Cabathia?

Just out of curiosity, because I don't remember, but how much of Jacobs Field was privately financed and how much came out of the pockets of the residents of the 2nd poorest city in the country? And how about that new football stadium? Just curious.

Looking at the ad in question, I can clearly see how it inspires loathing. It’s the gratitude, isn’t it? I hate when athletes do that. They should shut up and play for free!

Whenever I see articles like this or people talk about salaries of players I link to or mention this article:

http://www.hardballtimes.com/main/article/who-wants-to-subsidize-a-billionaire/

Suppose we know our boss owns a yacht, a fancy cottage on a lake, a mansion, a fleet of expensive cars, all the technical goodies that life has to offer. You’ve given a lot of years of hard service for his company--you know that you’ve been denied promotions due to office politics. One day you become aware of a job opportunity that offers you a substantial raise. He calls you into his office to ask you to turn down the offer, offering you a tiny raise and asks that you show a little loyalty the company, your co-workers and the firm’s customers. He implies his main reason for doing so is that he wants to pay you less simply so he can have more—how would you react in such a scenario?

I'm sure Bill Livingston would turn it down!

Boy are they testy about lost free agents in Cleveland. As I recall, they were p.o.'ed at Thome too. Wonder if this guy would go to another paper for a few mill.

Edit: hey, maybe we've found our new Mariotti.

Boy are they testy about lost free agents in Cleveland. As I recall, they were p.o.'ed at Thome too. Wonder if this guy would go to another paper for a few mill.

What are they going to do when LeBron leaves? Self-immolation?

http://www.ballparksofbaseball.com/al/ProgressiveField.htm

Public Financing: 88%: $177million bonds backed by voter approved sin taxes, $31 million revenue bonds

http://www.stadiumsofnfl.com/afc/ClevelandStadium.htm

Public Financing:
74.7% - $210 million

The Thome thing was a little different, if I remember correctly. He railed on and on about how he wasn't going to leave, then left anyway, and not even for more money, but for the same amount of money spread over an extra year.

Boy are they testy about lost free agents in Cleveland. As I recall, they were p.o.'ed at Thome too. Wonder if this guy would go to another paper for a few mill.

Bill Livingston is a pretty grumpy columnist, not that much different than what most papers have these days. He likes to write about how much better baseball was when he was a kid, carrying on against high salaries, etc. I stopped getting the Cleveland PD last year, so I haven't kept up with him lately. He comes up with a pretty decent column a few times a year, and he's nowhere near the level of crap you get from Mariotti and the like, but baseball is definitely not his favorite sport. And this was a dumb, pointless column.

The Thome thing was a little different, if I remember correctly. He railed on and on about how he wasn't going to leave, then left anyway, and not even for more money, but for the same amount of money spread over an extra year.

I'm not sure if this exactly what happened, but there definitely more to the Thome story than "Player leaves for more cash, fans angry." (Although that was the heart of it, ultimately.)

Did CC take out a seperate ad to thank Cleveland's many fine restaurants? Him leaving town must be a 10-15% drop in revenue, easy.

Maybe $72 million over four years doesn’t go as far as it used to

Ha! In July I had CC pegged for a 7 year $130 million contract this off season. Most considered that shocking then. Every year when I try to predict ball player contracts, I stick to a rule, whatever number people come up with, baseball will always find a way to shock you and far surpass everyone' predictions. There was this notion in July that CC, or nobody for that matter, would pass Zito in contract size. That is preposterous.

With several of the richest baseball teams in the sport chasing CC this off season and considering CC's utter dominance so far, let me amend my initial prediction.

10 years $265 million. I think there will be some creative new ground broken here in terms of constructing this thing in a way not previously done, but CC's deal will be shocking.

Wasn't the time to write this article--to the extent that there ever was a time--two months ago?

So how does the average salary of newspaper sports columnists today compare to the salary from the 1940s and 1950s? Did they have the same press box amenities back then?

And I'm not comfortable with any of today's columnists getting the coveted Ford Frick award until we can say for certain which of them are using performance-enhancing double frappacinos and Red Bulls.

