Yovani Gallardo is an All Star, the ace of the Brewers' staff.
Today he proved he's an All Star outside the white lines when he unleashed a fastball at Arizona's new immigration law that institutionalizes racial profiling.
''If the game is in Arizona, I will totally boycott,'' the Milwaukee Brewers pitcher said Monday.
A year before Phoenix is set to host baseball's big event, the state's new immigration law kept drawing the attention of major leaguers.
Tampa Bay reliever Joakim Soria said he would support a Latino protest and stay away. Detroit closer Jose Valverde can see himself steering clear, too.
''It's a really delicate issue,'' said Toronto outfielder Jose Bautista, who leads the majors with 24 home runs. ''Hopefully, there are some changes in the law before then. We have to back up our Latin communities.''
''If I do get chosen, I don't know what I'm going to do,'' he said.
27.7% of Major League Baseball players are Latino. Almost 50% of minor league ball players are.
About three dozen protesters held signs Monday one block from the hotel where Major League Baseball held its welcoming news conferences. The demonstrators said they had over 100,000 petitions solicited by Change the Game asking commissioner Bud Selig to move the 2011 All-Star game out of Arizona.
Another protest was planned outside Angel Stadium before Tuesday night's game.
Selig has not spoken directly on the subject. Asked in May about calls to shift next year's game, he gave a defense of baseball's minority hiring record. Selig did not take questions at Monday's All-Star introductory event.
Arizona's much-debated measure takes effect July 29. The statute requires police, while enforcing other laws, to ask about a person's immigration status if there is reasonable suspicion that the person is in the country illegally.
''They could stop me and ask to see my papers,'' Soria said. ''I have to stand with my Latin community on this.''
The Mexican-born Gallardo said he's talked with Soria and All-Star first baseman Adrian Gonzalez about the Arizona law.
''We don't agree with it,'' Gallardo said. St. Louis slugger Albert Pujols said he opposed the law and Valverde called it ''dumb.''
Several All-Stars, proving they are anything but, avoided the topic.
''That's a political thing,'' New York Yankees second baseman Robinson Cano said.''I don't have anything to say about it. They already made a decision. If I say anything it's not going to make any difference.''
''Wrong guy,'' teammate Alex Rodriguez who manipulated his way to the Yankees and the largest contract in Major League Baseball history, said, pointing to other players in the interview room.
Los Angeles Dodgers shortstop Rafael Furcal said he would wait for guidance from the players' union.
''The game is going on at this point, regardless,'' said former All-Star Tony Clark, who played for Arizona last season and now works for the union. ''Whatever decision an individual player makes, they would have the full support of the union.''
The union has already condemned the law and said that if it is not repealed or modified additional steps would be considered.
Oakland closer Andrew Bailey, whose team holds spring training in Phoenix, said his sport was caught in a crossfire.
''The Arizona Diamondbacks and Major League Baseball had nothing to do with making the Arizona immigration laws,'' he said. ''I know there are discrepancies. Hopefully, things can get resolved.''
Major League Baseball has a choice. It can move the game
Showing posts with label Bud Selig. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Bud Selig. Show all posts
Monday, July 12, 2010
Sunday, April 20, 2008
Study misrepresents Miller Park's economic impact
Tax for Miller Park didn't help economy
By MICHAEL ROSEN
http://www.jsonline.com/story/index.aspx?id=741107&format=print
Opening day is a time for optimism. Warm weather is just around the corner. Another Bucks' season comes to a merciful close. And this year, we can hope that our Brewers will make a real run at the pennant.
But opening day also raises the question that the Journal Sentinel's Don Walker asked about whether "the stadium has been a net economic benefit to the community." ("Miller Park: Economic promises got it built. Has it paid?" April 4).
Walker refered to a 2-year-old Major League Baseball study by Leon Schur and Swarnjit Arora that gave new meaning to the baseball fans' maxim that "hope springs eternal" when it asserted that: "The direct and indirect economic impact by visitors (Brewers' fans) from outside the area, a majority of whom came from outside the state, resulted in $327.3 million in increased spending and the creation of 4,683 additional full and part time jobs."
