Dodger sale

[mykeedee]

FZL, regarding the Giants, thanks for shedding a little true Dodger blue into this discussion. At 56, I also am a lifelong Dodger fan, and have only seen them play in LA, would love to say I saw them in Brooklyn but alas, I've lived on the west coast all my life.

Also this is for tuvthomas, you were just out of high school when the reserve clause was abolished, and salaries started to rise, so what's with this talk of the fans getting screwed with the price of tickets. Yea, box seats were only 8 bucks or so when I was in Jr. High, but I only made 5 bucks a week mowing lawns back then. Now as I said it costs about 4 times as much for box seats and I'm making way more than 5 a week and I can afford a few games a year. I'm not gonna buy season tickets, otherwise I wouldn't be able to afford to play strat here. :mrgreen:

[Mr Regulator]

Dodger Fans - You better continue to fear the beard...... :twisted:


Go Giants

[Blutarsky]

Keep talking, Blue.

Oh, and the Mets called. They're still waiting on those championship rings they spent all that money on the last five years.

Go Gigantes!

[Valen]

[quote:133de64975]And to go to a ball game in the sunlight - how often do you get to do that now? [/quote:133de64975]
Better question: How often do you [i:133de64975][b:133de64975][u:133de64975]have[/u:133de64975][/b:133de64975][/i:133de64975] to go to a day game? If I had my way all the Ranger games would start at 7:30 when the temp is at least down to around 95 and the sun has gone down enough for most of the seats to be in the shade. And I guarantee if you had a choice of playing in the Texas heat middle of day or under the lights you would choose under the lights.

And those dreams of going to games in those old parks is probably as much bad memory as anything else. No way I would rather watch a game in old Arlington stadium instead of the ballpark in Arlington. You think Willie and Mickie would not be signing Pujols/Fielder/Arod/Votto level contracts without the reserve clause and had the freedom to sign with whomever they wanted? How much do you think Ted Williams would have asked for after he hit .400? How much you think Ryan or Koufax would have asked for after they struck out well over 300.

These players of the 60s made what they did because of the reserve clause, not because they were happy playing for free.

I have had Ranger season tickets for years and have never had to take out a second mortgage or sell any kids.

I will put the cost of watching a baseball game and the value received up against almost any other entertainment venue you want. For the cost of a single Janet Jackson concert ticket I can buy a 20 game package of Ranger tickets. That's right, cheap seats for her concert when she came here a few years back were $400. Good seats were $1600.

I am from Arkansas. Their basketball team came to Dallas several years ago and played Texas A&M. Those college players get no salary. So tickets are free, right? No, they started at $90. Ticket prices are not a function of how much players are paid, they are a function of how much people will pay.

As far as i am concerned this is the golden age of baseball. Never has the sport been so popular. Never has attendance been higher. And I will match the great stars or today with those of any era. Jeter, Cano, Josh Hamilton, Ian Kinsler, Votto, Kemp, Verlander, Kershaw, Lincecum, Cliff Lee, Roy Halladay, Bautista, Pujols, Howard, Beltre, Bruce, Cabrera, Tulowitzki, Michael Young, Napoli, Reyes, Jeff Weaver, Matt Cain, CJ Wilson, Sabathia, Mariano Rivera, Joe Nathan, etc. I could go on naming great players who match up with any era.

And as long as I am on a rant might as well go here too. If you were in the players shoes what would you do? If you were 35 years younger and capable of hitting 40 HRs, batting .300, stealing 20 or 30 bases, how much would you ask for? If your answer is anything less than $20 mil a year go to confession and then come back and answer again when you are feeling more honest.

[quote:133de64975]compared to todays' billionaire players[/quote:133de64975]
Actually, not one single player has ever been paid in the billions.

So what is my message in a nutshell? Put aside your jealousy and envy and enjoy watching the best there has ever been. You will be much happier.

[Valen]

Apologies for the long rant. This concept of athletes being the only greedy among us compared to back in the day when athletes played for nothing is one of the few topics that just light my fuse so to speak.

