WEEI: Larry Lucchino Discusses Bay, A.L. East Race

Given the Yankees’ offseason spending, is there satisfaction in being ahead of them after a winter in which the Sox spent their resources on short-term contracts and extensions for homegrown players?

They are definitely two different approaches. No question about that. We don’t rule out the significant free-agent signings. Make no mistake about that. We were out there trying to sign Teixeira. We look at the best free agents to come onto the market every year. It’s just not our primary course of action. It’s not the preferred way to operate. But you should never, and we never, foreclose any options to make our team better.

I do like the fact very much that we have a different approach. The Yankees seem to do things one way. We try to do them another. They’ve built the eighth wonder of the world as a ballpark, as a grand stadium, a grand edifice. We just have a nice little ballpark here. They’re also in the largest market in the world. We are in the most avid or passionate market in the world. There are real differences between us, and I like to be reminded of those from time to time.

Would you be surprised if a team with the resources of the Yankees made a run at Jason Bay in free agency this winter?

They have a track record of doing exactly that: signing the best players to come onto the free-agent market…Jason has the kind of track record that will establish him as one of the better free agents on the market as a position player. I think that it’s quite likely that they may do that, as a general rule. But who knows? I don’t know how rich their farm system is in terms of coming outfielders, but that doesn’t seem to deter them in most years.

Thanks to Bill Spanswicked This Way Comes.

D Magazine: Rangers borrowed $15M from MLB to make payroll

Amid increased internet chatter Wednesday that Tom Hicks financial woes are deepening and that the club has borrowed money from MLB’s rainy-day fund, club officials took a strange approach.

They went silent.

The chatter arose Wednesday after a local blog reported hearing on a national radio broadcast the team had borrowed $15 million from MLB to make its most recent payroll obligations and to fund ongoing operations. Asked about the reports, owner Tom Hicks referred questions to team spokesman John Blake, who said the team would have no comment on Hicks’ financial situation.

Tom Hicks needs to be the next to go in the name of financial flexibility.

Tom Hicks ‘streamlines’ his sports entities, folds marketing group

The marketing group’s biggest job was selling corporate advertising and sponsorship — offering package deals to big advertisers. However, with the Rangers for sale, the usefulness of the marketing group and [Jim] Lites had been reduced.

Biz of Baseball: Inside MLB Attendance - Interleague 2009

I’ll bet my Palmer Vreedeez viewfinder...that the end is near.

With Sunday’s games in the books, Interleague Play for MLB in 2009 is nearly concluded (a June 16th rainout between the Cubs and White Sox still needs to be replayed), seeing average attendance drop from last year’s record setting pace.

The National League/American League match-ups drew an average of 33,351, down 6.66 percent from the 2008 record average of 35,573. Average attendance for the season was also down from 2007’s Interleague average attendance mark of 34,905, or down 4.66 percent. 2009 will mark the first time in three consecutive seasons that record attendance was not reached for Interleague Play.

The 2009 Interleague average is 16.1 percent higher than this season’s current

intraleague average of 28,727 per game.

Since its inception in 1997, Interleague Play has drawn 12.0 percent more fans than intraleague games; Interleague Play has averaged 33,260 fans per game, compared to the intraleague average of 29,706 fans per game during the same span.

THE PETER GOLENBLOG: Matt Silverman can Kiss My Ass !

Woo-Hoo! Even Golenblock is getting the hang of this blogging/non-blogging thing!

Matt Silverman, who I consider a friend, can kiss my ass.  But his ######## about the attendance at the Trop was beneath his usual class act.  The Phillies were in town, and he was bemoaning the fact that there were only 20,000 or so fans there for each of the three games against a team that the Rays had faced in the World Series.  He speculated that the place should have been packed.  But why?  Rays fans don’t give a crap about the Phillies, who clobbered the home town in the series.  What Silverman should have said was, “Last year we drew an average of 13,000 fans, and this year we’re averaging close to 20,000 fans a game.  If we continue to play as well as we have been, I expect that next year attendance will go even higher.” But commissioner Bud Selig has a bug up his ass about the Rays getting a new stadium—even though there’s no good reason to build one—and so even though he denied he was doing so, Matt was blackmailing the politicians a little bit—either you build us a new stadium or we’re going to move to Fairbanks, Alaska.  Which only served to infuriate Rays fans who are tired of Stuart Sternburg complaining he doesn’t have enough money to buy another player for the stretch run.  Hey Stu, you made $500 million dollars in the market.  If you can’t buy another player, maybe you need to find another investor so you can.