These findings contradict all serious research on the economic impact of professional sports. Studies done by independent economists, not those paid for by stadium proponents like this one, are unanimous that there is no real economic benefit from public subsidies of stadiums and teams.
Robert Blade of Lake Forest College, for example, studied 30 cities over 30 years and found that 27 experienced no significant impact from new stadiums, while three experienced a negative economic impact. An anthology edited by Roger G. Noll and Andrew Zimbalist concluded: "A new sports facility has an extremely small (perhaps even negative) effect on overall economic activity and employment. No recent facility appears to have earned anything approaching a reasonable return on investment."
The MLB study made two errors: It ignores the substitution effect and grossly overestimates the number of out-of-town visitors and their expenditures. Both contribute to overestimating the Brewers' contribution to the local economy. The Schur and Arora argument relies on historical local economic impact multipliers that misrepresent the effect of consumer expenditures on professional sports because sports expenditures are subject to extraordinary consumer substitution away from other local entertainment expenditures.
Brewers' fans have relatively inflexible and limited entertainment budgets. The money they spend on a sporting event is a substitute for other entertainment such as movies, restaurants or eating out. Brewers' baseball doesn't increase the aggregate amount of entertainment spending in southeastern Wisconsin; it simply redistributes it from one form of entertainment to another.
Similarly, most professional sports tax collections, almost $15 million according to the Brewers' study, are also substitutes: As other entertainment businesses decline, tax collections from them fall, something the study ignores.
The study estimates that 57% of Miller Park attendees came from outside the metropolitan area, "a majority . . . from outside the state," and spent an additional "$327.3 million." This is almost double the most successful stadium, Camden Yards in Baltimore, where less than a third of the crowd at every game came from outside the area and the net gain to Baltimore's economy was roughly $3 million a year - not much of a return on a $200 million stadium investment and not close to $327 million.
The study also overestimates the spending of the visitors the Brewers' attract. Fans from Green Bay or Chicago don't spend nearly as much as projected because tailgating, the rationale for the stadium's location, ensures that visitors spend their food and beverage dollars in the communities they come from.
Schur attributes significant job growth to the Brewers. But most sports revenue goes to a relatively few players, managers, coaches and executives who earn extremely high salaries.
Most stadium employees work part time at very low wages and earn a small fraction of team revenues. Substituting spending on sports for other recreational spending concentrates income, reduces the total number of jobs and replaces full-time jobs with low-wage, part-time jobs. Since Miller Park was built, Milwaukee has lost more than 19,000 jobs.
Professional sports expenditures also suffer unusually large first-round leakages from the local economy because players export their earnings to their permanent homes. Moreover, players make inflated salaries for only a few years. They have high savings which are invested in national firms. Most of the millions that Schur counts simply leaves Milwaukee with the players and their investment advisers.
Stadium booster studies fail to recognize that there is an opportunity cost involved in publicly financing stadiums. More than the price of construction, what communities sacrifice in other goods or services to build professional stadiums is critical in determining the benefit to the community. The District of Columbia spent $611 million on its new stadium even as it planned to close a staggering 24 public schools and reduce library hours.
A strong argument can be made that the public dollars that financed Miller Park would have been better spent on education, given Milwaukee's achievement gaps.
Finally Schur and Arora argued that the Brewers are an amenity ". . . helping to decrease the recognized brain drain from Wisconsin." This is circular reasoning. The Brewers have been in Milwaukee since 1970, well before the alleged "brain drain" began. If the Brewers were the solution, we wouldn't have the problem!
The 1994-1995 Major League Baseball strike was a natural experiment that sheds light on the impact of professional baseball on a local economy. If the study is correct, the strike would have hurt Milwaukee's economy. But John Zipp found "the strike had little, if any, economic impact on host cities. Retail trade appeared to be almost completely unaffected by the strike."
So there may be good reasons for rooting for the Brewers. But economic development isn't one of them.
By MICHAEL ROSEN
http://www.jsonline.com/story/index.aspx?id=741107&format=print
Opening day is a time for optimism. Warm weather is just around the corner. Another Bucks' season comes to a merciful close. And this year, we can hope that our Brewers will make a real run at the pennant.
