Neil deMause: The Website

More on George Steinbrenner, the Great Philanthropist:

Poor dead George Steinbrenner doesn’t even have a grave to spin in yet, and already he’s being raked over the coals for his past sins.

First came Jim Dwyer’s recounting of The Boss’s legacy of egotism and abuse in today’s Times, which recalls how Steinbrenner shook hands with Ed Koch on a lease extension at the old Yankee Stadium, only to back out when he decided he’d rather keep all his cable boodle for himself.

Then at noon today, a group of South Bronx residents held a press conference at the new Yankee Stadium that Steinbrenner and his kids got $1.2 billion in taxpayer money for, demanding that the Yankees cough up proof that they’ve lived up to the community benefits agreement that team execs announced with great fanfare just before the city council vote on the new stadium plan in 2006… [read more]

I don’t plan on reading the coverage of the passing of Yankees owner George Steinbrenner, most of which I expect will hew to the “he was blustery, but he built champions” line. My defining memory of The Boss — aside from the three decades he spent whining about being forced to play in a renovated Yankee Stadium, ultimately leading to the $2 billion Catastrophe by the Concourse — will forever be the night in the late ’80s when my friend Emi helped hand out placards to fans in the right-field bleachers that, when held aloft mid-game, spelled out “F-I-R-E G-E-O-R-G-E.” (The Daily News ran the photo on its back page.)

When, not long after that, Steinbrenner was suspended by Fay Vincent for hiring a gambler to dig up dirt on one of his own players (Dave Winfield, who was suing Steinbrenner for reneging on contractually promised payments to Winfield’s charitable foundation), it was announced on the Diamondvision at Yankee Stadium, and the crowd let out a huge cheer.

The days of a Steinbrenner-free Bronx were limited — he was reinstated in 1993 — but it’s worth noting that those were extremely productive years for Yankees management, as with the impatient Boss sidelined the team was able to nurture Bernie Williams, Andy Pettitte, Mariano Rivera, Jorge Posada, and others who formed the core of the team that won four World Series between 1996 and 2000. Steinbrenner will no doubt be remembered as the man who restored the Yankee dynasty, but to a large degree it was the rush of renewed consumer spending (and explosive growth of cable) in the 1980s and ’90s that made the revived dynasty possible. Steinbrenner did at least, unlike some other owners, pour these revenues into his own product, but it was GMs Gene Michael and Brian Cashman who, more in spite of The Boss than thanks to him, turned those riches into championships.

Nobody wants to speak ill of the dead, though, especially when the dead man’s relatives continue to control a powerful local business and political force. So we have Bronx Borough President Ruben Diaz Jr. issuing this statement today:

“Today I join 1.4 million Bronxites, and Yankee fans across the world, in mourning the passing of a great man, ‘The Boss,’ George Steinbrenner. … While other baseball fans were jealous of this success, Yankee fans, like myself, loved him for it. Both the Bronx and New York City have lost a giant today—in baseball and in charity.”

Given that Steinbrenner’s foundation had a long history of stiffing Bronx community groups, even before his role as the Thief of Parkland, that may sound a bit much. But it’s accurate in one way: Like most giants, his approach to charity was that nobody was going to get their dirty paws on his golden-egg-laying goose.

In which I debunk the latest from my new favorite punching bag, the New York Times’ Ken Belson:

Following the Mets’ improbable come-from-way-behind win over the Marlins yesterday, the Shea Stadium Citi Field scoreboard blared the slogan “We Believe in Home Field Advantage,” along with the news that the Amazin’s now boast a sparkling 22-9 record in Flushing.

Now, given that the Mets continue to hover around the .500 mark, you can probably guess that they’ve been abysmal on the road (8-18 currently). When teams sport crazy home-road splits like this, you can look at it as half-full — they’re unbeatable at home! — or half-empty — they forget to pack their bats! Or you can speculate about the reasons why: familiarity with the ballpark’s quirks, jet lag, or blowing garbage.

Or, if you’re the Times’ Ken Belson, you can skip right over all that and claim that the Mets’ futility on the road is to blame for the team’s declining attendance at home. In a post Saturday on the paper’s Bats blog (named, presumably, because the alternative violated their style guidelines), Belson asserted, well, you really need to read it for yourself… [read more]

A newspaper report claims the Tampa Bay Rays could reap $40 million a year in added revenue from a new stadium. Does it pass the smell test?

