Better read this from Sports Business News:

http://www.sportsbusinessnews.com/sections/index.asp?sId=1&sStoryId=4141&selectDate=

quote:

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Naimoli: "The thing you can't change is that we have 3.8-million people in this area and it's growing like crazy."

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What area is he talking about? As far as I know, Tampa has 2.4 million and is growing at under 16%. Compare that to Portland at 2.2 million and growing at more than 26%. At those rates, they'll be smaller than we are in six years. ∞

Portland in the National League.

Orlando is only 50 miles from Tampa, so if you add in their 1.4 million to TSP's 2.4 million, there's where you get 3.8. It's an easy drive from Orlando to the Trop, Interstate all the way.

I don't know why everyone says that stadium should have been built in Tampa rather than in St. Petersburg. Tampa has only 50,000 more people than St. Pete, and actually, Piniellas County (St. Pete-Clearwater) has more people than Hillsborough County (Tampa). It's a moot point. Are Tampans just too lazy (or too snobbish) to drive over to St. Pete? What a silly excuse for not supporting your local team!

And did you see that the D-Rays have been outdrawing the Marlins lately? (Don't know what that means, just thought I'd throw it out there.

What the H..?!? Contract The Devil Rays and relocate the Expos to Florida?!? Now that may be the dumbest thing I have ever heard of. What kind of weed was the guy at MLB headquarters smoking when he came up with this one?!?

Just when you think you've heard something really, really stupid, an idea like this comes down the road. Amazing... (I'm shaking my head and laughing because it's too stupid to take serious).

If this is the thinking of MLB then Portland just might really have to wait 10 years. Some serious backward thinking in this article.

++++++++++++++++++++
Show me a guy who can't pitch inside and I'll show you a loser. - Sandy Koufax

Peter Gammons..the "parrot of Bud Selig"...(repeats what he hears to keep in good graces) has this to say over on his little ESPN site..

Polly want a cracker?Labor strife looms on horizon

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By Peter Gammons
Special to ESPN.com

August 25

What Bud Selig and Donald Fehr have done is to keep the issue in another room, like a stack of bills that you just can't bring yourself to pay. The 2001 season has been everything Selig and Fehr could have imagined, from Barry Bonds, Luis Gonzalez and Sammy Sosa to Ichiro and Bret Boone and the fact that half of baseball's 30 teams are still in playoff contention heading toward Labor Day.

Whoops, I did it again. There's that word. Labor. If he wants to plead disaster, Selig has a tough sell to a public that has helped increase revenues by anywhere from 150 to 300 percent in the last six years, depending on who's counting.
No matter that Selig and Fehr have maintained their public silence; no matter that everyone believes executives Paul Beeston, Rob Manfred and the owners' negotiators have tried to lay the groundwork for a new Basic Agreement; the fact remains that the current agreement expires in barely more than two months and if there is no agreement ...


Under the boardwalks, that is what owners, general managers and players are talking about. Agents close to the Players Association insist that Beeston and Fehr thought they were making conceptual progress this week when Selig and some owners pulled back the reins. Several general managers believe Selig may request a one-year extension of the current agreement, allowing owners to deal with contraction and other problems that exist among themselves; after all, the root of what most owners claim is fiscal instability is their own doing. Congress did not pass a law insisting that Rangers owner Tom Hicks outbid all competitors by 250 percent in order to sign Alex Rodriguez, nor did the Massachusetts legislature enact legislation ordering the Yawkey Foundation to make Manny Ramirez the second-highest paid player in baseball with a deal that will still be in place for the 2008 Inaugural Ball.

Now, the union hasn't been told anything about a one-year extension, and if Selig tries to contract and rearrange franchises -- which many impartial economists believe is necessary -- without the advice and consent of the Players Association, we may be back to one winter word storm after another. If you don't believe the labor issue is out there, then why have so many teams decided not to add young players to their September rosters, fearing a labor stoppage that would keep them from playing next spring? Why is the 2002 payment in Mark Teixeira's four-year, $9.5 million contract with the Rangers worth only $250,000?

