Comment of the Day

I never run a "Comment of the Day" but I just got one so good that I have to set it apart somehow. Here's reader Ted Spradlin absolutely crushing my bailout parody from this morning:

Bud and the owners found their perfect storm. Wall Street exploited housing, now lets get them to exploit bad baseball contracts.

The owners can sell their crummy contracts (Zito, Andruw, Sarge Jr, Wells, Rios, etc) to the surviving Wall Street banks at par or even at a premium. Wall Street can take
$1bb in contracts and turn it into $3bb in new SIV's, Derivatives, Credit Default Swaps, Options, ETF's, Contract Backed Securities, etc.

The GM's get to experience Brian Cashman's luxury of wasting money on over the hill players with no recourse. Ned Colleti and Brian Sabean don't look so stupid
after all.

The owners already got the money for selling off the contract and don't have to pay Lloyd's for contract insurance.

Players and agents are thrilled with the unprecedented salary boom. "Miguel Cairo is a premium utility player and the market recognizes that," said Scott Boras at the press conference introducing Miguel Cairo as the highest paid utility player in history at $12,500,000/yr.

Bud has a great new revenue source and "new media" explosion on mlb.com. He can create a Fantasy Contract Derivative League where people can trade all these new fancy financial instruments of crummy players, just like a real Wall Street trader. MLBTV airs 2-3 hours of "Fast Contracts" and "Squawk Box Baseball," ala CNBC. Jim Kramer was rumored as a host, but loses out to Erin Andrews, which turns out to be a ratings bonanza.

This opens up an entirely new world of quantitative analysis for Sabermetricians as well. Rob Neyer never saw it coming. VORP and OPS are a thing of the past.

Bud Selig needs to pounce on this opportunity. Baseball needs it and Wall Street needs it. The infrastructure is already in place. If something goes wrong, march to Congress for taxpayer relief because these institutions are "too big to fail."

Tails Never Fails

In case you were wondering:

The Mets won a coin toss over the Brewers on Friday to win home-field advantage should a one-game playoff be necessary to break a tie for the National League Wild Card berth. New York currently leads the Brewers by 1 1/2 games in the Wild Card standings. The Mets have 10 games remaining; the Brewers have nine.

I'm no sadist, but I can't tell you how much I'm hoping for a Mets-Brewers tie. I mean, the levels of anxiety in Shea Stadium for such a game would be so high that we could call it the Butt Clench Bowl.

Great Moments In . . .no, I can't. I just can't.

If a memorabilia dealer ever offers to sell you a pair of jeans and loafers once worn by George Brett, you probably want to decline.

Warning: language in video not safe for work.

More important warning: mental images inspired by video not safe for your childhood memories of one of baseball's best ever players.

"Bud Killed Us"

The Astors are taking whining about the Cubs series in Milwaukee to a whole new level, and Richard Justice isn't letting them get away with it:

If the Astros let the trip to Milwaukee do this much damage, shame on them. It would be easy to assume that considering the T-shirts some players were wearing Thursday afternoon. Those shirts had a simple message.

“Bud Killed Us”

Yes, indeed. He sent them to a place they didn’t want to be and had them play two games they didn’t want to play.

Never mind that Drayton McLane and the Major League Players Association agreed to the switch. Never mind that MLB had the matter thrown in its lap because McLane refused to call off the Cubs-Astros series until it was too late to send the teams to a true neutral site over the weekend. MLB even offered to send a second plane to Houston to take family members to safety.That said, there’s no way the Astros should have been playing in Milwaukee Sunday night after two stressful, sleepless nights.

There’s also no way that one trip should have ruined months of good work. The Astros were right about being treated unfairly.

Life hasn’t been fair to a lot of Texans the last few days, and not many of them were
offered a chartered jet to fly both themselves and their family to safety. At some point, though, the Astros should have been able to move on.

Amen. I imagine the folks in Galveston would take major offense at those shirts. At least they would if they had power and homes and possessions and hope and stuff.

(link via Olney)

The House That Ruth Built

We've had a ton of Yankee Stadium remembrances lately, and will get a ton more over the weekend. Appearing as they have on the Internet and on television, they have a pretty short shelf life. But if you're interested in one with a longer shelf life, there's a new book out by Harvey Frommer -- Remembering Yankee Stadium - An Oral and Narrative History of the House That Ruth Built -- which seems to provide a much more enduring and, in all likelihood, less maudlin remembrance.

Jason at IIATMS reviews it this morning.

