Neil deMause

The new edition of Baseball Prospectus is out, with my essay on the last year in baseball stadium developments, and I’ll be hitting the road – okay, the keyboard and the subway – to help promote it. This Thursday, I’ll be at baseballprospectus.com doing a live online chat (feel free to submit questions ahead of time).

Then on Thursday, March 12, at 6 pm, I’ll be appearing on a BP panel discussion, along with Kevin Goldstein, Steven Goldman, Jay Jaffe, and Cliff Corcoran, at the original Barnes & Noble store on 18th St. and Fifth Ave. in Manhattan. C’mon out and say hi.

To go along with my essay in Baseball Prospectus 2009 – now in stores, and available via the interweb – I provide some updates on the latest in baseball stadium goings-on (subscribers-only, sorry):

If you’ve received your brand-new copy of Baseball Prospectus 2009 this week, you’ll have found an essay by yours truly on teams’ plans for new stadiums. It’s a piece that I filed back in simpler times known as “January,” when we still shopped at Circuit City, the president was some former Texas Rangers owner, and A-Rod was only reviled in the press for his relationship with Madonna. The basics that are laid out in BP2K9 are still accurate, as the Marlins, A’s, and Rays are all pushing for new homes, with the Marlins way in the lead; the Mets and Yankees, meanwhile, are preparing to open their new stadiums amid controversy over who’s paying the $2.7 billion bill. Since then, though, there have been a few unexpected twists… [read more]

After sorta kinda liveblogging the Florida Marlins stadium vote for fieldofschemes.com, I recapped the mayhem for BP’s blog:

The Miami city and county commissions both had hearings scheduled today to vote on approving the Florida Marlins stadium deal, but that’s now in doubt after the city hearing erupted in chaos after two of its four members balked at approving the deal.

The resistance was led by commissioner Marc Sarnoff, who said he would only vote for the deal if the Marlins: 1) agreed to pay cost overruns on stadium parking garages, 2) gave the city a cut of naming-rights revenue, which is currently slated to go only to the Marlins, and 3) promised to use any proceeds from the sale of the team to pay back the public’s costs before pocketing any profits… [read more]

The yammering about Citigroup’s naming-rights deal with the Mets has gotten so loud, I needed to take a crack at sifting through the remaining options:

Given that construction of the Mets’ new stadium began under a cloud of controversy about its name, it’s probably fitting that that’s all anyone can talk about as its first Opening Day approaches. So far, we’ve had Congressmen and newspaper columnists demanding that the Treasury Department force Citigroup to rescind its naming-rights deal for the Mets’ new home, fans wishing the Mets had named it “Shea Stadium” instead, and Wally Matthews (who’d previously called for the Mets’ new digs to be renamed “Field of Schemes” – ahem) demanding that the team “take that toxic contract with Citi and endorse it right over to Manny [Ramirez], 20 years at $20 million per.”

Which all makes for great tabloid fodder, but the odds of any of it happening are only slightly greater than prodigal walk machine Oliver Perez pitching a perfect game… [read more]

In which I learn from the comment thread that metric jokes don’t go over very well in the U.S.:

While CC (or as I prefer to think of him, mL) Sabathia was raising eyebrows with the figure $160 million, even larger numbers were being thrown around in the stadium department the last few days:

• The Yankees and Mets put in an official request to New York City for $342 million in new tax-free bonds, to help pay for additional stadium expenses (a new scoreboard and expanded concessions space for the Yanks, while the Mets haven’t itemized their list)…[read more]

The Florida Marlins put off their new stadium for a year, after previously saying that they couldn’t wait another second, as they were being evicted:

It’s hard to get too excited about given that the thing was originally supposed to open during the McKinley Administration, but the Florida Marlins have officially announced that their new stadium will open in 2012, not 2011 as previously reported. Marlins president and chief protester-too-much David Samson placed the blame squarely on former Philadelphia Eagles owner Norman Braman, whose lawsuit against the stadium funding plan – Braman was displeased that urban redevelopment money was being redirected to free up stadium funds without a public vote, among other things – took up most of 2008 before being dismissed last week: “This is because of Braman. It’s not because of the economy. It’s not because of any issues with the [final] documents. It’s not because of any of that.”… [read more]

My analysis of statements by the Oakland A’s owner that he plans to move ahead with a new stadium in Fremont, even though his financing plan has pretty much collapsed with the housing market:

Matt Holliday had better love Mount Davis: The San Jose Mercury News reports this morning that the ongoing economic cataclysm could put the kibosh on the Oakland A’s plans for a new stadium in Fremont, at least for now.

As I reported for BP last year, A’s owner Lew Wolff’s plan for a 30,000-seat stadium in the East Bay city of Fremont relied on a complicated land-for-stadium swap: Essentially, Wolff would get the right to develop land around the ballpark as condos, and use the proceeds to pay off his $400-million-or-so stadium bill… [read more]

The New York City comptroller’s office revealed today that the Yankees underpaid their rent by $11 million between 2003 and 2006, including taking the same “stadium planning” credits in 2006 that they took in 2005. The good news: They’re paying it back. Slowly.

City comptroller (and still possible 2009 mayoral candidate) William Thompson issued his long-awaited audit today of items the Yankees deducted from their city rent for “stadium planning” costs, as allowed under the lease they got from Rudy Giuliani as a going-away present in 2001. How long-awaited? The audit (PDF here) covers January 2003 through December 2006, which is so far back that Raul Mondesi and Sterling Hitchcock were still in pinstripes.

The comptroller’s conclusion, as Juan Gonzalez first reported in this morning’s News: The Yanks improperly underpaid the city by more than $11 million over that four-year span…

Is the sports bubble about to pop? It’s probably too soon to tell, but that won’t stop me from reading the tea leaves.

Sports are all about omens. All it takes is for a baseball player to get called out a few times in a row and sportscasters will declare him to be “slumping” and that his team has “lost momentum.” (Either that or he’s “due.” Omens are funny that way.)

In recent weeks, the portents that many sports-watchers have been keeping an eye out for are predictions of how one of our other national obsessions — the spectator sport that is the roller-coaster economy — will affect teams’ bottom lines… [read more]

Alex Belth of the excellent baseball blog Bronx Banter has been asking various writers for their favorite memories of Yankee Stadium, now that the big ballyard in the Bronx has a debt with the wrecking ball. (Metaphorically speaking – it will actually be dismantled sans balls.) My contribution appears today, skipping over some more historic options for a weekend in 1985 that sticks with me as why the Stadium was special:

Of the five hundred or so games I’ve seen at Yankee Stadium, a fair number would probably qualify as “historic”: The Pine Tar Game. The Jeffrey Maier Game. Don Mattingly’s first postseason appearance. Jimmy Leyritz’ game-winning 15th-inning homer in the 1995 ALDS, presaging his more famous game-winning 8th-inning homer in the World Series the following year. Game 6 of the 1996 World Series, which ended with Charlie Hayes’ catch in foul ground and Wade Boggs atop a police horse… [read more]