For those of you who read the Tampa Tribune religiously — and who doesn’t? — you no doubt saw the long piece yesterday running down everything that’s wrong with Tropicana Field. Among the complaints: The luxury boxes have obstructed views of flyballs, the catwalks get in the way (whether of flyballs or of watching them, the author doesn’t seem clear), and the food concessionnaire is crappy — which may be the first suggestion that a team should build a new stadium just to get out of a concessions contract since Tim Naehring declared Fenway Park to be obsolete for its lack of chef’s salads.

But the more interesting tidbit is one that’s almost brushed over in the article: Citing unnamed “experts,” the Trib claims that “without the amenities and attractions found at modern ballparks, the Tampa Bay Rays are missing out on a potential $40 million in additional revenue… [read more]

It’s Wednesday, so it must be time for the annual speculation about moving a third MLB team to the New York area:

Normally, the Tampa Bay Rays complaining that their home stadium is a dump wouldn’t be news here in New York, given that 1) people have been complaining about Tropicana Field since before the Rays even debuted there in 1998 and 2) the Rays only enter New Yorkers’ radar in the odd seasons when they threaten to break through the Yanks-Sox oligarchy in the A.L. East.

All that changed this week, however, when Peter Gammons, former star of ESPN and the $20 bill, mentioned in his MLB.com column that “there are smart people in the Major League Baseball offices wondering if there’s hope of even discussing a potential move of the Rays to New Jersey or Southern Connecticut over certain protests from the Yankees, Mets, Red Sox and Phillies.”… [read more]

More than you ever wanted to know about the fate of Brooklyn’s last surviving big-league ballpark wall:

The saga of the last surviving Brooklyn ballpark wall just keeps getting murkier and murkier. The latest news: Con Ed, which since the 1920s has owned the Gowanus property that once was a series of ballparks named Washington Park, tells the Voice that it is going to tear down part of the brick wall that runs along Third Avenue — but debate still rages over whether that section is a historic baseball artifact or just, you know, a wall… [read more]

Thoughts on tonight’s Game 1 of the World Series:

With the World Series starting tonight — if this rain ever stops, and if Jay-Z’s opening act finishes in time for the game to start before midnight — the media is scrambling to fill air time and column inches, especially since the Phillies tripped up that promising return of the prodigal Joe storyline. One tried-and-true angle: Tell people how to take the subway to the game… [read more]

Yesterday was the third anniversary of the demolition of Macombs Dam Park to make way for the Yankees’ new stadium, and work on replacement parks is still far off in the distance:

As anyone who’s been to a game at Fake Yankee Stadium lately can attest, the old home of the Bronx Bombers across the street remains relatively intact, nearly a year after its final game. The last of the seats were sliced out in early June (taking care to preserve them for sale to any collectors willing to cough up $750 apiece), and demolition scaffolding went up later that month. Since then, though, all has been mostly quiet: Despite reports that the centerfield “black” seats would be carted off to Reggie Jackson’s estate by now, they were still intact as of Friday, as were the foul poles; even the bat-shaped weathervane atop the flagpole is still in operation… [read more]

What we’re losing in Detroit:

After a crazy Friday afternoon that featured a preservationist running onto the field at Tiger Stadium to serve a restraining order against the stadium’s demolition — too late to stop a backhoe from taking several bites out of the upper deck — Wayne County Circuit Judge Prentice Edwards is expected today to rule on whether the stadium will stand or fall. If Edwards issues a permanent stay of execution, the Old Tiger Stadium Conservancy, which includes SABR stalwarts Gary Gillette and Rod Nelson, gets to keep plugging away at its plan to save the remaining “Navin Field” section of the grandstand, roughly corresponding to the stadium’s original 1912 dimensions, and convert it into a community ballfield with some of the interior converted to office space and a museum. If not, expect the seat-munching to resume immediately.

The loss to baseball history and potential tourism aside (can you imagine what people would pay now to visit even a sliver of Ebbets Field or the Polo Grounds?) there’s something else at risk here: Tiger Stadium is now the last surviving example of an old-style upper deck overhang.”… [read more]

Note that the judge was not impressed by my reasoning.

And still more on empty seats at New York’s new ballparks:

Apparently not even the prospect of starring in baseball’s new umpire replay videos is enough to induce New Yorkers to shell out $300 for tickets to the new Yankee Stadium.

After River Avenue Blues ran photos of entire empty sections during Friday’s matinee, things got even worse yesterday, when a mere 43,068 paying customers crossed the turnstiles.

Noting the “gaping sections of expensive seats from dugout to dugout,” the Times’ George Vescey observed: “Either the Yankees have not actually sold those seats, or the bankers and brokers with the corporate seats are taking weekend jobs to make ends meet in this rotten economy they helped create.”… [read more]