You have to like Lance Berkman. He’s got two great nicknames where most players have none, and he’s perfectly willing to hurl poisoned barbs at the Commissioner’s Office. Tuesday, he was at it again.
Jerry Crasnick (via ESPN.com) on Berkman’s comments regarding the Astros’ move next season from the National League, after half a century, to the American:
Berkman raised the stakes before a Grapefruit League game between the Cardinals and Astros in Kissimmee, telling ESPN.com and a reporter from another outlet, “I feel basically like the commissioner extorted Jim Crane into moving the Astros.”
Berkman didn’t back down when asked if he has conveyed those sentiments directly to Selig. He said he would be comfortable using the word “extort” if he talks to the commissioner.
“If he called me, I would tell him,” Berkman said. “I think that’s exactly what it was. To tell (Crane), ‘We’re going to hold the sale of the team up until you guys agreed to switch?’ It just happened that the Astros were being sold at an optimal time for that to happen.”
As I understand these things, extortion (or blackmail) is when I threaten you with something negative unless you do something for me.
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1. McCoy Wilfong for Money Posted: March 20, 2012 at 06:42 PM (#4085566)Maybe he threatened Crane with letting him have the team if he didn't agree to it.
But seriously isn't the negative thing he is threatening is that he won't okay the sale?
I will force you to own the Houston Astros, unless you do something for me!
DB
No it's called negotiating. Crane does not have a right to buy the team at whatever terms he likes. If he finds the terms unacceptable, he is free to walk away with no negative consequences whatsoever.
Which in itself is a pretty shady state of affairs, let's face it.
I know we all can't be privileged enough to think Captain Giftbasket is the greatest player who ever lived, but the Astros have made the postseason 6 times since Jeter's first actual go-round (1996) and are slightly above .500 since then. They haven't been too bad of a team until very recently. But hey, they could have won 56.7 games this year with Jeter. That's something, right?
Besides, they already had a damn good second baseman on the roster anyway.
The Astros have more total wins and a higher winning percentage than the other franchise that entered the National League with them in 1962. Outside of actually winning the World Series, the Astros haven't been any less successful than any of the other post-61 expansion teams in terms of playoff appearances and winning records and have actually been much more successful than most.
"Well, I'm sure I can arrange a little honorarium from the Players Pension Fund"
Bite me.
You go back and tell your boss I ain't no band leader. Yeah. Yeah. I heard that story.
Anyone know who the producer was supposed to be?
Johnny Fontaine was Sinatra, of course, and the movie in question "From Here to Eternity", but was the producer somebody famous?
Big Puma and ???
It is presumed that the character of Jack Woltz was based upon Harry Cohn. I'll leave it to our resident film buffs of that era (Andy, Morty, etc) to grade how closely the fiction mirrored the reality.
DB
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