...As I said in the spring, the Rays are going to win 90 games this year, the mark of a top team.  The question remains whether they can catch the Yanks or the Sox.  I’m still betting they will.  And as they march toward the playoffs, attendance will rise.  So Matty, shut the f*** up. 

Fangraphs: Eric Seidman: Perplexed About Lee

With the Indians tanking and Lee’s value likely higher than it ever will be, it makes sense for Shapiro to kick the tires on a potential deal netting him prospects, but for some reason, more rumors and trade talks have involved guys like Marquis, who is actually making almost double Lee’s salary this year, and is a free agent at the end of the season with no option on which to hang his head. I am honestly perplexed as to why Lee has not attracted more attention; or if he has, why we have not heard about it yet. It is almost as if teams are still waiting for the massive regression to occur, when we now have a year and a half of awesomeness from the Indians lefty proving his worth.

Since the beginning of last season, Lee has thrown 334.1 innings over 47 starts, with a 2.67 ERA almost matched by an equally low FIP, a 1.17 WHIP, a sub-2.0 walk rate, and a 4.2 K/BB ratio. The only thing missing is the reputation that usually accompanies the name of a pitcher with numbers like that over an extended period of time. It is time to start realizing that Cliff Lee has become a very good pitcher, not a back of the rotation upgrade. If any of the Phillies, Brewers or Rangers is serious about solidifying their rotation by trading a young stud prospect, they should start amping up efforts to acquire Lee. He might not win the Cy Young Award again, but given his contract and current established level of performance, as well as the lack of health issues, no other pitcher being discussed as a trade target would be a more significant upgrade.

Main reason why people aren’t trumping Cliff Lee as possible trade bait. People still think he’s a fluke.

S.I.: Marchman: Renteria, Taveras head the list of biggest free-agent busts of 2009

Hold your Azerbaijani speed horses there...Willy Taveras got three hits last night!

The first is shortstop Edgar Renteria. Thirty-three and a mediocre defender with an unreal amount of wear on his treads, he has had one year in the last six in which he was something more than a decent hitter, and is thus exactly the sort one doesn’t want to tie on to. So of course the San Francisco Giants, who have made a cult of this class of player, signed him for two years and $18.5 million, and have been rewarded by the sight of Renteria trying to keep his slugging average and OBP above .300.

The second is Reds center fielder Willy Taveras. We can grant that there must be something about him that doesn’t show up in the boxscore—he has, after all, played for two pennant winners—and still marvel at the idea of paying a man with a career slugging average of .337 $6.25 million for two years. Always inept at the plate, Taveras is hitting like a pitcher this year, with a remarkable .220/.269/.273 line, and may be the single biggest reason why the Reds aren’t quite in the race right now.

Whether one thinks Taveras or Renteria was the worst signing comes down to matters of principle and philosophy. Is it worse to pay an outrageously bad player a relatively small sum of money, or to pay a merely bad one three times as much? I would tend toward the former—Renteria, after all, is usually passable even at his worst, whereas Taveras strains mightily to be so at his best. Either way, the sight of Taveras weakly grounding out to first, or of Oliver Perez throwing a ball three feet wide of the plate, and the accompanying mental images of burning piles of greenbacks, are what should come to mind this winter once the elderly and injured hit the market. People do win the lotto, but tens of millions lose.

12:01 Tuesday: Patent Unearths Mascot Mystery

But why would The Boss want a mascot?  After all, everybody knows the Yankees are just one of four MLB teams that don’t have a mascot, as beautifully illustrated the other day by the folks at GOOD.

So maybe it is for the new Tampa high school named in George’s honor.  That must be it.  They were looking for a mascot recently.  But this guy certainly isn’t a “Warrior”.

It couldn’t be a Yankees mascot, could it? And if the traditional, no-names-on-jerseys Yankees were going to have a mascot, would it really be this?

Just a little more Googling and there it is: a reference and picture of this “Yankees mascot” at a recent charity event.  In pinstripes.  Oh my.

The story gets better.  The inventor, Felix Lopez, is Senior VP of the Yankees.  And he’s Steinbrenner’s son-in-law.  In other words, the 26-time World Series champions, who will pay hundreds of millions of dollars for top talent on the field, won’t hire the best graphics designers in the land to come up with an endearing entertainer to keep fans happy in their overpriced seats as they watch their team struggle to make the playoffs.  For that, they turn to family.