When Owners Dream

WASHINGTON — The head of the Treasury and the Federal Reserve began discussions on Thursday with team owners on what could become the biggest bailout in Major League Baseball history. While details remain to be worked out, the plan is likely to authorize the government to buy unreasonable player contracts at deep discounts from owners.

The proposal could result in the most direct commitment of taxpayer funds so far in a player salary landscape officials say is the worst they have ever seen.

"What we are working on now is an approach to deal with systemic risks and stresses in the labor markets," said Commissioner Bud Selig. "And we talked about a comprehensive approach that would require legislation to deal with the illiquid assets on ballclubs' balance sheets," he added.

One model for the proposal could be the Resolution Trust Corporation, which bought up and eventually sold hundreds of billions of dollars’ worth of real estate in the 1990s from failed savings-and-loan companies. In this case, however, the government is expected to take over only albatross-like contracts, not entire team payrolls.

The bailout discussions came on a day when Barry Zito was scheduled to start his 31st game of the season against the Los Angeles Dodgers.

Rumors about the Bush administration’s new stance on baseball contracts swept through the fantasy leagues Thursday afternoon. By the end of trading, ownership of potential buyout targets such as Eric Byrnes, Andruw Jones, and Gary Matthews, Jr. sunk to near zero from already-historic lows.

"The fantasy owners voted, and they liked the proposal," said Laurence H. Meyer, vice chairman of Macroeconomic Advisers.

The scale and complexity of the project are almost certain to create huge philosophical differences among baseball fans, which could make barrom conversations difficult to say the least. Still, lawmakers said the goal was to work through the coming weekend and to have both the House and Senate vote on a measure by the end of next week.

(inspiration found here)

For Your League of Dorks

There's a new website out there for fantasy sports widows:

Well, here's reassuring news for fed up wives: A website called Womenagainstfantasysports.com is an online support group for women married to fantasy sports freaks -- who also have to routinely put up with phrases like "three-hour drafts" and "online trading." . . .

. . . The site uses good-natured humor to talk about the perils of life with a fantasy sport nut -- and also posts articles like "How to ruin his draft" and "You know his fantasy addiction has gone too far when..." The company even sells T-shirts, hats and underwear with the phrase: "CLOSED For The Fantasy Season."

I don't play fantasy baseball, but Mrs. Shyster is curious to know if they sell that underwear with an anti-blogging slogan.

Authenticators

From the Things You Never Think About Department, comes the tale of "authenticators," who record the autographed and game-used memorabilia that may makes its way into fan hands in the interests of thwarting counterfeiters later:

Around now I'd normally provide a neat little block quote giving you the meat of the story, but the jerkwads at the Dallas Morning News have disabled copy and pasting ability with this article!

And yes, preventing counterfeiters is a noble goal. Not necessarily a purely altruistic one, however. That's because MLB sells no shortage of its own game-used schwag these days, and to the extent its memorabilia cops can affix their little shiny stickers to things that are going to find their way on to the MLB.com Shop page, the better it will be for sales.

Sounds like a fun job, though.

Bringing it All Back Home

In a long anticipated move, my local Columbus Clippers are now the AAA affiliate of the Indians after two seasons in Nats' wilderness and the previous couple of decades with the Yankees. We've seen a lot of AAA clubs move closer to the mothership in recent years, and the assumption is that it will help stoke more regional interest in the big club. Columbus Dispatch columnist Bob Hunter explains why this move also stokes local interest in the AAA team:

As soon as the ink is dry on the affiliation agreement today, the Clippers instantly gain more relevance in the community. When next season begins, the team's players are immediately placed within a context most local baseball fans can see and understand. The players we follow here will be going to a team we follow there. Indians games are on the local cable systems every night during the season. The team's doings are reported in the newspaper. They are discussed on local radio talk shows. They are the topic of debate on bar stools all over town. There is no more abyss. When the players leave here, we'll know where they went and how soon they might be back.

I wish Hunter wasn't right about local folks not being willing or able to follow local players once they were called up to Washington -- we have access to the Internet and Extra Innings, don't we? -- but he is. There's only so much you can ask of fans in a AAA market, and we're simply not going to go out of our way to follow the exploits of Clippers once they get called up if it means paying more money or making two or three extra clicks. In light of that, putting the AAA team in roughly the same market as the big club makes a ton of sense.

