How to argue with Yankee fans

[sigh] I have to go over this one more time, because I just heard it again.  I was lamenting the Yankees (and to a MUCH lesser extent the Mets) just spending ridiculous amounts of cash and rendering MLB a joke on a lot of levels.  Anyone who reads The Pinetar Rag is well aware of this, and probably tired of it too.

So a guy I know accuses me of being “Socialist” because I complain about the bigger market teams out spending the small market teams by 10-1 at times.

Here’s the correction:  “Socialism” is the situation when GOVERNMENTS heavily tax their population under the guise of providing goods and services that would otherwise be provided by the private sector.  So instead of choosing the item and paying for it out of your pocket, the government takes the money out of your pocket, in the form of taxes, and provides their government version of the service.  You no longer make the choice–the politician and the voters who stamp it, make that decision for you.  Once it’s made, you have no other options.

Now in baseball, it’s a professional sports league.  The league is holding out to the public, the concept that their contests will be fair contests among the teams.  If the contests were not viewed as “fair”, by the paying public, they would not pay money to see them–would not waste their time.  This is the concept behind the anti-gambling stance of Major League Baseball; to keep the game’s on-the-field-fairness-and-integrity sacrosanct, because everyone’s lively hood rests on that cornerstone.  A guy mixed up in gambling might be willing to “sell” games, as Hal Chase of the Yankees did with abandon in the 19-oughts and teens.

When I advocate that the league do something (salary cap) to prevent the Yankees from just buying up players and spending over 200 million while the lesser clubs have to get by on 30, 40 and 50 million, I advocate it because I don’t think the on-field contests are fair anymore.  How can they be?  I think the integrity of the game is compromised when the Yankees can do what they have been doing with all that money.  The Yankees’ spending is antithetical to fair contests.  It SHOULD be viewed with great alarm, but somehow, it isn’t.

The person who called me “Socialist” for wanting to cap or curb the kind of spending the Yankees do, is mixing up the contexts.  I don’t want the government to steal my freedom (taxes) and force me to take or leave their sub-par “services” whether I like it or not–with no “opt-out”, like with Social Security.  I’m not a Socialist.  That’s governments, got it?

But when I invest my time in a baseball game, I want some assurances that the deck isn’t just RIGGED with CASH, like it is now!  I want the league to address it themselves so I don’t have to think about it; so I can just enjoy the game.

The league is an artificial contrivance; a closed system.  By limiting the Yankees’ cash-sledgehammer, they are not being “Socialist”, they are actually delivering the product that they promised me; a fair product.

Anyone with a modicum of intelligence can look at a demographic map of the USA and see plainly, that all metro areas are not created equal, and thus, teams in those areas are not on equal footing with regard to generating cash!

Kansas City has 1.9 million souls.   Click here to bring up numbers in a new window

NY/NJ/CT metro area has about 19 million.

Only an idiot would set up a system where these two areas are considered “equal” in terms of cash generation.  You’re supposed to have a fair contest on the field but you are going to ignore these numbers?  My goodness.

So don’t advertise a “fair” fight on the field, when anyone who thinks about it knows it isn’t that way.

By this time in the fact-pattern, (usually from Yankee fans) I hear the talking points recited from memory, as if the Steinbrenners sent out a memo from their war-room, deep in the bowels (or the vault) of Yankee Stadium.  I’ll address the more common ones:

(1)  Money isn’t everything: look at the [names most recent high spending team that didn't win]

It doesn’t invalidate the Yankees’, cash-sledgehammer model if some other team wastes a lot money.  My goodness; anyone can blow through money!  Just because a fool squanders his money doesn’t decrease the VALUE of money, and the mountains it can move, for everyone else!  All it does is prove that one team and its management, was foolish that particular season, and no more.

The thought process is because the 1997 Orioles blew a ton of money, the Yankees can spend 100% more than the league mean, every year, and no one is supposed to notice?