Yeah, this mascot is kind of cute.  But he’s no San Diego Chicken or Phillie Phanatic.  For what the Yanks paid, I’d think they’d have done better getting Dancin’ Homer to do the Baby Elephant Walk on the jumbotron.

The Biz of Baseball: The Tampa Bay Rays Fan Base and the Curse of Vince Naimoli

“Sounds like a good B-Movie”, sez Maury.

If Silverman is looking for something to attribute the poor showing to it’s this: the Naimoli era. Fans need more than a first date after years of losing before they’re ready to go steady. And they need even more winning to get through the “for better or worse” part of a marriage with their hometown club. Silverman and Co. will have to remain patient, which isn’t easy given the money they’re pouring into the Trop and the roster.

Sharockman reported before Wednesday night’s game was in the books that the Rays are expecting more, and better, with crowds of around 20,000 expected for the remainder of the series, which ends on Thursday.

Apparently, the fans didn’t get the memo.

Wednesday night’s game which saw the Rays win 7-1 over the Phillies drew less than Tuesday’s abysmal showing. The final paid attendance for the game was announced at 18,862, or 247 fans less than the 19,109 for the series opener. Welcome to the Curse of Vince Naimoli.

Miller: Moneyball: The script actually sort of works

One Thousand and One Afternoons in Hollywood...Go find Hecht! Pronto!

What does work is the underlying idea that baseball is frustrating, especially for a perfectionist like Beane. We all hear the cliche that the best hitters fail 7 out of 10 times, but making smart decisions about baseball players is nearly as difficult. Players don’t behave predictably; if they did, we’d have no Raul Ibanez this year, no Cliff Lee last year, no Howie Kendrick and Vlad Guerrero scuffling, no Chone Figgins rebirth, no Scot Shields (career), no Scot Shields (2009 disaster). What we’re talking about is really a game of margins, where you’re likely to be wrong 51 percent of the time but you’re hoping to be right 51 percent of the time, and if you pull it off you might win a lot of regular season games. And here we have a whole movie that’s supposed to be about this great genius who was competing against the world’s dumbest idiots, and he STILL can’t win a World Series, and STILL a bunch of his draft picks go bust, and STILL he trades Carlos Pena and Jeremy Bonderman for one year of Ted Lilly, and STILL within a couple years he can’t even stay above .500.

Moneyball: The Movie was to be a portrait of an easily frustrated man who found a genie in a bottle, but none of his wishes came out quite like he’d hoped. And I still wish they’d made it.

Washington Times: Loverro: For Boston’s Lucchino, This Still Feels Like Home

The subject matter is a bit of a stretch for me, but there just aren’t enough positive articles about Washington lawyers.

This is where Lucchino grew up professionally, first as a lawyer with the prominent firm of Williams & Connolly, then as an executive with the Washington Redskins and Baltimore Orioles under the guidance of his mentor, Edward Bennett Williams.

. . .

“I knew how much Ed revered the Red Sox, going back to his childhood days in Hartford,” said Lucchino, who Tuesday returns to the District for Boston’s first visit to Nationals Park. “I never thought I would wind up there, but I love Boston. It is a great city, a real American city. ... It is one of the best places in the nation for a baseball executive to work. They love their Red Sox, they love Fenway Park and they love their history and heritage.”

Source: Fehr to leave job after 25 years

Don Fehr is stepping down as executive director of the Major League Baseball Players Association, a position he’s held since the mid-1980s, a source tells ESPN.

Fehr will be replaced by general counsel Michael Weiner, pending board approval, the source said.

Sony scraps Soderbergh’s ‘Moneyball’

Columbia Pictures has dropped the ball on “Moneyball,” the Steven Soderbergh-directed Brad Pitt-starrer that was supposed to begin production Monday in Phoenix.

On Friday, Columbia Pictures topper Amy Pascal placed the picture into “limited turnaround,” giving the filmmaker the chance to set it up at another studio, with Warner Bros. and Paramount the prime targets.

The move came after Pascal read the final draft delivered last week by Steve Zaillian and Steven Soderbergh and found it very different from the earlier scripts she championed. Pascal was uncomfortable enough with how Steven Soderbergh’s vision had changed that she applied the brakes.

