MLB Goes to Harlem Seeking Welfare 

Wednesday, April 09, 2008

There Goes the Neighborhood!

By Diane M. Grassi

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."
This was according to Major League Baseball (MLB) Commissioner, Bud Selig, in November 2007, at the conclusion of the MLB owners' meetings.

And it would make one wonder if indeed MLB believes that it is but recession-proof, given the $6.75 billion dollars in revenue it took in for the 2007 MLB season and its $5.2 billion totals for 2006. But it is a reality that less and less discretionary income is available to average or marginal baseball fans going into the 2008 MLB season. And at the same time, gas prices at the pump are expected to flirt with $4.00 a gallon.

Even so, it has not deterred MLB and two of its two major league teams from cashing in on public entitlements, courtesy of the City of New York. It is well known throughout the country that tax abatements and waived property taxes are the modus operandi for many cities and counties in order to supposedly retain major corporate conglomerates, threatening to relocate elsewhere.

That brings us to New York's Mayor Michael Bloomberg who in 2004 gave himself credit for ending the squeeze by corporations from getting tax breaks to remain in NYC."We've essentially ended corporate welfare as we know it, by no longer paying companies - who wouldn't have left anyway - to stay in our great city," Bloomberg said back then.

But even after Mayor Bloomberg lauded himself as the anti-corporate welfare czar, monies to the tune of $650 million in city and state subsidies were given to Goldman Sachs to build its headquarters in Battery Park City, or 9/11's Ground Zero, and $240 million were allocated in givebacks to JP Morgan Chase, also to build in lower Manhattan, after stating that it would move to Stamford, CT, and later unsubstantiated by the City of Stamford.

Under the guise of revitalizing lower Manhattan after the streets were deserted as the result of the terrorist attacks of 9/11, this ploy by Mayor Bloomberg was somehow forgivable by the legislators and politicos of NYC and New York State.

Then came the new Yankee Stadium and the new stadium for the NY Mets. Both the NY Yankees and the NY Mets essentially led successful swindles, as both stole home with the blessings of City Hall. As both stadiums near the end of construction, with both planned to be ready for the 2009 MLB season, the tallying of total costs to the NYC and NY state taxpayers has begun.

On his weekly radio show on WABC New York on February 29, 2008, Mayor Bloomberg stated that, "Hey, we got a good deal at only spending $75 million each on Yankee and Shea..er..Citi Field stadiums." He was referring to the outlay in real costs by NYC for each of the NYC stadiums for the Yankees and the Mets.

But for the owner and founder of Bloomberg Communications and self-made billionaire, Mayor Bloomberg seems to have forgotten his arithmetic along the way. For the actual costs to the city and state of NY for the new Yankee Stadium will total over $800 million and for Citi Field, or what will be known as the new Mets stadium, $500 million has been tallied for a grand total of $1.3 billion in public funding for the two stadiums combined.

This includes tax-exempt bonds, on which the government will pay the interest, tax abatements on property taxes, new street construction, a new railroad station stop for Yankee Stadium, new car garages as well as re-construction of open space for the parks outside of Yankee Stadium, which were completely destroyed.

In fact, the residents of the area outside of Yankee Stadium, a minority community, are now without 400 trees and 21.5 acres of less park space, greenery and playing fields. Although NYC and the Yankees originally promised more parkland, they now include the top of the parking garages as open space, where playgrounds will be put. And while there is no shortage of propaganda on the benefits that new professional sports stadiums supposedly bring to metropolitan areas, that topic alone is worthy of an additional in-depth report and a far more realistic and intelligent discussion.

And as much as MLB and its owners want to praise themselves for their reputed black ink, it comes but at the expense of taxpayers and local communities, whether they are baseball fans or not. And more often than not, it comes at the expense of the poorer minority neighborhoods, which are but expendable to big business and to City Hall.

But the latest feat by MLB should make even bona fide global capitalists wince. For in a coup by one of the largest realty developers in the U.S., Vornado Realty Trust, has been granted by NYC's Planning Commission a waiver to building height restrictions on 125th Street and Park Avenue, which is the main thoroughfare of the historic neighborhood known as Harlem. In addition, Mayor Bloomberg has been campaigning to rezone the entirety of Harlem allowing massive buildings as tall as 29 stories in order to attract even more major corporate partners.

As part of the waiver to Vornado, which raises the height limit to 21 stories, or an additional 4 stories, in this mixed-use residential and commercial area, the building will include 630,000 square feet of office space and will contain a variety of corporate businesses.

With the steep rise in real estate costs in NYC, many corporate entities are willing to move uptown to save on leasing costs, even at the expense of displacing thousands of people from their residences or crushing over 70 small local businesses in the neighborhoods made up of African-Americans and Hispanic communities.

