Neil deMause

The June issue of Extra! is out, and with it my article on how coverage of state budget battles back in the spring swept under the rug the question of how much of the budget crises were caused by past tax cuts for the rich:

When protests against attempts to roll back state workers’ benefits swept across the nation in February and March, local and national media coverage largely portrayed it as the inevitable collision of generous worker benefits and tight economic times.

The Columbus Dispatch (2/20/11), for example, reported that “the protests at the Ohio and Wisconsin capitols portend what lies ahead as governors in both parties move to cut worker benefits or jobs to balance their books.” The Dispatch called employee pension and healthcare benefits “a long-term threat to state budgets,” citing economists with both the right-wing Heritage Foundation and the right-wing American Enterprise Institute as saying that worker pensions are “squeezing” state budgets…

This story is subscribers-only for now, so you’ll need to sign up (only $15 for a year’s digital subscription!) if you want to read it. Or wait a couple of months until it shows up for free on FAIR’s website, but where’s the fun in that?

Mets ownership wrapped up a tumultuous week by agreeing to sell off a minority stake in the ballclub for $200 million to hedge funde honcho David Einhorn. Who is this guy, and what does he want with the Amazins?

Talk about snatching victory from the jaws of defeat: This week, Mets owner/accused Bernie Madoff unindicted co-conspirator Fred Wilpon 1) was the subject of a New Yorker profile in which he dissed his three best players, then had to apologize via clubhouse speakerphone, 2) was the subject of a Sports Illustrated profile in which he suggested the team payroll would plummet from $142 million to less than $100 million next year, then had to watch as GM Sandy Alderson publicly contradicted him, and 3) cut a deal to sell a minority share in the team to hedge-fund superstar David Einhorn for $200 million, staving off financial ruin with an 11th-hour influx of cool, sweet greenbacks. Which one do you think he’s going to be posting about on Facebook?… [read more]

In the wake of Mets owner Fred Wilpon’s player-dissing New Yorker interview, I explore whether holding a fire sale makes baseball — or economic — sense (subscription required):

Was it really only six months ago that Mets fans were hailing the arrival of Sandy Alderson as putting an end to one of the grimmest eras in a team history full of grimmage? Finally, the Omar Minaya epoch was at an end, and with it the days of throwing money at Oliver Perezes and Luis Castillos; from now on, the Mets could spend their cash reserves wisely, and leverage their big media market and their core of young(ish) talent to bring October baseball back to Flushing… [read more]

If you’ve been wondering where my non-baseball writing has gone to recently, I have a bunch of stuff in the pipeline that’s going to start showing up in print (and in pixels) in coming weeks. And the first of these is now out, a profile of Brooklyn developer Bruce Ratner for the Jewish Daily Forward, on the occasion of his firm’s reported ties to a state senator accused of bribe-taking:

When federal prosecutors charged New York State Senator Carl Kruger with taking more than $1 million in bribes in March, few were surprised to see seven others indicted with him. The colorful Kruger, who represents the heavily Jewish Brooklyn neighborhoods of Brighton Beach, Gravesend and Sheepshead Bay, has long attracted media attention for high-profile deal-making among a wide network of politicians and lobbyists… [read more]

Today’s top Google News item. Copyediting is dead.

In which I tackle the question of whether more competition for baseball playoff spots will encourage teams to spend more on players, plus revisit the Great Attendance Drop (subscription required):

Economic cause-and-effect is a funny thing. Last week, Matt Swartz laid out the reasons why the proposed addition of an extra wild-card team in each league could end up enriching the players at the expense of the owners. It’s a long argument and worth reading, but the nut of it comes down to: More wild cards equal more teams in the playoff hunt, teams in the playoff hunt are more likely to bid up player salaries, and so shoehorning two more teams into October, even for a single game, is likely to drive salaries skyward… [read more]

Just a note that I’m doing a live chat tomorrow at Baseball Prospectus from 1 pm to roughly 3 pm EDT. You can submit your questions ahead of time, tune in live tomorrow, or read the transcript later, all at the same location. Baseball questions preferred, but I can bend the rules and take one or two Anaheim Kings questions if the masses demand it.

My Extra! magazine article on how U.S. media coverage of last fall’s elections ignored climate policy, previously print-only, is now online for free: You can read it here in its entirety, no tree-killing or money-spending necessary. (Though FAIR could certainly use your money if you want to subscribe, and their digital subscriptions save both trees and your cash!)

The baseball season isn’t even three weeks old, and six teams have already set new single-game records for lowest attendance at their current stadiums. Is this a small-sample-size aberration, or a sign that the ticket bubble is about to burst? (Subscribers only.)

The young baseball season is already shaping up to be lots of things—the Year of the Great Red Sox Collapse, maybe, or the Year of the Exploding Appendices—but one theme that might actually survive small-sample goofiness to have some legs is the Year the Fans Went Away. MLB attendance has been gradually sliding ever since its peak in 2007, but the early signs this year have been pretty alarming… [read more]

The Yankees are having trouble drawing fans again this season, and I set out to assess the theories why:

Following last night’s ten-inning loss to the Twins, the Yankees’ record stands at 3-2 (good!) and the team trails Buck Showalter’s undefeated Orioles by a game and a half in the AL East (bad!). But since everybody knows that early April stats don’t matter (remember how the Yanks started off 1-4 in 1998 and went on to set a new AL wins record?), instead everyone is focused on the acres of empty seats that have suddenly sprouted up in the Bronx: Last night’s paid attendance of 40,267, notes River Avenue Blues, made it four straight nights of new record low ticket sales at Yankee Stadium: The Reboot… [read more]