And That Happened

Phillies 4, Braves 3: The hospitality of southerners is profuse. So profuse that taverns are but poorly supported. A traveller, with the garb and the manners of a gentleman, finds a welcome at every door. A stranger is riding on horseback through Virginia or Carolina. It is noon. He sees a plantation, surrounded with trees, a little distance from the road. Without hesitation he rides to the door. The gentleman of the house sees his approach and is ready upon the steps. Conversation flows cheeringly, for the southern gentleman has a particular tact in making a guest happy. After dinner you are urged to pass the afternoon and night, and if you are a gentleman in manners and information, your host will be in reality highly gratified by your so doing. Such is the character of southern hospitality.* In other news, the Phillies have won all nine games they played in Atlanta this year.

Cubs 7, Brewers 6: There are losses -- and believe me, the Brewers have had many of them lately -- and then there are soul-killing, will-crushing, rip-your-heart-out losses, This was one of those. It's to the point where, if you're a Brewers fan, you have to wonder if it would have been better to be out of the race since May. After all, Nietzsche once said that "hope is the worst of evils, for it prolongs the torments of man." I don't personally believe that and hope Milwaukee fans don't either, but you know at least some of them do right now.

Mets 7, Nationals 2: Johan Santana throws seven strong innings, ensuring for at least another couple of days that the Mets' little collapse will play second fiddle to the Brewers' big one.

Dodgers 4, Pirates 3: On Wednesday the Dodgers got 18 hits but were blown out. Last night they only got six but won. Eleven walks will do that for you.

Royals 12, Mariners 0: I've had some fun at the Royals' expense this week, but this performance deserves some straight-up praise. Zack Greinke was dominant (7 IP, 2 H, 0 ER, 7K), the lineup produced (13 hits and 8 walks), and Kansas City has now won seven in a row. If you're a Royals fan you can wonder where all of this was earlier in the season. Or you could note that this little surge has come against poor teams with diluted rosters. Or you could talk about how it won't last and that it serves as no indicator of what 2009 will hold. But if you're a healthy Royals fan, you can simply enjoy a nice run during which your team has played some nice baseball.

Marlins 8, Astros 1: Speaking of streaks, that's eight for the Marlins and five -- the hard way -- for the Astros.

Blue Jays 3, Orioles 2: The definition of a good team blogger: a guy who you can provide the litany of horribles his team has endured, and end the post with "And we're still here. Let's go, O's."

Angels 6, A's 4: I'm going to go on record and note that "Josh Outman" is the best name I've heard for a pitcher since Eric Plunk retired.

Cardinals 5, Reds 4: It's been a couple of months since I reminded folks that Kyle Lohse (14-6, 3.76 ERA) could have been had by anyone for low money up through the beginning of spring training.

Yankees 9, White Sox 2: The day after word leaked to the Post that the Yankees probably aren't bringing him back, Abreu goes out and whacks 6 RBI. Not that letting him dangle isn't a good move, mind you. I just like it when stuff like that happens.

Twins 11, Rays 8: It took a major bullpen collapse on the part of the Rays to do it, but the Twins finally gained some ground on the Sox.

Diamondbacks 3, Giants 2: 118 pitches for Lincecum as Burch Bochy's quest to put his player's individual accomplishments ahead of team accomplishments continues. Worth noting that Lincecum is now eight strikeouts short of the team record. He should have two more starts left, so that's likely to be reached. Assuming of course his arm doesn't fall off first.


*I'd like to say I wrote that, but I didn't. It's by the 19th century author Jacob Abbot, from his book New England, and Her Institutions.

Arrrr!

A reader has reminded me that tomorrow is International Talk Like a Pirate Day. It's easily my third or fourth favorite holiday of the year. For those of you who don't know how to talk like a pirate, allow me to give you some examples:

A handy term is "avast," which roughly means "hey, check it out."

There's also the ever popular "Aye" which, of course, is a response in the affirmative, usually used to show agreement or acquiescence.

And finally, if you really want to sound like a Pirate, there's the ever-popular "You've got three guys who run balls out right now. It's frustrating. Just frustrating. The whole thing is frustrating . . . I mean, look at this place. It's a ghost town."

Just remember tomorrow that if you're setting sail, don't drink grog, and if you're drinking grog, please, don't set sail.

Meh-Cords

This morning I wondered what we should call accomplishments that, while technically records, aren't exactly exciting or memorable feats. Things like Ichiro's eight straight 200 hit seasons or A-Rods 35-home-runs-in-a-year streak.

Leave it to my readers to come up with an idea. Longtime ShysterBall reader Sara K has proposed the term "meh-cords."

I like it.