Of significance, is that those 4 extra stories, most likely to be approved by the NYC Council in the near future, will be occupied by none other than MLB and its new cable television baseball channel. MLB would occupy two floors for executive offices and the top two floors for television studios.

But the Vornado organization also gave NYC an ultimatum along with the height restriction being lifted. They said that without the additional four stories it would be a deal-breaker for them attracting MLB as an anchor tenant in its building and thereby the whole deal would be off.

But it gets even worse, as Vornado also demanded $15 million in a public funding incentive package for itself and an additional $5 million package of incentives to be paid directly to MLB by the City of NY. Out of that $5 million package part of it would be allowed to cover the costs for redecorating Commissioner Bud Selig's MLB headquarter offices at 245 Park Avenue, in mid-town Manhattan. This brings but new meaning to corporate-welfare.

The projection of revenue for the MLB baseball television channel, to launch in January 2009, and to be located temporarily in Secaucus, NJ, is somewhere around $550 million over its first 7 years, with a guarantee of a minimum of $80 million per year during that time. It expects between 40 and 50 million viewers upon startup and will initially carry only 26 non-exclusive live games, with the rest of the 24/7 coverage comprised of all-things-baseball.

In 2007 when MLB threatened to remove its MLB Extra Innings packages - allowing fans to pay a premium to cable providers to access many out-of-market games - from all cable and satellite broadcasters with the exception of Direct TV, it was Senator John Kerry and the Senate Commerce Committee which pushed MLB to allow Extra Innings to continue its agreements with Time Warner Cable, Cox Communications and the Comcast Corp. and they were allowed to continue to broadcast MLB Extra Innings for the 2007 season.

However, as the result of that arrangement in 2007, an agreement was made that MLB will own a 66.6% interest in its MLB television channel with Direct TV, Time Warner, Cox and Comcast divvying up the remaining shares along with a commitment from them to carry the baseball network for the next 7 years. There is no word as of yet on the status of the MLB channel on such remaining digital and cable broadcasters as Dish TV or Adelphia Communications nor confirmation that MLB will offer the channel on basic cable television.

But MLB in its arrogance, by taking its present fan-base for granted, should be doing some real world soul-searching right about now. For after 15 years of Bud Selig's reign of denial of illegal drugs in baseball and after the off-season MLB has suffered in light of the Mitchell Report, looking for handouts should be the last thing with which MLB should be associated.

It is bad enough that much of MLB's revenues come by way of the very taxpayers it seeks to disenfranchise, and namely the African-American communities in the inner cities. But for it to muscle its way into Harlem's neighborhood is more than ironic and should not merely be accepted as gentrification for a better NYC.

Some have speculated that by moving corporate jobs to Harlem, such will endear MLB to the black community it has virtually lost, both as active professional baseball players and as fans, and yet woo them back to baseball. And such speculation should be an insult to all baseball fans alike.

But until MLB makes an asserted commitment to retain its present fan-base as well as makes an investment in future generations to come, such as an in bringing African-American children and families back to MLB, it has no moral right to demand givebacks; much less in Harlem or outside of Yankee Stadium.

And perhaps a good way for MLB to make amends would be to start by using some of those givebacks to build some decent baseball fields for the kids of Harlem, rather than picking out new wallpaper patterns for its executives' office suites.

Copyright ©2008 Diane M. Grassi
Contact: dgrassi@cox.net

Labels: Economy, Gentrification, MLB, Real Estate

posted by Diane M. Grassi 10:17 PM

MLB Given Pass By Feds 

By Diane M. Grassi

Major League Baseball (MLB) and drugs. The two have been linked for decades and their relationship has never waned. The drug ingredients are different, the players acquiring them have changed and the performance benefits have been enhanced.

But MLB has not learned much in the past couple of decades when it comes to the integrity of the game, in obeying the law and in protecting the best interests of its athletes, its most precious commodity.

In 1985, Pittsburgh U.S. Attorney, J. Alan Johnson, implicated 19 MLB players for possession of and use of cocaine. Then-MLB Commissioner, Peter Ueberroth, imposed penalties on 11 of the 19, while none were criminally prosecuted. Similar to the BALCO case and to the recent Mitchell Report, the depth of the problem among athletes using cocaine or illegal drugs made for sensational headlines.

But the way in which the drug culture was arguably enabled by MLB and its subsequent punishments were laughable and was perhaps the precursor to the abuse of steroids and HGH in the 1990’s and into the 21st century.