Guess what?  We noticed.  The Orioles were stupid, but we’re not!

(2) The Yankees pay lots of luxury tax, and the “cheap” owners just pocket it

They do pay this but it is a pittance.  This money can not lift a Pittsburgh, KC or Cincinnati out of where they are: in small cash markets.  What it amounts to, in my opinion, is a line item on the MLB (and Yankees’) Public Relations Income Statement.  It is MLB’s way of fooling it’s customers (remember the fans?) into thinking, “see, we have addressed the spending disparity in our sport).”

No you haven’t!  Not even close! Since this thing went into action in 2003, the Yankees have paid out about 20 million per year.  During that same time, they outspent the league by an average of about 110 million PER YEAR!  So, even if you gave the FULL Yankee luxury tax to ONE average team spending 90 million dollars, the Yankees would STILL have outspent them by a whopping 90 million dollars, or, about DOUBLE.

Does that sound like they addressed it to you?  Me neither.  I’m not buying this.  But be fair, it’s wonderful PR, because many, many fans buy in 100% to this nonsense that the system is somehow fair.  And the media aids and abets the deceit, as they usually do in cases such as this.

(3) Owners like Pollad of Minnesota are billionaires who could easily write some checks and keep up with the Yankees.

This is my favorite because of it is the most “Candyland” of them all.  The premise is, “…the guy’s rich, so what if his team is in a small market, if he wants to compete with the Yankees, he can write checks out of his personal bank account!”

Listen closely to what’s being said. The owner, because others feel he “has the money”, should just DONATE his own PERSONAL money to his business, to keep up with the Yankees, otherwise, he is, somehow, not a “sport”.   This concept could be the height of Yankee-fans’-arrogance and stupidity.  For the honor of spending like a lunatic Steinbrenner, owner-X should PAY.  Pay for it himself.  Even if his business LOSES money in the process.

They want to tell another man how to run his business, and, basically, that he should run his business AT A LOSS, so that the Yankees and their fans don’t have to feel self-conscious about out spending the league by over a 100 million dollars every year!  I guess the Kool-Aid is: It’s ok that we spend like pigs because Pollad has untouched money in the bank.  [shaking my head] My goodness…

(4) The Yankees won with home grown guys like Bernie and Jeter and Posada.  It wasn’t money!

Because George Steinbrenner was banned from baseball and couldn’t trade them all away (he tried very hard to dump Bernie–read “The Last Night of the Yankee Dynasty” by Buster Olney), they DID have a home-grown nucleus, I’ll grant you.

But why did they win 4 titles in 5 years?  MONEY.  They payroll was the highest in baseball EVERY ONE of those championship years.  And the nucleus was young and not making the obscene money yet, so SOMEONE must have been paid to come in and help, and they were.  Mostly the big ticket pitchers.  The Key’s and Cone’s and Clemen’s and so forth.  So while yes, there were home-grown guys on the roster, don’t be fooled: the dynasty was resting on cash; lots of it.  Cash that towns like KC and Pittsburgh and Cincinnati don’t have access to.  Make no mistake.

(5) See?  Small market teams CAN win. [referring to 2003 Marlins]

Yes, it’s true, in 2003 the 150 million dollar Yankees lost to the 49 million dollar Marlins.  It can happen.  That’s because home field in baseball is only a 4% edge and the biggest edge you’re ever likely to see in the post-season is only about 65%, which means that 35 times out of 100, the lousy team will beat the juggernaut in a series.

But let’s examine what’s really behind this talking point.  Yankee fans throw this one out there as if to say, “sure we spend a lot, but you don’t have to spend to win…”  This is supposed to deflect attention from their massive cash outlays each year.

But there are 30 teams in MLB.  And the mean payroll in 2007 was 80 million. [click to see numbers] So let’s call 10 of them, the bottom third, truly “small market”.