Soderbergh and Pitt’s CAA reps spent the weekend attempting to get another studio to play ball in a game that will play out until Monday. If a new financier doesn’t emerge by tomorrow, Columbia will re-examine options that include replacing Soderbergh (and hoping that Pitt doesn’t ankle), delaying the film until she and the filmmaker find themselves in synch on the script, or pulling the plug.

Even in the climate of heightened studio caution, the turnaround news on “Moneyball” is surprising, given that had reached the equivalent of third base. The picture was just 96 hours before the participants were ready to take the field, following three months of prep and with camera tests completed and cast and budget in place.

Mental Floss: If They Build It: 9 Other Sports Facilities by the Architects of Camden Yards

Like it or lump it, HOK redefined the way baseball stadiums were thought of with OPaCY.  Even amongst those who aren’t universal fans of the results, it’s pretty much agreed that there’s no question of improvement over the ashtray multi-use concept that dominated the previous wave of construction.

After 25 years as an HOK subsidiary, HOK Sports Venue Event principals, including Spear, exchanged their HOK stock for ownership of HOK SVE and rebranded their independently owned, 500-person practice with the name Populous. While its title has changed, the firm formerly referred to as HOK Sport remains synonymous with excellence in sports architecture. It has designed nearly 1,000 projects and events since its inception and has played a role in the creation of some of the world’s premier sports facilities. Here’s a closer look at 10 of them, including the baseball stadium that launched many more.

Oval Lingotto

The speed skating venue was the last major construction project of the 2006 Turin Winter Olympics. Populous collaborated with Studio Zoppini on the design, which received a 2007 Gold Award from the International Association for Sports and Leisure Facilities (IAKS) and the International Olympic Committee (IOC). While the building was designed to facilitate fast times, no records were set in Turin. That was in part due to the quality of the ice, which was installed under a tight deadline and can take years to perfect. Since the Olympics, the 6,600-seat venue has hosted the 2006 World Fencing Championships and the 2009 European Indoor Championships in Athletics, as well as numerous fairs and exhibitions.

This is coming from someone with no appreciation for architecture: That is one freaking gorgeous building.

JeffFrancoeur.com: June 17, 2009

Happy Birthday Delta! 80 years. Wow, you guys are getting up there!

I just wanted to wish you a very happy 80th birthday and thank you for not only everything that you’ve done for me and my family, but also for what you guys continue to do for all of your customers.

It’s crazy to think how far everything has come…I mean, now we have mobile boarding passes, Wi-Fi on the plane, online booking, TV screens on the back of headrests, movies, music…I could go on and on. One of the first things I do when I sit down is to flip to the back of the in-flight magazine to see what movie will be playing on my flight! Delta never ceases to amaze me and you guys continue to make flying more and more enjoyable. And considering how much flying I do over the course of a year, I love all of the little extras that Delta provide.

Other guys on the team spend their time playing cards, sleeping, going out to eat, reading magazines, getting some extra batting practice and hitting the gym in the hotel. If any of you have seen the old movies like Rookie of the Year and Little Big League, there are definitely some pranks pulled on teammates while on the road. But I won’t get too specific on those.

I’m excited to play in Boston this week, and then even more excited to get back to Atlanta to host the Yankees and Red Sox at Turner Field. Don’t forget about Delta Day at Turner Field on June 24th!

http://blog.delta.com/category/sponsorships/

MLB: Tigers give Leyland two-year extension

In the Interest of Good Taste We Changed Our Pack. For the Same Reason, We Didn’t Change Our Manager.

Jim Leyland’s future will remain in a Tiger uniform. The team and the manager agreed Friday to a two-year contract extension, ending speculation while rewarding the veteran skipper for a first-place start with a team that has had no shortage of challenges.

The deal was quickly negotiated and finalized Friday morning between Leyland and team president/general manager Dave Dombrowski in Leyland’s office. It was arguably fitting, given the way the Tigers have had to react to one situation after another to keep the team headed in the right direction.

“It’s extremely well-deserved,” Dombrowski said in making the announcement. “He’s done a tremendous job for our organization since he’s been here. He’s done a great job this year keeping our club in first place and continuing to work hard along with his staff. It’s a happy day to be able to make this announcement.”

It was not a day that Leyland was expecting quite so soon.

“This was a total shock,” Leyland said. “I kind of assumed this was going to be at the end of the year and [the team would] evaluate and it would be yes or no.”

MSNBC: Canseco plans to sue MLB, union over steroids

My apologies in advance…

Jose Canseco plans to file a class-action lawsuit against Major League Baseball and the players’ association, saying he’s been ostracized for going public with tales of steroids use in the sport.