#7

Now I wonder how much in revenue those two teams have generated since those stadiums were built.

he's nowhere near the level of crap you get from Mariotti and the like, but baseball is definitely not his favorite sport. And this was a dumb, pointless column.

Dumb and pointless sounds like Mariotti to me. He may not have the consistency of Jay, but he's a contendah.

C.C. Sabathia is worse than Hitler!

C.C. Sabathia is worse than Hitler!

If Sabathia was as loyal to his team as Hitler was to his, the Twins and Tigers would now be part of the Indian roster.

If Sabathia was as loyal to his team as Hitler was to his, the Twins and Tigers would now be part of the Indian roster.

Yeah, but he would have beaned the Royals out of existence.

10 years $265 million.

Johan signed for 6y/138m. I know he wasn't a free agent but that's twice as much guaranteed money. I can't see him making that much.

Johan signed for 6y/138m. I know he wasn't a free agent but that's twice as much guaranteed money. I can't see him making that much.

I strongly agreed with this in July. But I think the stars are in alignment for CC to have what will be the latest landmark sports contract. These occur about every 7 years.

ALSO, the 6yr/138 million was done last offseason, contracts are really only comparable in the year they were signed. 2009 will be a much different landscape. MLB.TV, "New" Yankee Stadium, the LA Dodgers are bidding, the notion CC only wants to play in California, the idea that CC is worth more in the NL....the fact that the next two best pitchers are injury risks, CC is considered the game's top workhorse (south of Roy H).

Santana was never on the open market, likely cutting his earnings by as much as 20%.

When was the last time a superstar like CC, in his prime and young was on the market with the 3-4 richest teams in the sport talking about bidding on him?

C.C. Sabathia is worse than Hitler!

Impossible. No one is worse than Steve Garvey.

CC is from the San Francisco Bay Area. Wouldn't it be great if the Giants could give a huge contract to an innings-eating, Cy Young Award-winning LHP?

When was the last time a superstar like CC, in his prime and young was on the market with the 3-4 richest teams in the sport talking about bidding on him?

A-Rod I suppose.

Another thing, Cot's has Santana's contract at 6y/123m because of the low interest rate on the deferred money. It's hard for me to see Sabathia getting twice that much. Then again, Zito got 125 million and the Red Sox and Yankees weren't very interested in him at all.

Two months late, Livingston shouts 'GET OFF MY LAWN!' Meanwhile, C.C. leaves town with class, and most likely will get a standing O if/when he ever returns to the Jake.

To their credit, the PD did give Terry Pluto some comfy digs. Hopefully he gets more print when Livingston finally shuffles off to the retirement home.

Edit: hey, maybe we've found our new Mariotti

.

Livingston was Plaschke, Mariotti, etc. long before those guys were even in yellow journalism school. He was such a talentless writer that he couldn't even escape Cleveland. He is so devoid of charisma he could never get on the ESPN shows. He could very well be the most worthless piece of flesh to work for a newspaper.

He comes up with a pretty decent column a few times a year, and he's nowhere near the level of crap you get from Mariotti

What was the last decent column the Livingston wrote? He's been writing the same damn columns for years -- for all sports -- he just changes the names. This Sabathia column is not much different than ten or so he wrote when Brett Butler left town. His articles fall under the following categories:

1. Greedy athlete snubs honorable city of Cleveland
2. Incompetent management keeps denying honorable city of Cleveland its rightful championship.
3. Certain unruly Clevelanders give the honorable city a black eye.
4. Lack of morals in athletes has destroyed sports, which has slighted the honorable city of Cleveland.
5. Big cities have nothing on the honorable city of Cleveland because those cities lack moral character.
6. Could this be the gritty white prophet that will lead a Cleveland team to the promised land and restore honor to the already honorable city of Cleveland?

Now I wonder how much in revenue those two teams have generated since those stadiums were built.

You cannot look at the raw revenue figures for the stadiums. You have to look at how much more revenue they generated over the alternative. Building the stadiums did give people a bunch of money for them to spend. They chose to spend it at the stadium rather than somewhere else. How much did they spend at the stadiums than they would have otherwise spent in CLE, the county or whatever government division provided the money.