Here are the last 10 world series winners:

2008 Phillies, 2007 Red Sox, 2006 Cardinals, 2005 White Sox, 2004 Red Sox, 2003 Marlins, 2002 Angles, 2001 DBacks, 2000 Yankees, 1999 Yankees

I can really only call the Marlins truly, “small market”.  So let’s double it and say that twice every 10 years, a small market team scales the heights.  So you might be tempted to think that, “…sure, about every 5 years, we have a puncher’s chance to run-out in the postseason”.

But not so fast!  There are 10 small market “trials” EVERY season!  That’s 10, different small market teams placing their small bets and spinning the wheel every year!  And out of all 10, only ONE of THEM scales the heights every 5 years or so.  But if you are one particular small market team, then you might have to wait longer.  You might have to wait 10 times 5 years = 50 years for your number to come up.  That’s the difference between referring to the population, and a given team IN the population.  Neat trick there, Yankee fans, but we ain’t buying it.  Being a fan in a small market stinks.  We watch our good players hit arbitration and then end up on the Yankees and coming back into town to kick the snot out of us.

Sure PNC park is the nicest place on Earth to watch a ballgame, but don’t blow the Yankee smoke up our bippies.  Please. –Fog

Jack-in-the-Hood

Babe Ruth In The Papers

Click here to open the story in the Washington Post in a new window. You may have to register a username and password but it is not a big deal.

This is the photo that is currently on the front page of the Washington Post’s Sunday Metro section:

Before I go any further, let me make sure that I take time to thank the staff at the Gaylord National Hotel inWashington, DC for their tremendous professionalism and attention to every detail. These people are the standard for their industry. I have, in all honesty, never seen such elan in my life. It was a real treat. With the hotel slated to open in a few days, you could ride on the energy of these folks as they readied their jewel of a hotel.

I would also like to thank Michael Hudson of Gaylord Hotels. He is a throwback to a more civil time in America and in business. He is a true gentleman and a visionary in his field. You don’t run into too many people like him and it was my good fortune to have done so. Thanks Michael, for everything.

This is a shot someone took for me with my camera during the installation.

The Babe Ruth statue is now permanently on display at the Gaylord National Hotel & Resort in Washington, DC at the new National Harbor area.

I went down there on Tuesday and stayed until Thursday and The Babe was installed and well received. The Washington Post came by and did a story on the hotel opening and included a fair amount of interest on the statue. I was not sure how much would run on the statue but I was pleased to have folks in Washington DC call and tell me the good news.

The full story of the statue and everything surrounding it is on the Birrerart.com website:

Click here to open the Birrerart.com website up in a new window

Other things that were noteworthy while I was down there was the fact that the Nationals has declared the sportsbar in the Gaylord as the official sportsbar of the team. Because of this, they had sent over the last home plate used at RFK stadium so it could be permanently installed at the entrance to the sportsbar. Here are a few shots of that and the Washington Post getting their story at the time:

That’s Michael Hudson, Director of Brands at Gaylord Hotels, with homeplate from RFK Stadium.

And here is the laying ceremony while the PR folks take photos.

***
The Gaylord National Hotel is so immense that it is difficult to photograph it all in one frame. The atrium that overlooks the Potomac River and Old Alexandria, Virginia, on the opposite bank, is 18 stories high. There is a village of little shops and fountains and trees and restaurants all inside the enclosure. It is so big that you mostly aren’t aware that you are inside.

Here is a view of the upper part of the atrium. These gaslights are 20 feet high. The scale is just hard to fathom.

On the 24th floor, there is a state of the art nightclub and one of the unique features is, believe it or not, the men’s room. Here are the fixtures and the view is outrageous. The Washington Monument can be seen while you are, well…ahem, you know. It’s just one of a myriad of details that make this hotel one of the most amazing in the world.

The Greatest Single Inning of Baseball

Just finished The Glory Of Their Times by Lawrence Ritter. Probably my 3rd reading in 20 years or so. I’m glad I hung on to it.