Although it was documented at the time that at least 40% of MLB players were recreationally using cocaine in the ‘80’s, only a handful were punished. But such star players such as Keith Hernandez, Dave Parker, and Lonnie Smith were punished not by the federal government but by MLB. They were required to perform 100 hours of community service and to avail themselves to drug testing.

Four other players were suspended for 60 days. Since the drug dealers were nabbed by the feds, MLB was off the hook and essentially did what it felt was appropriate for the “good of the game.”

Fast-forward to 2003 when grand jury testimony was taken in the federal BALCO investigation involving MLB’s Jason Giambi, Barry Bonds, Gary Sheffield, Benito Santiago, Olympic medalist Marion Jones and NFL star Bill Romanowski, to name but a few of the few implicated. Again, only a handful of athletes from the entire professional athletic world were threatened and eventually given immunity, in order to take down BALCO President, Vic Conte, personal trainer, Greg Anderson and the illicit sale, distribution and administration of illegal performance enhancing substances.

Marion Jones will serve 6 months in prison neither for buying and illegally using controlled substances nor for her check fraud to the tune of $200,000.00, but for lying under oath to a federal grand jury about the use of drugs. Ditto for Barry Bonds. His scheduled perjury trial is to be held in April 2008.

The latest fiasco with “personal trainer,” Brian McNamee, former NY Mets clubhouse employee, Kirk Radomski and MLB stars Roger Clemens and Andy Pettitte following former Senator George Mitchell’s report on behalf of MLB, is but another failed attempt at exposing the so-called truth. But truth has been absent from baseball for a very long time. Moreover, implicating only 30 active players for a grand total of 89 for using performance enhancing drugs over the past decade is not only laughable but terribly sad.

Given the resources and legal expenses tallied around $20‒30 million and paid to George Mitchell’s law firm by MLB, the Mitchell Report’s omissions should raise as many eyebrows as its contents.

But more importantly is the absence of a cry for accountability from MLB by the federal government in essentially allowing it to be in the drug business. For its owners and its teams’ staff members not to admit any wrong doing is beyond arrogance. A lack of efforts to look into those areas in which there was first-hand knowledge of possible illicit drug use or non-credentialed employees working in the area of strength training was but blind neglect.

To wit, according to the Mitchell Report, San Francisco Giants General Manager, Brian Sabean, was alerted by the Giants’ staff athletic trainer, Stan Conte, that a player had asked him about whether he should buy steroids from Bonds’ personal trainer, Greg Anderson, as far back as 2002. Additionally, the Giants’ longtime equipment manager, Mike Murphy, found syringes in the locker of catcher Benito Santiago.

Conte said he reported both incidents to Sabean immediately. Sabean told Conte that if he had a problem with Bonds’ trainer he should handle it himself. But it was obvious to Conte that it was not his place to confront Barry Bonds. And apparently no one else in the Giants organization felt it was their place either, as per their MLB obligation to report illicit drug use.

Brian Sabean stated in the Mitchell Report that he “was unaware of the obligation to report drug use to the Commissioner’s Office.” Former Mets General Manager, Steve Phillips, and Kirk Radomski’s employer, also plead ignorance on reporting illicit drug use to the Commissioner’s Office. Ironically now, Phillips is paid by ESPN to analyze and to inform the public about MLB’s policies.

Greg Anderson was given full accessibility to the Giants’ clubhouse. Stan Conte did not believe it was proper let alone legal. But in order to placate Bonds, the Giants also accorded him two additional trainers, Harvey Shields and Greg Oliver. All three traveled with the team. In fact, Oliver and Shields were added to the Giants’ payroll to account for their presence in the clubhouse, whereby they could advise other players as well.

Peter Magowan, CEO and Managing Partner of the S.F. Giants asked Sabean whether the Giants “had a problem” with regard to steroids after reading the news concerning the BALCO case and Greg Anderson, according to the Mitchell Report. But Sabean told Mitchell he did not recall that conversation.

The issue was not only that of illicit drugs permeating the Giants’ locker room but the issue of personal trainers, such as Greg Anderson giving out advice about steroids. None of Bonds’ trainers were certified to give out that advice nor licensed to either dispense of or speak about drug administration. Their certifications and schooling as personal trainers is also in question.

The lack of background checks on supposed strength coaches and personal trainers was rampant in MLB until 2004 when MLB limited access to clubhouses by personal trainers and ancillary clubhouse personnel not on the payroll. Due to the BALCO case, MLB did it more for security reasons, as the vetting of a trainer’s certification and background still has many lapses, to say the least.

In 2004, Sandy Krum, former assistant athletic trainer for the Chicago Cubs, was terminated, he believes, for informing Cubs’ General Manager Jim Hendry that head athletic trainer, Dave Groeschner, was operating without an Illinois state required license.

