Craig Calcaterra explains why he expects that today’s negotiations deadline was a soft one and that Albert Pujols will eventually get his extension from the Cardinals, and it all seems to make sense. But the Mets have all that money coming off the books next year and a young first baseman with a good arm who’s supposedly willing and able to move to right field, so, you know, we can dream.
The Wilpons said they will not sell a controlling stake, and Trump isn’t known to be a passive investor.
“That’s been the rumor,” he said.
Asked whether he would consider investing without gaining control, Trump responded: “I haven’t thought that far down the line. We’ll see what happens.”
Major League Baseball has rules against casino ownership by its team owners, which could prove an impediment if Trump chooses to make a deal with the Wilpons.
“If I can help, great,” Trump said. “And it not, that would be OK.
– Ronald Blum, Associated Press.
A couple people asked me about this so I figured I should weigh in. My opinion: Meh.
Sure sounds to me like another case of, “Hey, here’s a famous rich guy with ties to New York, let’s ask him if he wants to buy the Mets” and then the famous rich guy being like, “well, now that you mention it, I am really rich, and I do like being famous, so let me say nothing particularly committal to see if I can get my name in the headlines for a couple of days because I so enjoy that.”
In other words: I’d be pretty surprised if Donald Trump ends up with a minority or majority share of the Mets anytime soon. For one thing, and as I’ve said before, there are lots of non-famous rich people out there who are probably equally likely to buy a share of the team (and who would presumably be more content to be silent partners) as any famous rich people. Second, I bet that casino thing is a pretty big deal for MLB. The league does not look kindly upon involving the sport with gambling.
People seem to have pretty strong opinions about Trump one way or the other, but I haven’t followed enough of his business ventures or TV show to know much about him besides that he’s got silly hair and seems like something of a blowhard. Some say he singlehandedly ruined the USFL. While I go read about that, enjoy this Photoshop from reader Glenn:
FuquaManuel at Phillies Blog The Good Fight does a nice job dispelling some of the myths about starting rotations that I often rail against here.
Interesting stuff vaguely pertaining to the Albert Pujols negotiations.
Are there any real journalistic standards when it comes to identifying sources and are sports reporters following those standards anymore? I always thought that some insight into how the source may have gotten the information and/or their motivations for disclosing the information was required.
I mean we hear so much of stuff like “a source within baseball” or “a source close to the negotiations” these days, which tells us nothing at all about the source or the potential reliability of their information. Aren’t they required to provide at least some sort of background on the source?
– Chris, via email.
Good question. I didn’t go to journalism school so I never learned any ethical guidelines for that type of stuff. I consulted friend of TedQuarters and one-time Award Winning SaxaCenter Program correspondent Gina, who did go to journalism school, and she said it all depends on the editor and the specific case. That seems to make sense.
From what I understand, a good deal of anonymous sources in baseball — especially when it comes to contract negotiations — are agents or employees of the agent, or as they’re better known, “sources with knowledge of the negotiations.” A couple years ago, Rich Lederer at BaseballAnalysts.com did a nice job running down the details of one apparent association.
So as Chris suggests, it’s right to be skeptical of any anonymously sourced story. Keep in mind always that the source probably has a reason for divulging the information beyond just wanting to see his words in print. Since all baseball journalists — and really all journalists, I suppose — compete for pageviews, editors are likely less motivated to pull a juicy tip out of a story even if it comes straight from an interested party.
But since we’re all here on the Internet craving information, I’m not even sure it’s a bad thing. It is what it is, as they say. The onus falls on us to sort out which journalists (and sources) are more credible and to try to determine who’s feeding what to whom. Then we digest all the information and form our own opinions.
Rich checks in from Port St. Lucie:
Somehow I missed this when it broke a couple years ago: Billy Ripken has no one to blame but himself for being known to a generation of fans as “[expletive] Face.” Also, he gave copies of his infamous Fleer card to the groomsmen in his wedding. Lots of good stuff in here.
I look back on it and I’m not saying A.J. Burnett is the reason we didn’t win the World Series, nothing like that. But without being cocky and arrogant, I think if I would have pitched up to my par it would’ve been a lot smoother going into the postseason and we’d have had a lot better chance. I really felt, damn, they really could’ve used A.J.
– A.J. Burnett.
Burnett goes on to refer to himself in the third person twice more in the same Daily News article, for an impressive total of four. Not bad, sir.
Also of note: Burnett and his wife both find the band Disturbed worth traveling for.
There’s only one new one and it’s really not all that embarrassing in the grand scheme of embarrassing photos of Cole Hamels, but hey, baseball season’s starting and it has probably been a while since you’ve browsed our compendium of embarrassing photos of Cole Hamels.
Tedquarters 