Canseco said Wednesday that he has discussed the suit with lawyers and intends to enlist Sammy Sosa and Rafael Palmeiro to join in the suit.

Canseco said the basis of the suit would be “lost wages — in some cases, defamation of character.”

“Because I used steroids and I came out with a book, I was kicked out of the game, but I have not been inducted into the Hall of Fame,” Canseco said in a telephone interview.

AP: Canseco claims he was ostracized

NEW YORK—Jose Canseco plans to file a class-action lawsuit against Major League Baseball and the players’ association, saying he’s been ostracized for going public with tales of steroids use in the sport.

Canseco said Wednesday that he has discussed the suit with lawyers and intends to enlist Sammy Sosa and Rafael Palmeiro to join in the suit.

Canseco said the basis of the suit would be “lost wages—in some cases, defamation of character.”

“Because I used steroids and I came out with a book, I was kicked out of the game, but I have not been inducted into the Hall of Fame,” Canseco said in a telephone interview.

“A lot of these players have not been inducted into the Hall of Fame: Mark McGwire and so forth. They’re losing salaries, because obviously when you’re inducted into the Hall of Fame, you get asked to do certain, you know, appearances and shows and so forth, which incorporates income. So there is a major income loss.

“Not even that, baseball blackballs you from their family, meaning you can’t have a future proper reference from them, a job, no managerial jobs, no coaching jobs, nothing. They completely sever you.”

mlbtraderumors.com: Possible Type A Free Agents

Eddie Bajek has reverse-engineered the Elias rankings, and we’ll now be providing that information exclusively at MLB Trade Rumors.  Today let’s take a look at the 2010 free agents who would be Type A, if the season ended today.  Click here for an explanation on free agent compensation.

Catchers

* Victor Martinez*
* Jason Varitek*
* Bengie Molina

First Base/Outfield/DH

* Matt Holliday
* Aubrey Huff
* Jason Bay
* Magglio Ordonez*
* Johnny Damon
* Bobby Abreu
* Jim Thome
* Jermaine Dye*
* Xavier Nady
* Randy Winn

Texas Rangers lay off several front office staff

Of course, this happened after the draft.

The Texas Rangers have cut several staff members from their front office about two weeks after owner Tom Hicks said he was exploring a sale of the team.

Rangers spokesman John Blake said Tuesday the cuts amounted to less than 10 percent of the staff. He said the possible sale of the team was among several factors that led to the layoffs. Before the cuts, the Rangers had about 275 employees, excluding onfield personnel.

The move came despite the first-place Rangers enjoying a resurgence at the gate. Attendance has increased about 11 percent over last year to 867,016 entering Tuesday’s interleague series opener against the Houston Astros.

Still clucking: San Diego Chicken now 35

GIANNOULAS FOR HOF! If only for the hilarious induction speech in which he awkwardly acknowledges Tommy Lasorda!

For 35 years, Ted Giannoulas has jumped and run - and flattened Barney - at ballparks across America, climbing into a feathered costume to go to work as the San Diego Chicken.

“It’s the one magic elixir that keeps me young,” he says.

Yet the bumps and bruises on Giannoulas, a native of London, Ont., don’t heal nearly as quickly as they used to. He is in the twilight of a long and lucrative career playing to audiences large and small, and acknowledged that this could be the San Diego Chicken’s final season.

The gigs aren’t there like they used to be. Nearly every team in the NFL, NBA, NHL and MLB have their own licensed mascots - a trend inspired in part by the San Diego Chicken’s popularity so many years ago - and Giannoulas has cut back his schedule in recent years.

Down from a high of about 250 games each year in his heyday, Giannoulas said he’ll leave his San Diego home for just 50 appearances this summer.

“At the end of this season I’ll make a determination if I think I can go another season. I can’t say for certain. I’ll just see how my body feels, what my energy level might be going forward,” Giannoulas said. “The fun and energy is still at the ballpark. I still get a charge out of it.”

Being the San Diego Chicken - or the Famous Chicken, as he’s also called - might seem like an easy way to make a buck. In fact, Giannoulas expects to pull in six figures this summer (he won’t say how much).

But it’s a gruelling night of high-energy, slapstick comedy for the five-foot-four Giannoulas, whose suit gets so hot he jokes his “eggs come out hard-boiled.” And contrary to what many might believe, Giannoulas is the only one who’s ever worn it.

