And no, owner Jim Crane, doesn't plan on ponying up any more cash to appease fans upset at the team's frugal $25 million roster. In fact, he told the [Wall Street Journal]:
"It doesn't bother me that people want us to spend more money," Crane said. "But it's not their money. This is a private company, even though it's got a public flair to it. If they want to write a check for 10 million bucks, they can give me a call."
Too bad most everyone is so poor nowadays. If this were the tech boom of the 1990's, we just might have some young dumb, newly rich kid to take him up on this.......
I wonder if it'll bother him when no one shows up at the park to watch his crappy team.l.o.l
"Welcome to Petco Park!"It happens in all sports, I am pretty sure. The bottom dwellers of the world make what money they do by catering to the opposing teams. I have seen this myself at Arizona Cards football games, where there are more Cowboy fans at their games than Cards fans.
A team in rebuilding mode, i am ok with them paying nothing, just dont stay in rebuilding mode for too long...Like, say,....the Royals?
Either way, I think a major fix for baseball would be a salary cap.I can only get behind a cap if there is also a floor. That way, you could force teams to close the gap in payroll, meaning the Dodgers would get to spend less, and the Astros would have to spend much more.
Michael Monar,
It was "Czar" Selig's bright idea to have balanced leagues after 14 years or so of unbalanced leagues. It was also his "bright" idea to hold the sale of the Astros ransom as a condition of moving the Astros and its 60 years of NL history to the AL. MLB set the price of the Astros at $680 million, which many baseball experts have said it was overpriced especially since MLB did to the Astros farm system that it did to the Expos before they were sold. However, if Jim Crane was "willing" to switch leagues, then MLB would offer a $70 "discount" and drop the price down to $610 million. Also, it is my understanding that while MLB was reviewing the various bids and it is my understanding that Crane's group was the highest bid at $610 million. If MLB wanted to have balanced leagues, then why not move the Brewers (which Selig is a minor owner of) back or move either the Diamondbacks or Rockies since both teams came into the league during the 1990s. One reason I have heard that Selig was eager to "voluneteer" the Brewers to switch leagues in 1998 or 1999 is because it would allow the club to dramatic reduce its payroll (no DH).
You are correct that AL payrolls have the greater potential to be higher than NL payrolls because of the DH. Even though very few teams have a dedicated DH now, that position has a tendency to be used to sign veteran players who can still hit and is no longer able to play a field position on a regular basis. For example, Houston pursued Lance Berkman to be their DH and part-time 1B, but he decided to sign 1 year $10 million contract with Texas to play the same positions (maybe spot duty in the OF).
Bulldog1008,
I would not assume that all Astros fans are staying away only because the team is crappy. It is possible that some are doing it as a protest for MLB's dumb decision to no longer have a NL team in the state of Texas too. Not only did MLB sacrifice 60 years of NL rivalries and place the Astros in a west division that it has nothing in common with, but now any NL fans who want to see their teams play will have to travel to either Arizona, Colorado, St. Louis, or Atlanta to watch their teams play live (assuming they don't want to wait until they play the Astros or Rangers). It is fine to not have a AL team in PA because it is within driving distance from anywhere within the state to a city with a AL team (i.e. Cleveland, New York, Baltimore, and maybe Boston). At least by moving the Diamondback or Rockies to the AL there is a little more history and those teams could be paired up as protected interleague rivals with the Astros and Rangers maintaining their protected interleague rivalry. Now MLB has the Astros/Rangers paired up with the Diamondbacks/Rockies to where one is protected in even years and the other protected in odd years (identical to what MLB does with Braves, Phillies, Red Sox, and Blue Jays). Every other team has 1 protected rivalry (even the oddball Padres-Mariners' rivalry).