But opening day also raises the question that the Journal Sentinel's Don Walker asked about whether "the stadium has been a net economic benefit to the community." ("Miller Park: Economic promises got it built. Has it paid?" April 4).
Walker refered to a 2-year-old Major League Baseball study by Leon Schur and Swarnjit Arora that gave new meaning to the baseball fans' maxim that "hope springs eternal" when it asserted that: "The direct and indirect economic impact by visitors (Brewers' fans) from outside the area, a majority of whom came from outside the state, resulted in $327.3 million in increased spending and the creation of 4,683 additional full and part time jobs."
These findings contradict all serious research on the economic impact of professional sports. Studies done by independent economists, not those paid for by stadium proponents like this one, are unanimous that there is no real economic benefit from public subsidies of stadiums and teams.
Robert Blade of Lake Forest College, for example, studied 30 cities over 30 years and found that 27 experienced no significant impact from new stadiums, while three experienced a negative economic impact. An anthology edited by Roger G. Noll and Andrew Zimbalist concluded: "A new sports facility has an extremely small (perhaps even negative) effect on overall economic activity and employment. No recent facility appears to have earned anything approaching a reasonable return on investment."
The MLB study made two errors: It ignores the substitution effect and grossly overestimates the number of out-of-town visitors and their expenditures. Both contribute to overestimating the Brewers' contribution to the local economy. The Schur and Arora argument relies on historical local economic impact multipliers that misrepresent the effect of consumer expenditures on professional sports because sports expenditures are subject to extraordinary consumer substitution away from other local entertainment expenditures.
Brewers' fans have relatively inflexible and limited entertainment budgets. The money they spend on a sporting event is a substitute for other entertainment such as movies, restaurants or eating out. Brewers' baseball doesn't increase the aggregate amount of entertainment spending in southeastern Wisconsin; it simply redistributes it from one form of entertainment to another.
Similarly, most professional sports tax collections, almost $15 million according to the Brewers' study, are also substitutes: As other entertainment businesses decline, tax collections from them fall, something the study ignores.
The study estimates that 57% of Miller Park attendees came from outside the metropolitan area, "a majority . . . from outside the state," and spent an additional "$327.3 million." This is almost double the most successful stadium, Camden Yards in Baltimore, where less than a third of the crowd at every game came from outside the area and the net gain to Baltimore's economy was roughly $3 million a year - not much of a return on a $200 million stadium investment and not close to $327 million.
The study also overestimates the spending of the visitors the Brewers' attract. Fans from Green Bay or Chicago don't spend nearly as much as projected because tailgating, the rationale for the stadium's location, ensures that visitors spend their food and beverage dollars in the communities they come from.
Schur attributes significant job growth to the Brewers. But most sports revenue goes to a relatively few players, managers, coaches and executives who earn extremely high salaries.
Most stadium employees work part time at very low wages and earn a small fraction of team revenues. Substituting spending on sports for other recreational spending concentrates income, reduces the total number of jobs and replaces full-time jobs with low-wage, part-time jobs. Since Miller Park was built, Milwaukee has lost more than 19,000 jobs.
Professional sports expenditures also suffer unusually large first-round leakages from the local economy because players export their earnings to their permanent homes. Moreover, players make inflated salaries for only a few years. They have high savings which are invested in national firms. Most of the millions that Schur counts simply leaves Milwaukee with the players and their investment advisers.
Stadium booster studies fail to recognize that there is an opportunity cost involved in publicly financing stadiums. More than the price of construction, what communities sacrifice in other goods or services to build professional stadiums is critical in determining the benefit to the community. The District of Columbia spent $611 million on its new stadium even as it planned to close a staggering 24 public schools and reduce library hours.
A strong argument can be made that the public dollars that financed Miller Park would have been better spent on education, given Milwaukee's achievement gaps.
Finally Schur and Arora argued that the Brewers are an amenity ". . . helping to decrease the recognized brain drain from Wisconsin." This is circular reasoning. The Brewers have been in Milwaukee since 1970, well before the alleged "brain drain" began. If the Brewers were the solution, we wouldn't have the problem!