BA: IBAF Makes Second Push For Olympics

Aspects of the pitch include:

• Baseball will offer a five-day, eight-team tournament which will allow for maximum participation of the top players from countries that qualify for the 2016 Olympics. The qualifier for 2016 would be held during the 2015 off-season.
• Major League Baseball in North America will not broadcast any games directly against the Olympic baseball schedule in 2016.
• All four potential host cities—Chicago, Madrid, Rio de Janeiro and Tokyo—have established baseball stadiums.

My guess is that this won’t happen, but this is (on the surface) a stronger pitch than I thought they’d make (depending on what that second bullet means).

Nationals could replace Manny Acta with Bobby Valentine

Manny Acta appears to be on his way out as Nationals manager, and while respected ex-big league manager Jim Riggleman reportedly will be installed as the interim manager, team higher-ups also have begun internal discussions about permanent candidates. One of those candidates to replace Acta, according to National League sources, is Bobby Valentine, who is currently in his seventh season as manager of the Chiba Lotte Mariners in Japan.

No outside candidates have surfaced for Acta’s job to date, but word is that interim GM Mike Rizzo will consider Valentine, who would seem on the surface to be the perfect fit for a young, rebuilding team with public relations and attendance issues. It isn’t known who else may be on the Nationals’ short list as Acta runs short of time with the 16-45 team.

Murray Chass On Baseball: ANGRY ANDY FRIEDMAN

Oh, if only Jason Jones had visited the New York Times earlier…

Andrew Friedman is angry with me. He is the general manager of the Tampa Bay Rays, and he is angry that I wrote in a column that he did not return a call from me seeking comment about the Rays’ treatment of Evan Longoria and David Price.

Friedman did not tell me himself that he is angry. He directed Rick Vaughn, the team’s vice president for communications, to call and tell me. Friedman still hasn’t called so I haven’t been able to ask him about the Rays’ treatment of Longoria and Price.

I had called Friedman to ask him about the way the Rays manipulated the major league service time for their two young players, in Longoria’s case gaining leverage in their negotiations for a multi-year contract and in Price’s case delaying by a year his eligibility for free agency.

Vaughn said I was unfair and unethical in the way I called Friedman and portrayed the absence of a return call. He noted that I called Friedman the day before the draft. How in the world could I expect to get the general manager the day before the draft, Vaughn asked, suggesting that the timing of the column was bad and that I should have waited to write it another time when it would have been more convenient for Friedman to call back.

Now Vaughn was not only acting as the Rays’ vice president for communications, but he was also acting as my editor. One of the things I like about writing for this Web site is I don’t have editors. I like having no editors. Most of them, I have found, have been useless, if not downright incompetent.

L.A. Times:  Andruw Jones says he left because of Frank McCourt

Reporting from Arlington, Texas—Sitting at his corner locker in the Texas Rangers’ clubhouse Friday, Andruw Jones said the main reason he asked the Dodgers to release him this winter wasn’t his desire for a change of scenery.

He said he asked out mainly because of the way he was treated by Dodgers owner Frank McCourt.

“He wasn’t standing behind me, I think,” Jones said, adding that if McCourt had shown him more respect, “I almost definitely would be part of the L.A. Dodgers right now.”

McCourt was unavailable for comment.

“As things were going along, I didn’t think I was in their plans,” Jones said. “I had to make a decision and move on.

“I know they had Matt Kemp, who was going to play center field all the time, so I didn’t feel like I was in their plans.”

Jones said he started to get the sense that he was on his way out of Los Angeles when he met with McCourt before undergoing knee surgery last May.

“It was disrespect,” Jones said of the way McCourt spoke to him.

Jones said he was upset when his agent, Scott Boras, told him in the off-season that McCourt was looking into ways to void his contract.

While acknowledging that McCourt paid him a hefty salary, Jones said the owner had no right to complain about a deal that was mutually agreed upon.

“I got paid that money because that was my value,” Jones said, pointing to the numbers he posted in 12 seasons with the Atlanta Braves.

Denver Post: MLB TV ratings hold steady as attendance declines

One bright side to all those empty seats behind home plate visible on television at the new Yankee Stadium: At least there are plenty of people seeing them from home.

Viewership for the Yankees’ YES Network is off to a record start. The channel averaged its best rating ever for April and May, a 4.5 to beat the 4.39 from last year that set the previous high.

