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Mac the Knife

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Everything posted by Mac the Knife

  1. If you count the 1960-62 New York Titans and the 1963-69 New York Jets as separate AFL franchises, which would make you the only person ever to do so.
  2. Well, provided the pizza chain let's them keep their tips *and* reimburses them for the gas they use on deliveries? I suppose to some that could be considered high-paying...
  3. I've earned a degree from Michigan.Awww... I feel so sorry for you.
  4. But what's even more interesting about that is that it's the only Rose Bowl not played in Pasadena, California.
  5. That's not true relating to the White Sox. The current ownership group purchased the team from Bill Veeck in 1981, and they were threatening to move to Tampa before Illinois built them a new park. They never intended on selling. An interesting fact - the city of Seattle sued the American League when it allowed to Pilots to leave after one season. The owner of the White Sox was broke and needed to sell the team in 1975. To settle the suit, the AL was pushing to sell the White Sox to Seattle ownership and let the team move. Denver ownership was among the bidders, I believe, but the only bidder willing to keep the team in Chicago was Bill Veeck, who had previously owned the team and sold is to the then-owners 13 years earlier. Despite most of the AL owners disliking Veeck, they approved the sale to allow the team to stay in Chicago. Seattle got the expansion Mariners two years later. Maybe more interestingly, if the White Sox would have moved to Seattle, Charlie Finley was planning on moving the Athletics into Comiskey Park. Indeed, I stand corrected about the 'Sox. I knew a move to Tampa was allegedly a done deal at one point, but thought it was tied to the Veeck-Reinsdorf sale. The latter story is one I've also heard, only in a more odd version in which the White Sox would've went to Seattle only to be replaced by Charlie Finley's Oakland A's, who would've went to Chicago. Another version I've heard would've had Bud Selig guaranteeing 30 of his 81 Milwaukee Brewers home dates to Chicago, and yet another would've had the San Francisco Giants play an equal number of dates in both San Francisco and Oakland as the "Bay Area Giants."
  6. New York metropolian area technicality has nine teams now (Yankees, Mets, Giants, Jets, Knicks, Nets, Rangers, Islanders, and Devils). Thus the qualifier "At one point in the early history of the NBA..."
  7. At the moment, anyway, I think it's going to be the Chargers and Rams going to Los Angeles. The Rams have a stadium site that's just about shovel-ready, and the Chargers have been negotiating with San Diego officials for over a decade to no effect. The Raiders meanwhile have limped along in Oakland but really haven't pursued things to the degree either the Chargers or Rams have. Plus to be honest, I've never thought much of Mark Davis as an NFL owner. While I could easily see his father doing it, I just can't see him outmaneuvering both Spanos and Kroenke.
  8. During his career, Nolan Ryan recorded exactly 5,000 more strikeouts than Babe Ruth hit home runs (5,714 / 714). The originally intended name for the Dallas Cowboys was the Texas Rangers. The Chicago White Sox and San Francisco Giants each were tentatively sold to buyers who would have moved them to Tampa, but in each case MLB stepped in to prevent it. At one point in the early history of the NBA, the city of Chicago (six - Cubs, White Sox, Bears, Cardinals, Black Hawks, Zephyrs) was home to more "big four" professional sports franchises than any other city, equalled only by New York (Dodgers, Giants, Yankees, Giants, Knickerbockers, Rangers). Philadelphia is the only city (I think - I'm writing this at 5am while half-asleep so I could be wrong about this one) to have lost both professional baseball (A's) and basketball (Warriors) franchises, yet which has both professional baseball (Phillies) and basketball (76ers) franchises today. By the time they had taken the court as an expansion team, the Miami Heat had already signed a player to a contract whose total value exceeded its expansion fee (Rony Seikaly - sp?)
  9. The Chargers turned down the San Diego proposal. Flat. I read somewhere in an article Monday afternoon that they've (at least for the moment) broken off talks, and that at least one city official involved in the deal has now taken an attitude of ":censored: it, let 'em go."
  10. No no no... the most hilarious possible outcome would be Vegas, Quebec, Hamilton and Houston applying, and deep into the process the financials for both the Quebec and Vegas groups don't meet NHL muster, forcing the league to expand into Hamilton and Houston.
  11. They could get Joe Buck to finance their proposal, and it wouldn't help.
  12. With the possible exception of their first one, that's the nicest Patriots design of the bunch.
  13. There. FTFY. Olbermann summed up Ronda (Rhonda?) Pearson pretty well: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DgNMprCFr4s&feature=youtu.be
  14. I propose "We are at Reloca-con 2" I'm more partial to something simple, like "Coyotes vs. Glendale II: The Rematch"
  15. One thing I learned in reading all that jazz: the NHL schedule's supposed to be out June 25th... If I'm in the NHL leadership, I'm frantically trying to work out a way to take as many Glendale dates out of that schedule as possible for 2015-16: Phoenix, Las Vegas, Salt Lake City, Kansas City, Seattle, Quebec... anywhere viable. Take the Coyotes on a San Juan Expos-like season.
  16. The TRO's been granted. Everybody's standing pat for the time being... http://www.abc15.com/sports/sports-blogs-local/arizona-coyotes-file-restraining-order-against-city-of-glendale Case Info: http://www.superiorcourt.maricopa.gov/docket/CivilCourtCases/caseInfo.asp Coyote's filing documents: http://coyotes.nhl.com/club/news.htm?id=770735
  17. Nah. It'd kill the NHL in the Phoenix market, but it wouldn't impact franchise values overall by any stretch. Yeah, I agree. Why Glendale made the deal they did stupefies me, and I can't say I blame them for killing it the first chance they had. How this plays out who knows, but the best thing for everyone involved would be for the team to head north.