Detail Oriented Stadium Meister

Click here to open the site in a new window

http://www.majorleaguemodels.com/about.asp

This is something interesting I found while looking for the little plaster model of Yankee Stadium for 93-year-old-Max’s grandson. This man builds huge, tabletop scale models of old ballparks from scratch. You know, the exacto knife and the balsa wood and a thousand other things. I can relate to this man because of what I do with the wood products and all and will even admit to having built a cardboard model Shea Stadium in 1976 that was pretty darned good.

I love this kind of wacky, I’m-going-to-build-this-thing-in-my-cellar-and-sell-it-for-150k attitude. Take 5 minutes and visit the guy’s site. Look at the original wooden 1888 Polo Grounds model and see how baseball was just after the Civil War. It’s amazing work.

It also points out that I need to do better on my website. But now, we’re 7 minutes from the kickoff of Liverpool-Chelsea. The first league encounter of the year was way back in August, on the day we had our boy christened. I left for the church at half up 1-0 only to come home and find out that the ref called a silly PK and GIFTED the point to Chelsea. So strange was the call, that the next day, the ref PUBLICLY stated that he was wrong to point at the spot! I’ve never heard of such a thing but when taking points from the Reds, the refs have done some funny things. I think it’s because they all grew up in the 1970’s and 1980’s when Liverpool won every darned thing and I think there is some lingering resentment. Kind of like if I worked the plate at a Yankee game.

To give you an idea of how big these things get (he does different scales), take a look at the Old Comiskey Park. Old Comiskey is my favorite of the 38 ballparks I’ve been to. It was a real timewarp to go there and the place just felt right. They say that Jimmy Foxx hit two homers completely over the roof in left between the two light towers. Double-X was the best hitter no one’s ever heard of.

If the first 10 minutes of Liverpool Chelsea are any indicator, then Chelsea will get the points. They seem a whole gear faster than Liverpool and more confident and more creative. Liverpool look slow and I think it’s only a matter of time. Chelsea’s defense is so fast and shuts everything down so tightly, that I don’t see Kuyt and Crouchy cracking it. What we need is the pace of Fernando Torres.

Well, at least ManU lost their derby to City today. No points for Alex. That’s what you get for ripping your boss, Sir. With United coming away with none…if Chelsea could be beaten…oh stop dreaming. Wake up!  And I have to say: After watching only 25 minutes: Dirk Kuyt shouldn’t be in the first team.  Really.  He looks slow and lost.  Zero confidence.  And his play on the right is atrocious.  He can’t beat his man deep and he can’t do anything on the cut inside–every posession that reaches him, goes awry.  Perhaps he can be productive in the middle, but Crouchy is there now.  Play another midfielder and let them go forward.  Kuyt should come off.  Caragher has more mojo going up the right wing than this guy.  Oy.  Rafa.  Help. (Of course Kuyt till make an a** of me and score the winner but I’ll take it and eat my words if that is so).

The Last Thing A Mouse Sees

This is McGonnigle, the cat some years ago.  I was going through the archives for prints for the new art website and came across this.  He is mostly Maine Coon but I have no papers.  The Maine Coon post I did on the rag a year ago, is getting 300 hits per day and drawing comments from all over the world–amazing legs, that post.  So here’s another one.  Gonnicle (as I call him), has a strange property.  Certain whiskers of his grow in different colors.  Sometimes white and then they cut over and turn black and the back to white again.  The largest whisker at the top left in the photo (Gonnicle’s right) exhibits this behavior.