Lyman Bostock

ESPN's Jeff Pearlman has written an excellent feature story about the death and life of Lyman Bostock.

Grumpy Beat Writers Are Everywhere

One of the things I like best about Nate Silver's rise from moderately anonymous Baseball Prospectus author to big-time-important political blogger is that he's been able to bring some baseball observations to bear on political stuff. For example, today he explains how political writers exhibit the same kind of annoying behaviors as baseball writers do:

One of the unpleasant things you discover when you sit in major league baseball press boxes from time to time is that the press -- or at least the print media -- actually do not like close baseball games. A walk-off home run or a blown save means that they have to re-write their lead paragraph and perhaps their entire game story, leading to angry phone calls from their editors, and forcing them to work later than they might otherwise like to.

I was reminded of this when seeing this headline from Mark Halperin today [Tight Race! Obama 49, McCain 45]. A tight race? It certainly is a tight race, and has been all year. But this, of course, is not really the lead story. The story is that there has been a rather dramatic shift in the national polling toward Barack Obama in the past 2-4 days, coinciding with the Wall Street financial crisis. Some pundits will love this, since it gives them something fresh to talk about. But others, like those cynical beat writers in the Wrigley Field press box, will be annoyed, because it means that the the story they were telling us just a few days ago -- that the Obama campaign was in trouble, that Sarah Palin was the greatest thing since sliced bread -- has now been more or less invalidated.

I understand politics pretty well, but I enjoy it a hell of a lot more when there's a good excuse to bring baseball into it somehow.*


Before you comment, please remember, I cite this for the baseball comparison and the media dynamics of it all, not the politics, and I have no desire for this place to turn into a political blog. This is not a fatwah on political talk, but please, respect each other and remember why we're all here.

"Records"

Ichiro and A-Rod each set records last night:

Seattle Mariners outfielder Suzuki recorded his eighth straight 200-hit season to equal a Major League Baseball record that has stood for over a century . . . Meanwhile, in New York, Alex Rodriguez reached another significant milestone when he became the first Major League player to hit 35 home runs in 11 consecutive seasons.

As a kid who grew up reading the Guinness book every year, I've always thought that "records" required some sort of unusual or spectacular dimension. Sports records counted, but only the really memorable ones like Aaron's (or Oh's, if you read Guinness) home run record or Jim Marshall's consecutive games streak.

The things more squarely in my mind as "records" were freaky things. Robert Wadlow was a record. The guy who put hundreds of cigarettes in his mouth at once was definitely a record. Fattest twins was borderline, but qualified in my mind as just spectacular enough. Most anything that Evel Knievel did counted too. Maybe the point of all of this is that motorcycles are a necessary prerequisite for records in my mind.

Anyway, it strikes me that for feats such as Ichiro's and A-Rods -- accomplishments of a steady and workmanlike nature that will be utterly forgotten until the next guy comes along and breaks it -- we need a word with less of the "oh wow" connotations than "record." They aren't milestones, really, but the slow and regular and unspectacular nature of that word gets closer to what they each accomplished than "record" does.

I hereby deputize Joe Posnanski to come up with a word for these sorts of feats. He's really good at that sort of thing.

UPDATE: Leave it to a writing scholar. Sara K has moved that we call such feats "meh-cords" and the motion has been seconded. I consider it passed, and that is how they shall henceforth be known.

Brian Sabean Has a Job

More than half a million hard working Americans have been tossed out of work since January, but thank God Brian Sabean still has a job. And it now looks like he's going to keep it even longer!

Here's my take on it all over at FanHouse.

And That Happened

Rays 10, Red Sox 3: These last two Rays-Sox series have been like Ali-Foreman. Boston lands a hard punch, tires, and then Tampa Bay batters, befuddles, and exhausts the Sox with their counter punching over the next two games. We've all expected Tampa Bay to eventually juke when they should have jived and find themselves on the canvass courtesy of a mighty Red Sox blow, but here they are, shuffling in the ring having taken four of the last six from a Boston team who sits in the corner getting that white goop applied to the big knot above its left eye.

Brewers 6, Cubs 2: The good news: Milwaukee gets a much-needed win. The bad news: they lose Ben Sheets after two innings to tightness in the forearm of his pitching hand. Folks have visited Dr. Andrews for less.