Since the first strike on March 31, 1972, owners have approached each negotiation with the promise they have made to one another this time around -- that this is their chance to make significant changes in a system they believe is flawed, and clearly tilted in labor's direction, as if any Wal-Mart executive wouldn't think any bilateral agreement is overly friendly to labor. Problem is, while Marvin Miller and Fehr have held the players' position through the years, the owners have gone on one kick after another, from collusion to pay-for-performance to a salary cap and from Ray Grebey to Richard Ravech to Beeston as negotiators. As the players have laid in their bunkers, the owners' constant moving target has left the union with deep skepticism about management's resolve and sincerity. John Delcos, the respected writer from the Journal News in suburban New York, wrote that he saw the first draft of the 2002 schedule and that it had Washington listed on it in place of Montreal.

The Economic Study Commission believes the system does require changes, and many of Selig's inner circle -- Houston's Drayton McLane, Kansas City's David Glass, Minnesota's Carl Pohlad, as well as Jerry Reinsdorf of the White Sox -- are regarded by the union as gentlemen whose Labor Day celebration includes a toast to Reagan's smashing of the air traffic controllers. Others close to Selig insist that he is not pulling the rug on Beeston the way his compatriots did on Randy Levine after the 1994 strike; that Selig believes that it's not necessary to get this done now; and that, if necessary, a signing freeze beginning Nov. 1 that lasts until there is an agreement -- say by mid-January -- would not do too much damage beyond just the marketing of the 2002 season.

There are problems, and perhaps if Montreal is no longer home of the Expos and owner Jeffrey Loria is allowed to purchase Tampa Bay, another team folds and a home can be found for John Henry's Florida Marlins and the Oakland Athletics, then the sport will make more sense. But without exhausting relocation possibilities and inviting union participation, can it be accomplished? Skeptics lead the Optimists 8-3 in the sixth.

If he wants to plead disaster, Selig has a tough sell to a public that has helped increase revenues by anywhere from 150 percent to 300 percent in the last six years, depending on who's counting. The notion that no small-market team thinks it has a chance in spring training has been punctured by the success of the A's, Phillies and Angels. The sport is exploding internationally. Does the disparity between the revenues of the Yankees and the A's always mean that, in the end, competence runs second to coin? Maybe, although the Yankees have been both rich and competent for a long time now.

It's difficult to protect owners from themselves. Take this past June draft. The commissioner's office tried to monitor and guide the signings in an attempt to slow down the bonuses given to players who have never played a day in the majors. In the end, Mark Prior got $10.5 million from the Cubs, Teixeira $9.5 million, and once again the players that waited were rewarded because the teams gave in. The Indians were one team that didn't give in. They gave their first pick, right-handed pitcher Dan Denham, $1.86 million as the 17th selection, and when their second first-round pick, righty Alan Horne (the 27th selection) insisted that he had to have more than Denham, they refused. The Indians felt that to reward Horne for not signing early and playing hardball would be a long-term business mistake, and stuck with their rewards to Denham and their sandwich picks -- right-hander J.D. Martin and outfielder Mike Conroy -- who signed within days of the draft.

But the Indians were the exception, and the union believes that if the clubs can't help themselves when it comes to amateurs, why should it save David Glass from Fred Wilpon?

So, while we debate Bonds vs. Gonzalez vs. Sosa for MVP, Johnson vs. Schilling vs. Maddux for Cy Young or prepare for seven Red Sox-Yankees games in 11 days or continue to wonder at the machine that is the Seattle Mariners, the storm gathers. With the All-Star Game scheduled for his spectacular park in Milwaukee next July, this could be Selig's finest hour. The problem is convincing so many diverse interests what finest will entail.

Interesting...supposedly the FIRST 2002 schedule says D.C. in place of Montreal.....hmmmmmm,stay tuned boys and girls.

Gammons said yesterday on the radio the idea of the Expos in DC is now dead. The idea behind Loria purchasing the D-rays is the expos are the only team that can be folded without possibly losing the anti-trust exemption(also toronto)but Loria would fight it unless he got another team, but thats not going to happen. Look for three teams to move in the next couple years.

If you want to read the original St. Petersburg Times piece, it can be found here (I occassionally find the whole "that and this report" thing to be a bit much, myself).


-New Yorker
Did you really think that Hoboken was the birthplace of Base Ball?

quote:

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Originally posted by BC in Newberg:
Are Tampans just too lazy (or too snobbish) to drive over to St. Pete? What a silly excuse for not supporting your local team!

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Agreed. This complaint never ceases to amaze me. Which team doesn't draw people from outside of the strict municipality in which the stadium is located?

"Gosh, I would love to see the Yankees play, but drive over the George Washington Bridge? No way!"


-New Yorker
Did you really think that Hoboken was the birthplace of Base Ball?