The 1994-1995 Major League Baseball strike was a natural experiment that sheds light on the impact of professional baseball on a local economy. If the study is correct, the strike would have hurt Milwaukee's economy. But John Zipp found "the strike had little, if any, economic impact on host cities. Retail trade appeared to be almost completely unaffected by the strike."
So there may be good reasons for rooting for the Brewers. But economic development isn't one of them.
Tuesday, December 18, 2007
Commissioner Selig and the steroid era
The Mitchell report, Major League Baseball's $20 million, "independent investigation" into steroid use, was released last Thursday with 20 recommendations from Mitchell — $1 million a recommendation, $1 million a month.
For more than a decade," former Senator George Mitchell reported, "there has been widespread illegal use of anabolic steroids and other performance-enhancing substances by players in major league baseball ..."
For a Polish with special stadium sauce and a mouse I could have come up with the same conclusions and as many names as Senator Mitchell.
This is last years story recycled as breaking news. As the Times' Murray Chase wrote: the "Mitchell Report revealed little original work."
"Everyone in baseball shares responsibility," Mitchell said at a news conference in New York City.
Everybody?
In other words, the players, the clubhouse guys, the trainers, the team physicians, the GMs, the owners and the union are equally responsible?
If so, why is it that it is only the players who are called out by name?
And why is their union, the strongest in professional sports, being blamed for obstructing the righteous owners and Congress from punishing chemically enhanced athletes when all it did was advise its members of their rights?
The sanctimonious owners and their hand picked Commissioner, Bud Selig, who sanctioned the steroid era with their silence, are given a get out of jail free card.
These billionaire owners spent the steroid era lining their pockets and blackmailing cities to build luxury boxed stadiums designed for bulked up home run hitters on the taxpayers dime. It is hard to take their current outrage seriously.
And you know something is very wrong when US Congressmen, three of whom are in jail while twelve are under criminal investigation for far more serious crimes than taking steroids, begin acting like morality police.
Forgive me if I can't buy this story line.
According to press reports, Bud Selig said, "I respect Sen. Mitchell and the work he has done but I'm going to do what I think is right. I meant what I said. I'm serious about player discipline..."
"I consider this a call to action and I will act," said Selig, who promised a swift response. "
Bud, who do you think you are kidding?
Juicing was rampant by the time you became Acting Commissioner in 1992. Your appointment of Senator Mitchell and his response are little more than a public relations response to Congress' demand for action.
Fay Vincent, your predecessor, had tried to crack down on steroids before you took over. In June 1991, he sent every major league club a memorandum saying all illegal drug use was “strictly prohibited” by law, “cannot be condoned or tolerated” and could result in discipline or expulsion. Vincent specifically highlighted steroids in the memo. This letter was sent 16 years ago!
The next year, you, a former owner who benefited financially from increased attendance generated by steroid enhanced performance, became Acting Commissioner. Through the 1990s, even as newspapers reported that as many as one in five baseball players used steroids, you, the father of then Brewer CEO, Wendy Selig Prieb (1998-2004), played down the issue. “If baseball has a problem, I must say candidly that we were not aware of it,” you said in 1995.
But as early as 1987 newspapers were reporting on the use of steroids by players. In 2000, the New York Times reported steroids were rampant in baseball, but a baseball spokesman said they “have never been much of an issue.”
After the 1994 baseball players strike, fans were leaving in droves. You and the owners turned a blind eye to the chemically induced home run seasons of the late 1990's including the home-run fest between Sammy Sosa and Mark Mcguire that brought the fans back and, more importantly, jacked up its revenues after the 1994 baseball strike.
The blog Saberonmics notes: "..MLB has been doing quite well for itself despite the steroid accusations that have been surrounding the game during this time period. Revenue growth had averaged 12.44% a year since 2002. Attendance has grown an average of 3.23%, with MLB breaking attendance records each of the past four seasons....you know economic times in baseball are good when Bud Selig is admitting it:
“When you look at the final numbers and you see what’s happened, it’s remarkable. There are times, honestly, when I have to pinch myself to make sure all of this is happening. … Growth and revenue, growth and profitability; it’s just been really, really good.”