Rockies 1, Padres 0: Livan Hernandez and four other Rockies' pitchers combine to shut out the Padres. After the game, Livan had this to say about his stint in Colorado: "I don't have to show my ability to nobody," he said. "The last start I didn't pitch that bad. The only bad games I've had are the first two games." How true. Sure, he got slaughtered in his first two post-trade starts (15 R in 8.2 innings), but he felt fantastic when he gave up six runs on eight hits in just over three innings, so that totally doesn't count as bad. And I suppose the four runs in five innings he gave up on September 2nd can technically qualify as "good" inasmuch as his ERA went down after that start (from 15.32 to 11.09). So really, Livan has basically been all aces since he came over and everyone should get off his case.

Reds 3, Cardinals 0: A six-hit shutout for Aaron Harang sends the Cards to their seventh straight loss. They had a nine-game losing streak at essentially the same time last season (September 7-15th). Maybe Browning was right: “Autumn wins you best by this its mute appeal to sympathy for its decay.”

Pirates 15, Dodgers 8: I suppose you can't win 'em all, but if you are going to lose one once in a while, you'd think you'd try to make it look less ugly than this one did for L.A. A huge inning, some awful defense, and a Nomar injury added to the ambiance.

Yankees 5, White Sox 1: Hey, a Phil Hughes sighting! He hasn't been too busy this year, of course, what with the fifteen posts he's written at his two blogs since opening day. That kind of hectic schedule can take a lot out of a guy.

Blue Jays 8, Orioles 7: Small sample size disclaimer and everything, but it's worth noting that 20 year-old Travis Snider is .341/.383/.568 in the first 45-50 at bats of his major league career. He was drafted in the same 2006 draft as Joba Chamberlain, Tim Lincecum, and Evan Longoria. That was a pretty sweet class, huh?

Tigers 16, Rangers 4: Miguel Cabrera saved his best two months for August and September. Too bad Detroit was long out of it by then.

Mets 9, Nationals 7: The win is nice, but coming as it does on the same night as a Brewers and a Phillies win, it provides zero stress-relief for Mets' fans.

Phillies 6, Braves 1: The AJC's Dave O'Brien thinks that Ned Yost will end up back in Atlanta next season, installed as Bobby Cox's heir apparent. I could see that happening. And despite all that has been said and written about Yost in the past couple of days, I could think of worse things to do to a young, rebuilding Braves team than to put Ned in charge one day.

Marlins 14, Astros 2: Four straight losses for the Astros after such a hot streak answers the age-old question of what happens when a buzz saw meets a hurricane.

Indians 6, Twins 4: Minnesota is the first team to smack Cliff Lee around since Detroit did back at the end of July, but like the Tigers, they couldn't hang a loss on him.

A's 3, Angels 2: Hey, lay off K-Rod for making a big throwing error and blowing this save. He has the record already. What more do you people want?

Dimondbacks 7, Giants 6: Despite his bullpen's best effort to prevent it from happening, Brandon Webb wins his 21st game. For the Giants, Jonathan Sanchez blew a 3-0 first-inning lead. Quote from Sanchez after the game: "That's big," Sanchez acknowledged. "I wanted to beat Webb to make it easier for Timmy." So it's official: the Giants are only playing now to deliver an individual award to one of their players. Giants Fans OK with this?

Royals 5, Mariners 2: Kansas City couldn't touch Clark, Andersen, or Vande Berg, but they lit up Beattie, and that was enough to carry the day.

National Concessions

The Washington Times' Tim Lemke had a conversation about bidness with Stan Kasten recently. Fun fact: there is still no one willing to put their name on Nationals' Park. Historically it's been hard to do corporate deals in Washington because, let's face it, it's a government town. Maybe that will change now that D.C. is the headquarters for the world's largest insurance company.

Anyway, this bit about Centerplate, the Nats' troubled concession vendor was also fun:

It does not help, of course, that Centerplate's performance has not been stellar this year, with complaints of long lines, slow service and cold hot dogs. "Service was a problem early in the year because there were so many new people," Kasten said. "It got better as the year went on but it's not yet where we need it or must have it."

Query: did the service get better because Centerplate cleaned up its act, or did it get better because there weren't "so many new people" coming to the ballpark anymore after everyone realized how bad the Nats were shaping up this year?

Mark Your Calendars

Major League Baseball has announced the 2009 schedule. It starts on April 5th, which seems rather late to me compared to recent years, but seems rather right to me based on how I remember things from when I was a kid. I don't want to check either of those assertions with Retrosheet, though, because I really don't feel like confronting my own ignorance and faulty memory right now. Other highlights:

The Mets will open Citi Field on April 13 against the San Diego Padres, while the Yankees will begin play at the new Yankee Stadium on April 16 against the Cleveland Indians.