Although he is orange all the way, there are a few black spots inside his mouth.  When he was a kitten and before his stripper mom, who lived in the apartment next door to me, abandoned him, I saw his brother who was completely silver.  I believe that a dame can have a litter of kittens from two (or more) different Toms.  So it’s possible that Gonnicle had a different father than the other cat.  Anyway, now I’m confused.  The point is, his whiskers grow in changing colors–kind of like John McCain’s “Conservatism”–it changes when it’s convienient.  Scientifically, I’m not sure what is going on but I think you would have cells coding for proteins that look white and make up the whisker, and then BAM!, they all switch over to coding for different proteins so that the whisker is then growing out black.  Later on, like McCain, they switch back to white.  Go figure.  Is there a molecular biologist in the house?  Or maybe just Roger Clemens’ lawyers?  They seem to know alot of medical stuff right from the git-go.

In an unrelated note, Curt Schilling’s blog will be renamed this year to 38stitches (I wanted to be the first to get that out there…).  Good luck Curt.  Thanks for the bloody sock and moiderin dose Yanks. 

Joe DiMaggio’s Eyes

Babe and I Live in Squalor

Since someone gave me the tip to include some scale in these photos, I have to jump in there. And I’m not really dressed for it but that is reality in the cold cellar. That’s two pairs of insulated undies and about three or four shirts. Class.

And although the shelves look dishevelled, everything has a place where it goes. Not a place for storage, just the place I found it and the place I keep leaving it. It’s amazing how much time gets lost if any of that stuff is moved even 2 feet. Some things have not been moved since the early 1990s. Some of those things have been used just once or even never, but they’re still there and they are reference points I guess. Like the garbage collector, I’m not going to give up on certain ideas and tools. You know, the neighbor with the 1939 Ford rotting in the yard? It’s always like, “…it’s still good…it’s worth like, a LOT of money…” Some of the things are there for nostalgia as in, “…yea, I remember when I was that stupid!”. Or, you find a relic and immediately remember exactly what you were doing the night it came to be: “…that was ‘92, Tom was hanging out and Johnny Carson did his last show that night…” It could be a tool, a business card or even a little piece of wood that was going to be just right for something. There are times when I wouldn’t trade ANY of this space for the entire Hearst Castle at San Simeon.

Life Size Babe Ruth Statue Solid Wood

Just the facts.  He’s almost ready for delivery.  It’s down to touching up and a few hard-to-reach stripes and then deck work really.  Not much.  Maybe 20 hours.  Maybe only 10.  I have to call up some people now and get them to see it before he goes permanently to the Gaylord Hotel in Washington DC.  I understand that the Washington Nationals will be having a shindig there and Babe is sure to cause a stir.  I think the new park down in DC needs a life sized Walter Johnson, of Washington Senators fame.  Or Joel Hanrahan even?  Go Nats! 

Babe Ruth In Satin

Since you liked that one, here’s another. The pile of stuff between his feet is masking tape. Every single pinstripe is the result of two pieces of masking tape. You take 1″ tape and razor blade it down the middle. Then you use the good straight edge to define the outside of one stripe. Repeat for the other. Then you paint the stripe by hand, between the tape, with the Yankee blue acrylic paint. You peel the tape off, and there’s your stripe. I’ve experimented with many other methods: stamping, freehand, rolling. All of them are N/G. This is the best way. As you figured, it is slllloooooowwwww.

Also remember that any sheen on the figure will be removed by overspraying with the top secret window froster. Cloth, and skin for the most part, are flat. Not glossy. Not semi. Not satin.

The edges of the base will be hemmed in 6″ oak planks, which I have just purchased.

 

[There's the Oak on top of the pine and basswood.  You can see the airbrush compressor as well.  In the background is the life size Mickey Mantle statue, awaiting his sprucing up.  Those headphones are fantastic.  They are totally soundproof and also a great am/fm radio.] 

The deck will be coated with a thing called “Turface”. Turface is the stuff that sometimes is referred to as “diamond dry”. It is kiln fired clay that is ground up. It is very light and granular (think unground pepper kernel size) and apparently absorbs water like a son-of-a-gun, however, I don’t care about it’s water properties; only that it is the cleanest “dirt” that I can find that also looks realistic.