Those numbers suggest there’s a lot of interest in the Yankees and their new stadium—and that some of those fans may be priced out because of the skidding economy, the expensive tickets, or both.

In the rest of the country, though, the recession doesn’t seem to have made much of an impact so far on TV ratings for local broadcasts of Major League Baseball games.

The average rating for all teams through May 24 was a 3.2, no different from the same period last season, according to The Nielsen Company. The average audience increased slightly from 76,000 to 77,000 households, Nielsen said. Average attendance is down about 6 percent across the league.

Ratings represent the percentage of all homes with televisions in a market watching a broadcast.

The ratings for nationally televised games on ESPN and Fox are down slightly from last season.

Houston Chronicle: Minute Maid Park alcohol seller could lose a license

The company that sells alcoholic beverages at Minute Maid Park could lose one of its state licenses at the stadium because of an incident last summer in which an allegedly drunken driver leaving an Astros game hit and killed a pedestrian.

Catering giant Aramark, which holds the ballpark’s concessions contract, faces an administrative hearing because of allegations that it sold or delivered alcohol to an intoxicated person, according to the Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission. Cancellation of the permit is the standard penalty for a case this severe, said TABC Capt. Rick Cruz. A date for the hearing has not been set.

The possible permit revocation does not mean that the ballpark suddenly will go dry. Aramark has two licenses and only one is in jeopardy, the TABC said. The agency did not say which permit — beer or liquor — is involved. The two permits cover different parts of the ballpark and different types of beverages, the agency said.

Zanona: The Woes and Pros of Selling Out Chicago Baseball

Wasn’t “A Busload of Iowans” the original title of Helios Creed’s “NUGG: The Transport”?

It starts with beer endorsed bleacher seats and frat boys in the Captain Morgan Club imitating the mascot’s signature leg-up pose. Before you know it, Wrigley Field will be renamed TGI Fridays Field and the Harry Caray statue will be wearing a giant Arby’s hat.

Ok, so maybe I’m exaggerating a little. But creeping commercialism is a slippery slope. It is important to note, however, that there could be a silver lining to this advertising haze, and like everything, has its own set of pros and woes.

Pro- COMFORT. If you’ve ever been to a Sox game it’s hard to deny that watching baseball in U.S. Cellular Field is not only comfortable, but borderline enjoyable. The numerous screens and loudspeakers really enhance the game because it easier for fans to follow what is going on, which can be a particularly daunting task at Wrigley if you’re getting beer sloshed on your lap while squeezed between two loud, drunk strangers in the bleachers.

Advertisers in baseball stadiums seem to have a good way of making sure you’re relaxed and comfortable before they try shoving branded products down your throat. A comfortable baseball stadium is one example.

Woe- OVERCROWDING. The Cubs already get heat for attracting bandwagon fans and having overpriced, unattainable tickets. Just imagine what would happen if Wrigley Field added more advertisements, sponsored fireworks after every home run and 3D holograms of Ernie Banks in the bleachers. Even though some fans threaten to swear-off Wrigley if it sells out, you know they’ll still be there: right in line next to a busload of Iowans, fighting for a place in line at the Bud Light Bleachers section.

Demetri Martin on the ‘Moneyball’ team

DEMETRIC!

Martin plays Paul DePodesta, now an executive for the San Diego Padres. “He changed the Oakland A’s with sabermetrics, which, loosely, is the application of statistics to baseball to determine the worth a of a player and build a team.”

The film is set for release in 2011.

“I’m excited about it because I love stats and math,” Martin says. “I’m not particularly good at math, but I do like it.”

The Hardball Times: Colin Wyers: Abolish the minor leagues

The Fallout

But what would we lose along the way? Well, for starters, we probably lose the low minors. Right now, you can take a family of four to a game and get a meal and a few souvenirs for under $55. Minor league teams can charge so little for their product because their largest expenses are subsidized by their parent clubs. If that subsidy dwindled, so would the minor leagues.

Next to go? Training academies in Latin America. If the draft is abolished, teams would likely focus on domestic training academies instead. In other words, it’ll do to players from the Dominican, Venezuela and elsewhere what MLB did to Puerto Rico when it included them in the draft. Puerto Rican baseball has suffered for it, and so have Puerto Rican baseball players.

And Major League free agents will suffer, as they have to compete against a larger pool of players in the free agency market.

Maybe these things are desirable, but they are real consequences and cannot simply be ignored.