A close second is the one where someone says they would play for free. Well, gotta overlook they are so far from being professional level talent people are more likely to pay them not to play than other way around. :lol: When I first read several people saying they would play for free I went down to the local ballyard, took the cooler out of the card, unfolded my comfy patio chair and screamed [color=indigo:8edc5340ab]PLAY BALL![/color:8edc5340ab][b:8edc5340ab][color=violet:8edc5340ab][/color:8edc5340ab][size=18:8edc5340ab][/size:8edc5340ab] I settled back waiting for all super athletes who would play for free to get started so I could watch for ffee. Nobody showed up for over an hour. Finally told the girlfriend maybe we should go home and see if there are any games on the old CRT.

But before we could get everything packed up along came a bunch of kids says they were bored and decided they wanted to play some. I asked them how much they expected to be paid and who was doing the paying. Half worried they were going to expect me to pay them.

But sure enough about 20 ran out there. They started throwing the ball around.
The bats began to migrate to one two structures they were referring to as dugouts. They began to play. After an hour I went across to the bank and withdrew my life savings. Divided it up among them and said it is yours if you just quit playing and don't embarrass yourself like this again.

You see most people want to play a race card of some kind. Truth the colors are all so mixed up these days color hardly matters. For the real truth of the matter is there are 4 types of players in the world.

1- Those you pay not to ever do anything like that again or you extract money from them in exchange for allowing them to play.
2- Those you would pay to watch them do what they do because they pull off feats that we never could.
3- Those who pull off feats we not could not do while at the same time making it look easy.

4- Then there are those who make it look so easy and perform at a level so much higher than most anyone else we proclaim we would give/pay anything to watch compete against others who have these skill levels

In closing how much does the wife of Tom Brady for doing nothing but walking around stage.[/b:8edc5340ab]

[Valen]

First time I heard the sale price went wow. Since I have heard and read speculation on whether it was too much. Will it leave sufficient money to be competitive. For those who hate high player salaries look on the bright side if insufficient money left over you won't see LA driving up player salaries. :lol:

But as Frank Zappa says the new owners paid cash. So they are already ahead of the game. The team will not be servicing debt which saves millions in interest.

Bottom line on whether it was too much...
This is a good example of free enterprise. Someone looks at something and believes they can make it work. They invest their money. If they are right they make a profit. If they are wrong they lose money. But in the end it is their money to do with as they choose whether they really do have a business model that will turn a profit or this is just an expensive toy.

[PotKettleBlack]

[quote:646d2b9395="Valen"]How much you think Ryan or Koufax would have asked for after they struck out well over 300. [/quote:646d2b9395]

We know. Ryan asked for, and got a million dollars. Which was a first at the time. I forget if he was the first million dollar player or the first pitcher. In inflation adjusted terms, ah, I don't know and don't care to google the year he got the million, then the inflation thingy, but let's just suffice to say that he was making something between Edwing Jackson and CC Sabathia money after striking out 300.

[PotKettleBlack]

If the Dodgers are woth $2Bil, what do you think the Yankees might be worth? Conversely, the Mets are still worth the price of season box seats.

[Valen]

You know I almost feel sorry for the Mets.... almost.

I did hear a bit of Met trivia that is positive. Heard they had the best record winning percentage wise in opening day games of any team in major league baseball. I have not verified that though.

I was thinking it was Catfish Hunter who got the first million dollar contract. Wasn't it him who got declared free agent on a technicality because Oakland missed some tender deadline. Perhaps Nolan was the first after the reserve clause was abolished.

Most important point to me though is how quickly teams were able to find money once they had to bargain in good faith and players had some control over who they signed with.

[PotKettleBlack]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_highest_paid_Major_League_Baseball_players

Pitcher Nolan Ryan was the first player to earn an annual salary above $1 million, signing a $4.5 million, 4-year contract with the Houston Astros in 1979.