributes the our famous arch but enclose it so as to block the view of the actual arch even though it's just over there a little bit beyond that wall.

Breaking Away is ranked 8th on AFI's list of top 100 all-time inspiring movies. It's a Wonderful Life tops the list. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AFI%27s_100_Years...100_Cheershttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AFI%27s_100_Years...100_Cheers It's also ranked 8th on AFI's all-time list of sports movies. Topping that list is Raging Bull. https://www.amctheatres.com/american-film-institute/ten-top-ten/sportshttps://www.amctheatres.com/american-film-institute/ten-top-ten/sports So BREAKING AWAY is lower than HOOSIERS and PRIDE OF THE YANKEES in the sports movies list yet higher than both according to their 'Inspiring' list.

Frayed Knot wrote: I like how the highway there on the right just barely bends around the stadium seemingly going underneath the edge of the marquee sign which itself just about touches the building. Obviously the concept of the ballpark as destination and entertainment center, rather than just a place for the building itself, hadn't yet been born by 1966 I was there on two business trips, about seven tears apart. Two major highways run as one (75 and one other) for a few miles right by the stadium. I saw the same construction traffic cones , in the same places (I'd remembered the traffic jam) on both trips. Atlanta has notoriously horrid traffic, it's part of the reason they moved out to the northern suburbs ... well that plus they preferred to settle in the whiter, richer and more baseball-friendly side of town.

I remember making a mini-list of sports movies set in Indiana and ranking BREAKING AWAY ahead of HOOSIERS and far ahead of RUDY I know that the folks in Bristol, Connecticut (among others) would be aghast at the order of my list and that this is a subjective thing to which each is entitled to their opinion. But in this case they're wrong and I'm right.

I like how the highway there on the right just barely bends around the stadium seemingly going underneath the edge of the marquee sign which itself just about touches the building. Obviously the concept of the ballpark as destination and entertainment center, rather than just a place for the building itself, hadn't yet been born by 1966 I always felt that the 'Launching Pad' label was somewhat of a misnomer -- I think it was at least partially invented by Mays and/or Ruth fans to justify why the lesser Hank was able to surpass those other heroes in HRs -- although, prior to expansion to Denver & Phoenix, it was the highest stadium in the majors, some 750 - 1,050 feet above sea level, considerably above that of those old-timey BB cities which all sat on ports, lakes, or rivers.

Strange (or interesting) take on [CROSSOUT]BNB[/CROSSOUT] Breaking Away in some ways, never saw [CROSSOUT]Breaking Away[/CROSSOUT] Bad News Bears. On a further note: was it established at any point that Cyril was Jewish?

It's a re-posting since we don't seem to have any of the lists from this year moving forward. I meant to put up a new one each day or two so that we'd eventually have a complete set .... and I got behind. So figuring on a new one at my present rate of one per month, I'll have us all up to date ... around four years after I'm dead.

The initial player/union reaction to the thought of a revenue split was that the March 26th agreement settled the topic of 2020 salaries at simply a pro-rated reduction based on the length of the season. iow: too late to change your stance now ... no takesy-backsies. But an email from an MLB lawyer (obtained by the NY Post) claims to have emails showing that the union asked for and got a clarification that further talks would be required to deal with the "economic feasibility" of playing games at neutral sites and/or with fan-less stadiums. Not sure where this leaves us or if the optimistic comments from player rep Austin Hedges [Ashie's link above] essentially acknowledges as much and means that this is a gap which can be overcome. https://nypost.com/2020/05/19/mlb-thinks-email-is-smoking-gun-in-salary-fight-with-players/https://nypost.com/2020/05/19/mlb-thinks-email-is-smoking-gun-in-salary-fight-with-players/