Unlike a personal trainer, an athletic trainer works under the auspices of a medical doctor and 43 states require such a license. Additionally, athletic trainers are not authorized in Illinois or NY to give injections to players. Coincidentally, Groeschner followed Cubs Manager Dusty Baker from San Francisco. In 2005, the Cubs fired Groeschner. Dusty is now with the Cincinnati Reds.

We have heard ad naseum about the McNamee-Clemens soap opera which will be played out before the Congressional House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform on February 13, 2008. But little light has been shed upon the underlying facts about how McNamee helped weave his own web, in which the Toronto Blue Jays and the NY Yankees play no small part.

McNamee earned an undergraduate degree from St. John’s University in NY where he played on the baseball team as a catcher but did not have enough talent for MLB. He then followed his father’s lead and joined the NYPD in 1990. He was an officer for three years, serving two years undercover and then quit the force. He was suspended for 30 days at the end of his service for allowing a prisoner to escape from custody, but said he took the fall for someone else.

Former St. John’s school mate, Tim McCleary, was the assistant General Manager of the Yankees in 1993 and hired McNamee as the bullpen catcher, where he stayed until 1995. McNamee then decided to get into personal training. In 1998, McCleary was hired by Toronto, and he then hired McNamee as a strength coach and where he met Roger Clemens. He also befriended Jose Canseco who at the time was also a Blue Jay.

After Clemens was traded to NY in 1999, McNamee joined him in 2000 when the Yankees put him on the payroll as a strength coach as well until 2001, when allegations immerged of rape and illegally giving the involved woman GHB ‒the date-rape drug‒ a nearly fatal dose. Charges were not filed as the woman did not want to pursue them supposedly because she was having an affair with one of the Yankees’ married players.

But McNamee was spotted having sex with a nearly comatose woman in one of the team’s hotel pools on the night of a Devil Rays game in St. Petersburg in October of 2001. His account to police was filled with inconsistencies, including denying he was the man in the pool when spotted by security and another Yankee staffer. Again, McNamee was the victim.

GHB is illegally used by athletes to recover from strenuous workouts and was also part of McNamee’s medicine cabinet. Even so, Clemens gave McNamee the benefit of the doubt about the alleged rape. The Yankees, however, let McNamee go before the 2002 season without disclosing the reason. But Clemens hired him as his personal trainer and employed him through June 2007. Andy Pettitte also paid McNamee for his training services during that time.

McNamee’s credentials were never checked by either the Toronto Blue Jays or the NY Yankees. During their employ of his services he was never a certified strength coach. He may have been a personal trainer, but certification is not legally required to be a personal trainer, although such certification only requires an exam and no course work or field training.

McNamee’s credentials are dubious at best, not to mention his phony PhD that he acquired in 2000 from an implicated internet diploma mill known as Columbus University, supposedly located in Louisiana, and since sold off to another entity in another state due to its being nailed by authorities.

McNamee was advertising himself on the internet as Dr. McNamee, PhD in order to market his In-Vite nutritional supplements and his strength training services. He was also getting involved in other enterprises which Clemens was helping to bankroll to help out his career. Although McNamee made claims he was certified, he was not certified as a strength coach until nearly 2006.

According to Dr. Jeff Falkel, Chairman of the Executive Council Certification Commission of the National Strength and Conditioning Association, (NSCA) recently on Will Carroll’s BaseballProspectus.com radio show, stated that McNamee did not even take his Certified Strength Conditioning Specialist exam until October 2005.

And unbelievably, MLB does not require certifications of its personal trainers or strength coaches but does require its staff athletic trainers be licensed only as required by law. The NFL, NBA, NHL and NCAA are also lax about certifications other than athletic trainers who work with medical physicians. They still do not require that their strength trainers be credentialed by the NSCA.

What we can conclude from this unveiling of the lack of professionalism and clubhouse culture throughout MLB is that without the cooperation of all of its participants, from the executive level on down to the groundskeepers, it cannot be trusted to police itself, based upon its putrid record thus far. And the business decisions made on the executive level from Commissioner to owner to GM to player to staff employees has been dismal and in disrepair.

Ultimately, greed has been the prevailing culprit, influencing both owners and players alike. But to single out a few super stars will never cure baseball or professional sports of its ills. It is shortsighted by MLB and not surprisingly so by our U.S. Congress. While there is no ready solution, using some common sense might be a good start.

Copyright ©2008 Diane M. Grassi
Contact: dgrassi@cox.net

Labels: Anti-Trust, Congress, Drugs, MLB, PEDs

posted by Diane M. Grassi 10:07 PM