  18. Glendale found a legal loophole and are using it to get out (buyer's remorse). They've had a few changes in the city council (probably in part due to the Coyotes deal), and the new council make-up apparently has been looking for an "out" since day one. I've spent the better part of 3 hours listening to the audio from this city council meeting, and the girl "hosting" the Fox10 News feed is about as impartial as Rush Limbaugh, in support of the team staying. They're talking about Glendale or potentially going to Phoenix. But here's the thing: as of last night, the team has no lease to play anywhere. The NHL could take any number of a really wide range of options, from taking temporary or permanent refuge in Phoenix to renegotiating with Glendale, from relocating to Quebec City, Las Vegas or another market, or even suspending/terminating the franchise. Personally I think Glendale's done no matter what.
  19. First: Sorry, guys... I don't follow hockey, let alone hockey threads on the CCSLC, deeply enough to have known this was the thread previously known as the Coyote relocation thread. There is no "Carolina situation," at least for three more years (when the least nears expiration). But I think even Karmanos realizes that any relocation threat would be quickly met with overwhelming laughter and a response of "Vaya con dios, Amigo."
  20. For the life of me I couldn't find the old Coyotes/Glendale/relocation thread, otherwise I'd post this there, but... this... is... priceless. http://www.12news.com/story/news/local/arizona/2015/06/10/coyotes-glendale-contact/28779763/
  21. The tax that pays off the Dome is a 3.5% hotels tax (which is on top of another hotels tax). It is commonly called the "Sports and Entertainment Tax," and exists "to provide funds for convention, tourism and sports facilities purposes and agencies." It is not, however, specifically tied to Dome payments. It was schemed up that way, but it's not formally marked that way.The Board of Alderman are charged with allocating the money. And annually, they allocate a portion of it towards making their bond payments. The tax has no sunset. So again, the revenue stream that was created to fund the Dome will continue to generate that revenue. The question is whether we choose to spend it in this manner, and also how many other ways it's allowed to be spent given the quoted constraints above. Yes, but when is the Dome due to be paid off? I understand that it still has nearly a decade to go. And then after that, it'll need renovations to be converted into full-time convention or whatever. It'd be longer if the Rams left, as less tax revenue would be collected.
  22. In both the Dodgers and Colts cases, there were extenuating circumstances (very decayed stadia, especially by today's standards) coupled with fan disbelief (up until the point where it was too late) that "their team" would be moved. In the Brooklyn-Los Angeles move, O'Malley was essentially thwarted from building a new stadium at the site where Barclays Center now sits, despite being willing to pay for the entire project himself without city financing. In the Baltimore-Indianapolis case, Bob Irsay had his hand forced by the State of Maryland, which was taking steps to seize the team via eminent domain. In neither case was lack of fan interest in the teams themselves even talked about as a consideration. Ebbets Field had miserable sight lines, antiquated seating and facilities, and virtually no parking nearby. Memorial Stadium in Baltimore also had miserable sight lines, nothing resembling today's luxury suites and no real way to construct them without destroying the place, and was in a residential neighborhood where fans going to games were routinely parking cars in driveways and in front of houses within walking distance - only to find their windshields shattered when they returned (for sake of unbiased disclosure - my father's car was one of those, having been busted out along with many others following a Steelers-Colts game there in the '70's). By contrast St. Louis' stadium has nowhere near as many problems - it's merely "old" by today's ever-increasingly complex standards. Except in the most obvious cases, no knowledgeable person has blamed the fans for a franchise relocation in the past half century. Ultimately they're the product of a failure between public parties (cities, commissions, what have you) and the franchise owners to cut a deal.
  23. The only market baseball ever should have had two teams in (from the original 16) was New York, and they should have only had two, rather than three. I've always been somewhat surprised that Los Angeles got the Angels just three years after the Dodgers got there, but I guess given that the powers that be felt compelled to replace the original Senators in Washington or potentially lose their antitrust exemption, Los Angeles seemed a logical companion market once O'Malley signed off on it.
  24. Actually in both of those cases, playing second banana in terms of attendance wasn't as much a deciding factor as was new ownership coming in and seeing greener pastures elsewhere... and their moves were ultimately linked to one another. The Braves weren't in bad shape as far as "second" teams in markets went. But Milwaukee had built a brand-new stadium in hope of attracting a major league franchise, and the Braves just happened to have rights to the territory thanks to having their AAA team (well, their then-equivalent of an AAA team, anyway) there. Lou Perini figured out there was more money to be made as the only team in Milwaukee as opposed to being one of two in Boston, bought out his partners and applied to relocate. The Browns meanwhile have gone down in history as St. Louis' "second team," but in fact had the upper hand with respect to the market right up until the Busch family bought the Cardinals. Both teams were at break-even, and the Browns owned Sportsman's Park. Despite this, Don Barnes got permission to sell the stadium to the Cardinals and move to Los Angeles - annnounced on December 6, 1941 and to be voted on by AL owners at a meeting two days later. But of course by then, World War II was underway and the deals were dead. Barnes ultimately would sell out, but by 1952, it was actually the Cardinals that were about to move. Their owner, Fred Saigh, was indicted on tax evasion and other charges in association with some shady dealings, and was pressured to sell out. Like the Braves with Milwaukee, the Cardinals held rights to another territory (Houston, Texas) and were poised to be sold to a group that would have moved the team there. But then the Busch family stepped in and bought the team, at which point now-Browns owner Bill Veeck realized despite the leverage of owning Sportsman's Park, he'd never be able to compete head-to-head with an owner whose financial resources literally could be tapped. Veeck first tried to move the team (back) to Milwaukee, but got thwarted by Lou Perini and the Braves. He then looked to Baltimore, where they eventually went (after Veeck got shoved out as owner).
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