After which we will not see the Padres or Indians on national television again for the rest of the year.

The All-Star Game will take place on July 14 at Busch Stadium in St. Louis.

Hey, happy birthday to me! I'll probably be out with my wife at a restaurant that night, so I won't feel obligated to liveblog another turgid, offense-free game decided by the third stringers!

With a late start to the season, the postseason will also probably run into November. The only time the World Series was previously played in November was in 2001 after the attacks of September 11 suspended the season for a week.

OK, so that late start has a price.

For what it's worth, if I had to choose between snowy baseball in late March and snowy baseball in early November, I'd probably pick the former. This could be bad.

"A Sweet Deal"

That's what a Miami judge says the Marlins are getting as a result of their planned stadium, even if the funding scheme that has been the subject of litigation is technically legal.

The stadium, Judge Beth Cohen ruled in what will likely be the final round in the battle over the whole Little Havana development, "serves a paramount public purpose within the meaning of Article VII, Section 10 of the Florida Constitution." That's a pretty low bar to hurdle, actually. Elected officials are given almost plenary power to legislate in the public interest, and more importantly, are given almost total discretion to determine, what, exactly, the public interest is.

But just because they can do something doesn't mean it's a good idea, and there can be no better evidence of that than the heat-seeking missile Judge Cohen launched at the city fathers and Florida Marlins for embarking on this development in the first place. What follows are excerpts from the opinion. The language, while doing nothing to legally stop the stadium from going forward, is about as blistering as it gets from a judge in a civil case:

The Marlins are getting what amounts to a "sweet deal' that is, put bluntly, not the business of this court. The court is mindful of the fact that if stadium construction costs run over, or if the Marlins cannot meet their obligations pursuant to the [Baseball Stadium Agreement], it may be necessary for the county to expend general revenues used to fund essential services to the county in order to make up any shortfalls. Such a contingency . . . may not be considered by the court . . .

. . . It is undisputed that the county has no idea whether or not the Marlins can satisfy any of their obligations under the [Baseball Stadium Agreement] or whether or not the new stadium will encourage increased attendance and ticket sales . . .

. . . Plaintiff argues that the Marlins are getting full use of the stadium rent free. While the evidence appears to support this contention, the court does not find it relevant how good a deal government hands the team . . .

. . . The Marlins will retain all revenues from all team and non-team events, including ticket sales; the sale of broadcast rights; the sale of concessions, memorabilia or other products and services; marketing, advertising or other promotional revenues; suite licenses; stadium naming rights, which could be as valuable as $2 million per year; and any assignment, lease or licensing of the stadium itself . . .

. . . The evidence presented at the trial established that the county has never performed (nor commissioned) an economic analysis, study or impact analysis with regards to the economic benefits to the community as a result of having a baseball stadium located in Little Havana . . .

. . .There are no present plans to develop the area and there is no information as to whether businesses are willing to locate to or invest in the Little Havana area in the event a stadium were built there . . .

. . . The more long term economic benefits on Miami-Dade County are difficult to assess and speculative, at best, since no concrete evidence was offered by the county to assess long term economic impact on the county . . . once the stadium is operational, these jobs end . . .

. . .The court can make no findings as to whether a baseball stadium will encourage businesses to relocate to Miami as testified to by the Beacon Council, increase jobs long term, promote the image of Miami as a world class city and, thereby, spur tourism, or increase sales tax revenues . . .

. . .There is no evidence in the record that the building of a stadium in Little Havana will increase attendance and, thereby, promote social cohesion. Simply put, no one will know whether a new retractable roof stadium will increase attendance . . . until it is built . . .

. . . This court is well aware that more citizens may be opposed to the building of the stadium, even to retain the Marlins in Miami, than in favor of building the stadium. These considerations, however, may not sway this court . . .

. . . [I]t is apparent from statements by the commissioners that they were asked to review the materials [in the Baseball Stadium Agreement] and meet with County Manager [George] Burgess the weekend before the meeting [to vote] and had very little opportunity to thoroughly review the materials provided . . .

. . . if the public and the plaintiff believe that their lawmakers have made imprudent or unwise decisions then they should make their feelings known to their elected officials at the ballot box.

So all that is now of record, and thus anything Jeff Loria says about how fabulous this deal is for Miami should be viewed with extreme skepticism.

According to this companion article, the Miami-Dade commissioners are divided about even going forward with the stadium. Judge Cohen has given them the right to build it. But she has also given them an awful lot to think about.