The record is clear that you, Bud, and the owners who elevated you to Major League Baseball's top post, ignored and denied the problem all the way to the bank.
From er player and manager Billy Martin had it right when he said years before steroid's golden era: "Cheating in baseball is just like hotdogs, French fries and cold cokes." No one cares about it as long as everyone is making money!
For more than a decade," former Senator George Mitchell reported, "there has been widespread illegal use of anabolic steroids and other performance-enhancing substances by players in major league baseball ..."
For a Polish with special stadium sauce and a mouse I could have come up with the same conclusions and as many names as Senator Mitchell.
This is last years story recycled as breaking news. As the Times' Murray Chase wrote: the "Mitchell Report revealed little original work."
"Everyone in baseball shares responsibility," Mitchell said at a news conference in New York City.
Everybody?
In other words, the players, the clubhouse guys, the trainers, the team physicians, the GMs, the owners and the union are equally responsible?
If so, why is it that it is only the players who are called out by name?
And why is their union, the strongest in professional sports, being blamed for obstructing the righteous owners and Congress from punishing chemically enhanced athletes when all it did was advise its members of their rights?
The sanctimonious owners and their hand picked Commissioner, Bud Selig, who sanctioned the steroid era with their silence, are given a get out of jail free card.
These billionaire owners spent the steroid era lining their pockets and blackmailing cities to build luxury boxed stadiums designed for bulked up home run hitters on the taxpayers dime. It is hard to take their current outrage seriously.
And you know something is very wrong when US Congressmen, three of whom are in jail while twelve are under criminal investigation for far more serious crimes than taking steroids, begin acting like morality police.
Forgive me if I can't buy this story line.
According to press reports, Bud Selig said, "I respect Sen. Mitchell and the work he has done but I'm going to do what I think is right. I meant what I said. I'm serious about player discipline..."
"I consider this a call to action and I will act," said Selig, who promised a swift response. "
Bud, who do you think you are kidding?
Juicing was rampant by the time you became Acting Commissioner in 1992. Your appointment of Senator Mitchell and his response are little more than a public relations response to Congress' demand for action.
Fay Vincent, your predecessor, had tried to crack down on steroids before you took over. In June 1991, he sent every major league club a memorandum saying all illegal drug use was “strictly prohibited” by law, “cannot be condoned or tolerated” and could result in discipline or expulsion. Vincent specifically highlighted steroids in the memo. This letter was sent 16 years ago!
The next year, you, a former owner who benefited financially from increased attendance generated by steroid enhanced performance, became Acting Commissioner. Through the 1990s, even as newspapers reported that as many as one in five baseball players used steroids, you, the father of then Brewer CEO, Wendy Selig Prieb (1998-2004), played down the issue. “If baseball has a problem, I must say candidly that we were not aware of it,” you said in 1995.
But as early as 1987 newspapers were reporting on the use of steroids by players. In 2000, the New York Times reported steroids were rampant in baseball, but a baseball spokesman said they “have never been much of an issue.”
After the 1994 baseball players strike, fans were leaving in droves. You and the owners turned a blind eye to the chemically induced home run seasons of the late 1990's including the home-run fest between Sammy Sosa and Mark Mcguire that brought the fans back and, more importantly, jacked up its revenues after the 1994 baseball strike.
The blog Saberonmics notes: "..MLB has been doing quite well for itself despite the steroid accusations that have been surrounding the game during this time period. Revenue growth had averaged 12.44% a year since 2002. Attendance has grown an average of 3.23%, with MLB breaking attendance records each of the past four seasons....you know economic times in baseball are good when Bud Selig is admitting it:
“When you look at the final numbers and you see what’s happened, it’s remarkable. There are times, honestly, when I have to pinch myself to make sure all of this is happening. … Growth and revenue, growth and profitability; it’s just been really, really good.”
The record is clear that you, Bud, and the owners who elevated you to Major League Baseball's top post, ignored and denied the problem all the way to the bank.
From er player and manager Billy Martin had it right when he said years before steroid's golden era: "Cheating in baseball is just like hotdogs, French fries and cold cokes." No one cares about it as long as everyone is making money!
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