The Major League Baseball Hot Stove Season has officially started. This is the time of year when talented baseball players stand in line for handouts. However, rather than a small, tin cup in their hand, players back up Brinks trucks to the door of crazy team owners who hand out cash like it’s Monopoly money.
I guess it was foolish of me to think the current financial crisis would hit home with MLB. With capitalism gone amuck from the greed on Wall Street and the crazy like fox CEO’s who horded company money while their firms were crumbling – MLB owners appear to be well on their way to, yet again, another record-breaking contract season. With players like Mark Teixeira and CC Sabathia likely to sign deals in excess of $150 million, I guess MLB thinks they’re not vulnerable to any future liquidity crisis. Either that or they know our new socialistic system will bail their asses out too if and when the time comes.
Understand this…baseball teams cannot survive solely from ticket sales and charging ludicrous prices for hot dogs and beer. They need corporate America. Without them, their current ability to print money will soon come to an end. And, with the economy as is, you’d think they’d begin tightening their payroll belts. When the Yankees have trouble selling all their new luxury boxes, it should be a sign of times to come. Hell, even the end-all capitalist team, Boston Red Sox, have put a freeze on ticket prices for 2009.
Who knows, maybe our game has become bigger-than-life and is recession proof. Maybe money will continue to flow into team coffers indefinitely. Maybe owners think fans will continue to flock to stadiums to watch these over-paid players.
Sellers beware.
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What owners are paying players has been out of control for some time. It’s hard to believe that it continues - but it will continue as long as fans go to games and buy MLB products
Comment by MrMet — November 15, 2008 @ 12:17 pm
Dr. Paul Joseph Goebbels, leader of the Nazi Party’s propaganda unit would take some pleasure in today’s media. His mantra was simple: Tell a lie often enough and people will believe, and like a virus, spread the lie until the infection is systemic and incurable.
Here on HOFN we have now a blog about baseball and the economy. Since Major League Baseball is not only the major leagues of the national pastime, but big business with all the protections of government, tying cash and cleats together is legitimate.
But back to the big lie. In Don Gilbert’s blog, he cites Wall Street greed as the reason for our current financial crisis. That would be Dr. Goebbels’ big lie. Although corporate greed in the financial sector had a part, such hunger was not the cause of the money meltdown.
The antecedent cause was familiarly known as toxic debt. This debt – numbering about four million poisoned mortgages – were loans granted to parties who were consummately credit unworthy. Their income, history and other assets were so flimsy that no responsible loan officer would ever grant such a loan. And for several generations that was the rule. Home ownership was the reward of hard work, savings, planning and some good luck.
But enter Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and the intimidation of the Community Rehabilitation Act and groups such as ACORN. Under the Democratic leadership of Massachusetts Congressman Barney Frank and Connecticut Senator Chris Dodd – both charged with regulation of Fannie and Freddie – this pair of government mortgage underwriters gutted any reasonable requirements for home ownership. Home ownership became a quasi right, not a privilege.
Bullied by lawsuits from groups such as ACORN and directives from federal regulators, private lending institutions followed suit, lest they be charged with minority discrimination. As one of my sources at Fannie Mae told me, “We’d give a mortgage to a ham sandwich.”
These loans to the unqualified are the poison. Granted, Wall Street packaged and bundled the toxicity like arsenic in a box of chocolates. Wall Street greed concentrated these millions of deadbeats into the healthy tissue of Bear Stearns, Lehman Brothers, et al. And we see the result.
But make no mistake: Without the insanity and corruption of Freddie and Fannie, and without the capitulation of private banks to the pressure of ACORN et al, none of these mortgages would ever have been granted, and the key ingredient to the disaster would never have existed.
Blaming the financial meltdown on Wall Street alone is akin to blaming a forest fire on dry conditions while ignoring the arsonists and gasoline in the woods.
Comment by Bostonian — November 15, 2008 @ 1:03 pm
Bostonian … once again you take a simple comment and go on your typical, tiring, political rant. Was there greed on Wall Street? Did CEOs line their pockets while their company’s failed? Yes. Indeed there is much more that caused the current problem, including Freddie and Fannie, but this wasn’t a Blog to discuss the crisis as a whole, but a piece about MLB and how contracts continue to get out of hand.
Please stop muddling blogs with your political ramblings…
Comment by Manny — November 16, 2008 @ 9:02 am
Baseball needs to get control of payroll. I’m a capitalist that believes in free enterprise — but, spiraling contracts only mean prices get passed down to fans. Why do you think we pay $8 for a draft beer and $6 for a hot dog?
Comment by D.Blue — November 16, 2008 @ 10:36 am
Dear Manny,
As the judge would say to an objecting attorney: “You introduced the subject, counselor.”
Comment by Bostonian — November 16, 2008 @ 12:42 pm
How nice to see a New Englander with a conscience and a brain. Bostonian is right on the money. I wish he had mentioned that Obama’s good pal Franklin Delano Raines falsified Fannie Mae’s books while he was its chief in order to fatten his own $100 million golden parachute as he bailed out of the failing agency. Too bad the media didn’t report that just before the election, just as the GAO settled its lawsuit with Raines. In the ruling at least, Raines will have to pay the taxpayers back for much of what he fleeced. And Obama has him as an advisor.
How surprising (not) that the main media was not hammering away at which two senators received the most lobby money from Fannie Mae. Yes, president-elect (it staggers me to even write the words) Barack Hussein Obama and his fellow Democratic Senator Chris Dodd of Connecticut.
How ironic is it the Barney Frank, the Massachusetts Congressman charged by his committee to oversee Fannie Mae, had a gay lover at Fannie Mae whose role it was to regulate the creditworthy regulations and guidelines.
Imagine if some conservative or Republican Congressman happened to be the Chairman of the House Financial Services Committee. Imagine if he had a gay lover (or a straight lover, for that matter) directly controlling the lending rates of the nation’s largest mortgage holder. Imagine how the media would crucify them to the front page day after day. But for a far left liberal democrat? No news in that. Right. Just business as usual.
Keep it up Bostonian. Your are a bright light in a dim world.
Home Skillet
Comment by home skillet — November 16, 2008 @ 9:28 pm
It’s not limited to baseball. Think about the University of Michigan. In the midst of their worst football season in decades under first year coach Rich Rodriguez (whom they backed up a Brinks truck to sign)…..Michigan EXTENDED his contract through 2013…..oy
Comment by D. Warbucks — November 17, 2008 @ 9:43 am
And how about NASCAR. The entire sport could be in trouble, since the majority of their sponsorships are the auto industry! I bet those ‘red state’ voters are praying for a government bailout. Funny how that works, eh?
Comment by Delmartian — November 18, 2008 @ 1:34 pm
And what about Golf - and all the PGA stops backed by the auto industry. This thing goes far beyond just auto workers…
Comment by PGA 41 — November 18, 2008 @ 1:44 pm
Reminds me of Obama’s economic advisor and Clinton era Secretary of the Treasury Robert Rubin, a man who spent 26 years at Goldman Sachs, if that gives you any idea of his real loyalty.
So now Rubin has driven Citibank’s stock down to single digits from more than $50 a share, and he is advising Obama on how to fix the mess he and his cronies have made.
And to make matters worse, Rubin has just given $20 million of the stockholders’ money to the Mets for billboard rights.
Comment by Bostonian — November 19, 2008 @ 9:53 am