Wednesday, December 15, 2004
Someone killed Tom Boswell's Puppy!
Here is the expected vilification of Linda Cropp and all who oppose getting baseball at all costs.
Let's respond, shall we?
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With one amendment to a stadium-funding bill, she ("Cropp" - ed Note) demolished the most basic pillar on which the District's agreement with baseball was built.
This pillar made of balsa wood was that Washington DC pay for EVERYTHING.
The entire purpose of baseball's long search for a new home for the Expos was so the sport could sell the team.
Not at all. They could have sold the team in Montreal. No team is unsellable, not even close. The whole point of the search was to try to get a team in the DC area, and failing that getting the most money for their "investment" (in the strange economic world of baseball where driving a team into the ground increases it's profitability)
Who is going to buy a team to play in a stadium that isn't funded and may never be? Nobody. Nobody on earth.
Or someone who'd be willing to fit at least some of the bill for a stadium. It would lower the price MLB got for the team.
Now, thanks to Cropp, baseball's entire motive for moving the ex-Expos to Washington -- to sell the team -- has been erased. Any solid deal in any town is now better than what Washington is offering -- which is nothing.
Any solid deal where the municipality again pays for anything. Any deal having private funding involved would be basically the same situation.
Why would baseball come here? We have pulled a bait-and-switch on the sport. We have broken a deal negotiated by Mayor Anthony A. Williams, the city's highest elected official.
A deal obviously not supported by the majority of the Council or the majority of the public. MLB didn't get baited and switched. They believed the kid down the street's Dad was going to buy their used car for $10K before the kid talked to the Dad.
Cropp doesn't want to leave fingerprints. Instead, she wants to leave the impression that she was merely trying to save the District money. Instead, she has now cost it a team and all the benefits of development in Southeast that it might have ignited.
She cost them if and buts and maybes.
Earlier in the day, she contacted baseball about adding a clause to the stadium bill that would have capped the District's possible damages at $19 million a year if the park was not finished on time. She didn't like the answer she got which was basically, "A deal is a deal."
Why Boswell continues to say that DC should stand by a horrible deal made behind ITS back is beyond me. Actually it isn't. The guy loves baseball and wants it back and it clouds his entire thinking on the subject (Re: good moves, Bowden)
Baseball feels no obligation whatsoever to make a good faith effort to negotiate with Cropp's council. It already negotiated for two years with cities all over America that wanted the Expos to come to their town. The universal assumption was that the representatives of those cities -- such as Mayor Williams -- had the authority to speak for their towns and already had the backing and understanding of their city councils.
So if a Mayor had promised that not only they'd build a stadium but would pay MLB 500 million dollars as well, they should stick by the deal because he's the official spokesperson? This makes no sense. If your leader makes a mistake, which this "deal" was, the rest of the government or public has an obligation to correct that mistake, not march along with it.
*********************************************************************************************
There was more but I couldn't keep from getting very angry at this man.
Everything said about this amendment coming too late are true. But isn't it better late than never? Why are you supposed to go along with the lemmings? Why is everyone holding to this deal? Simply following the bad decisions of a CEO is NOT HOW BUSINESS IS DONE. Of course MLB said We are going to stick with this deal BECAUSE IT IS GREAT FOR THEM. Arrgh Arrgh Arrgh. This brings up so much anger.
Let's respond, shall we?
*********************************************************************************************
With one amendment to a stadium-funding bill, she ("Cropp" - ed Note) demolished the most basic pillar on which the District's agreement with baseball was built.
This pillar made of balsa wood was that Washington DC pay for EVERYTHING.
The entire purpose of baseball's long search for a new home for the Expos was so the sport could sell the team.
Not at all. They could have sold the team in Montreal. No team is unsellable, not even close. The whole point of the search was to try to get a team in the DC area, and failing that getting the most money for their "investment" (in the strange economic world of baseball where driving a team into the ground increases it's profitability)
Who is going to buy a team to play in a stadium that isn't funded and may never be? Nobody. Nobody on earth.
Or someone who'd be willing to fit at least some of the bill for a stadium. It would lower the price MLB got for the team.
Now, thanks to Cropp, baseball's entire motive for moving the ex-Expos to Washington -- to sell the team -- has been erased. Any solid deal in any town is now better than what Washington is offering -- which is nothing.
Any solid deal where the municipality again pays for anything. Any deal having private funding involved would be basically the same situation.
Why would baseball come here? We have pulled a bait-and-switch on the sport. We have broken a deal negotiated by Mayor Anthony A. Williams, the city's highest elected official.
A deal obviously not supported by the majority of the Council or the majority of the public. MLB didn't get baited and switched. They believed the kid down the street's Dad was going to buy their used car for $10K before the kid talked to the Dad.
Cropp doesn't want to leave fingerprints. Instead, she wants to leave the impression that she was merely trying to save the District money. Instead, she has now cost it a team and all the benefits of development in Southeast that it might have ignited.
She cost them if and buts and maybes.
Earlier in the day, she contacted baseball about adding a clause to the stadium bill that would have capped the District's possible damages at $19 million a year if the park was not finished on time. She didn't like the answer she got which was basically, "A deal is a deal."
Why Boswell continues to say that DC should stand by a horrible deal made behind ITS back is beyond me. Actually it isn't. The guy loves baseball and wants it back and it clouds his entire thinking on the subject (Re: good moves, Bowden)
Baseball feels no obligation whatsoever to make a good faith effort to negotiate with Cropp's council. It already negotiated for two years with cities all over America that wanted the Expos to come to their town. The universal assumption was that the representatives of those cities -- such as Mayor Williams -- had the authority to speak for their towns and already had the backing and understanding of their city councils.
So if a Mayor had promised that not only they'd build a stadium but would pay MLB 500 million dollars as well, they should stick by the deal because he's the official spokesperson? This makes no sense. If your leader makes a mistake, which this "deal" was, the rest of the government or public has an obligation to correct that mistake, not march along with it.
*********************************************************************************************
There was more but I couldn't keep from getting very angry at this man.
Everything said about this amendment coming too late are true. But isn't it better late than never? Why are you supposed to go along with the lemmings? Why is everyone holding to this deal? Simply following the bad decisions of a CEO is NOT HOW BUSINESS IS DONE. Of course MLB said We are going to stick with this deal BECAUSE IT IS GREAT FOR THEM. Arrgh Arrgh Arrgh. This brings up so much anger.
