Edit: David Bell is HILARIOUS to watch when he's being ejected.
He definitely always gets his $'s worth.
MLB 2023 Season: Rangers are going hunting for Snakes
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He definitely always gets his $'s worth.
Another city has created a committee to pursue an expansion team or relocation -- Orlando.
They join Portland, Nashville and Salt Lake City.
Haven't they been chasing an expansion team for three or four years now?
They've been trying, even though both Miami and Tampa / St. Petersburg have pretty conclusively proven that Florida is a football, not a baseball, state.
The only reason the Rays exist is because Jerry Reinsdorf pantsed Tampa Bay. He was having trouble getting a handout from Chicago for the new Comiskey Park, so he went to the Tampa Bay government and said, "Oh, sure, I'll totally move the White Sox there!" (And George Steinbrenner vouched for him.) Obviously the city of Chicago blinked and gave him a bunch of sweet tax breaks and financing for New Comiskey, and Tampa Bay / St. Petersburg, which had already bought the land and begun preliminary design and construction work on what would become the Trop, was left holding the bag.
Which is why public financing for stadiums is horseshit.
Edit: Fun fact, the White Sox have never signed a player to a contract worth $100 million or more. Reinsdorf's other team, the Bulls, had a similar streak, only breaking it last summer when they re-signed Zach LaVine.
Even then, the current political climate down there probably makes MLB putting another team there untenable.
I remember the Giants also used Tampa as a negotiating ploy to get a stadium in San Francisco.
The bigger thing with the Giants was that the then-owner of the A's, Walter Haas, granted the Giants the territorial rights to San Jose, which gave the Giants leverage in their negotiations with the city of San Francisco. Eventually, the city did some renovations on Candlestick Park and Peter Magowan privately financed the development of what became Pac Bell Park (which landed him permanently on Bud Selig's shitlist, because Selig actively encouraged owners to hold cities hostage for publicly financed stadiums).
I really like Globe Life Field (it's my favorite of all the stadiums we visited on this tour) but I just wish my first game there wasn't such a slaughter.
Whatever works. 
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I remember that. Wasn't that around the same time the ceiling tiles fell in on the Kingdome and the Mariners were forced to play on the road while the ceiling was fixed?
Then there was the ballot measure to replace the Kingdome with SafeCo, which failed. Ironically, the vote was taken just before the Mariners went on a hot streak and made the playoffs for the first time in their history. So, the Seattle City Council used its power to overrule the vote of the people and had the stadium built.
I think it was the governor or the mayor of Seattle who took a delegation to Japan which helped convince the owner of Nintendo to buy the team and help finance the construction of the stadium.
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The owner that secretly wanted to move the Mariners owned the team from 1989-91. I suspect he put the team up for sale hoping no one local would meet his asking price. Nintendo bought the Mariners in 1992 (I remember Jerry Reinsdorf being very anti-Japanese about it). The tiles fell in 1994.
Whatever works.
The public shouldn’t be paying for toys for billionaires.
I could give a shit about "billionaires" or "economic growth". I want new stadiums as a thing - regardless of who pays for them.
(Only when they are obviously needed, of course. Like the A's and Rays.)
Perhaps it does kind of suck that teams can move if they don't get a new stadium. Fine, I get that. (I don't believe it, but I GET it. ) But like I said, they do it BECAUSE IT WORKS. That's just the way things are.
(Only when they are obviously needed, of course. Like the A's and Rays.)
Perhaps it does kind of suck that teams can move if they don't get a new stadium. Fine, I get that. (I don't believe it, but I GET it.
) But like I said, they do it BECAUSE IT WORKS. That's just the way things are.
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I could give a shit about "billionaires" or "economic growth". I want new stadiums as a thing - regardless of who pays for them.
(Only when they are obviously needed, of course. Like the A's and Rays.)
Perhaps it does kind of suck that teams can move if they don't get a new stadium. Fine, I get that. (I don't believe it, but I GET it.
This is an incredibly childlike mentality.
I could give a shit about "billionaires" or "economic growth". I want new stadiums as a thing - regardless of who pays for them.
(Only when they are obviously needed, of course. Like the A's and Rays.)
Perhaps it does kind of suck that teams can move if they don't get a new stadium. Fine, I get that. (I don't believe it, but I GET it.
People are homeless, illiterate and starving and you care about propping up billionaires with lavish toys.
You’re an incredibly shitty human being.
Nope. It's billions of dollars being slung around for nonsensical sports like this that drives me crazy.
@BillJ , I like you a lot and you're a great poster here, but that was a step too far and I have to give you a warning for flaming.
I could give a shit about "billionaires" or "economic growth". I want new stadiums as a thing - regardless of who pays for them.
(Only when they are obviously needed, of course. Like the A's and Rays.)
Perhaps it does kind of suck that teams can move if they don't get a new stadium. Fine, I get that. (I don't believe it, but I GET it.
It's fine to like something as a thing. I like ships as a thing -- the motor yacht Azzam is gorgeous. But given that it was ordered by the multibillionaire President of the United Arab Emirates and ruler of the Emirate of Abu Dhabi, Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan, I don't for one second imagine that it wasn't the product of improper use of public funds. HMY Britannia was also gorgeous -- but the idea of spending public funds on a rich monarch's private yacht is frankly outrageous. The pyramids and the Sphinx are amazing, but they were also clearly the products of a morally corrupt, illegitimate slaver dictatorship.
It's fine to like stadiums as a thing, but it is absolutely outrageous that public funds should be spent on an amenity that only makes the rich richer and which does not actually benefit the local economy. It's just corporate welfare, and it directly harms the poor and working people.
You should, as a fan, advocate for the rich assholes who own these teams to pay for these stadiums -- because when they don't, the people who actually pay for it are the people who freeze, starve, or die from lack of medical care because of the lack of money for vital services.
I don't remember the second video off the top of my head but I highly recommend watching the first one.
Either way, John Oliver always does excellent deep dives on topics like these, especially when it comes to corporate greed and hypocrisy.
Either way, John Oliver always does excellent deep dives on topics like these, especially when it comes to corporate greed and hypocrisy.
Nevada lawmakers have told the A's that they will not go any higher than $175 million in financing for a stadium in Las Vegas. The ask was for $395 million.
So John Fisher has to cough up that $220 million himself, or the A's aren't moving to Vegas.
So John Fisher has to cough up that $220 million himself, or the A's aren't moving to Vegas.
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