Bud Selig Puts The Emphasis On The Letter “D” In The Word “Dumb” …. !

Bud Selig Puts The Emphasis On The Letter “D” In The Word “Dumb” …….. !

I’m now trying to fathom how it is that the MLB — hierarchy having agreed in principle to the sale of the Houston Astros by Drayton McLane to Houston businessman James Crane seems to have hit a snag . For some reason after a meeting of the team owners and league hierarchy having met at the Otesaga Hotel , in Cooperstown, New York , commissioner Bud Selig chose to postpone the vote for the approval in the sale ( $680 million) of the baseball club. Pardon me , for being out of the loop on this but what the hell are Bud Selig and his compatriots thinking , stalling this procedure ? Isn’t it bad enough that the fans have had to endure the utter stupidity of the league hierarchy in their handling of the Los Angeles Dodgers and the odious actions of Frank McCourt and the entire front office of the organization ? The formal statement issued from the commissioner’s office on the matter(sale of the Astros) is that the vote will be dealt with at a latter date .

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Slideshow for your perusal .

I’ve long held the opinion that Bud Selig might just be the most gullible and naive executive in all of professional sports ! His tenure as the game’s highest ranking executive has been filled high and low points throughout this era . But it’d remiss to simply carry on chastising the commissioner without pointing to some of the good that he’s done for the game . But to hell with it , why should I ? From my own perspective I do believe that this sale will be approved , with Crane gaining outright control of the team after the free-fall of the organization during the tenure of McLane’s ownership in recent years . The lack of success postseason or otherwise over the years have been fleeting for Houston Astros .

Houston Astros owner Drayton McLane, left, listens as Jim Crane, right, speaks during a news conference to announce a group led by Crane is purchasing the baseball team from McLane, pending approval from Major League Baseball, Monday, May 16, 2011, in Houston. AP Photo/David J. Phillip …….

This season has been one lowly expectations and derisory play by this Astros’ ballclub . If nothing else it leaves the fans with a sense of abject failure and nothing positive to take away from the experience while in attendance at Minute Maid Park in Houston , Texas. In the Astros’ most recent game played against the lowly Chicago Cubs , themselves fellow residents within the NL Central _____ a meeting of two of the worse teams in all of baseball. There’s a great deal of mediocre baseball being played at present but perhaps none more so than by both the Astros and Cubs.

Courtesy of Foxsports

What’s holding up Astros’ sale ?

By Ken Rosenthal & Jon Paul Morosi

When Jim Crane agreed to purchase the Houston Astros in mid-May, baseball officials estimated that the approval process would take two months.

The process is now at three months and counting.

Baseball announced Monday that a vote on Crane’s bid is not expected at this week’s owners meetings in Cooperstown, NY, stunning ownership representatives throughout the sport and raising questions about the sale’s viability.

As recently as Monday morning, Crane was under the impression that his purchase of the club for $680 million would become official this week, according to one source.

Two separate issues account for the delay, sources say.

• Baseball’s efforts to resolve the Dodgers’ ownership situation, which is diverting manpower from the vetting of Crane and his partners.

• Commissioner Bud Selig’s discomfort with one or more aspects of the Astros sale, which makes him unwilling to submit Crane for approval to the owners at this stage.

“The standard due diligence that must be completed before any transaction of this magnitude can close remains ongoing,” baseball said in a statement.

“Because that procedure is continuing, it is not expected that the proposed sale of the Astros will go to the approval process at this week’s owners’ meetings. Major League Baseball will continue to work as expeditiously as possible to complete the process.”

The next owners meetings are scheduled for November in Milwaukee. Baseball could conduct a phone vote on the Astros sale before then, and both Crane and the team’s current owner, Drayton McLane, might lobby for such an outcome. The team is on pace to lose 111 games, and the delay could complicate its offseason planning, sources said.

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Click on link to read article in its entirety .

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For his part, I think that Jim Crane will be aggressive in trying to make this organization more competitive and most certainly looking to facilitate a much more consummate business approach altogether for this ballclub. Granted, over the years Drayton McClane has spent capriciously on free agents while seeking to win a World Series title . The draft choices of the organization have reaped some dividends for the Houston Astros but overall there had been the tendency to accept that when failure arose it was accepted and that would be it . With the ball-club having traded — Hunter Pence their best player to the Philadelphia Phillies at the trade deadline, this sent a sense of foreboding as to what the fans are to expect over the remainder of the season .

At this point last year the Houston Astros were striving to make their mark within the division and the league as a whole . Much of what we have come to expect of a team that struggles tends to come from poor play , compounded with multiple team injuries and in some cases poor a management style but in reality simply put , these are the things one would come to expect of a beleaguered organization . Jim Crane will have to assert himself and make demands of this organization if things are to change for the better . If not, then one could foresee that the changes made as determined by the owner that could very well be drastic indeed . At the end of this year , I do believe that those changes will be made one way or another !

Iriving Picard as the plaintiffs’ attorney in the lawsuit filed against the New York Mets’ — organization as well as the ballclubs two primary owners Saul Katz and Fred Wilpon has won an initial ruling that would allow Picard to receive an initial sum of $300 million from the club as part of the approximately $750 million originally sought in damages. If one recalls , the case against the New York Mets and the two owners , were , that they knowingly profited from the monies derived from the Bernie Madoff Ponzi Scheme that defrauded thousands of clients to the tune of $59 billion ($59,000,000,000) . Reiterated by Irving Picard in the suit that bears the brunt of the plaintiffs’ claims are that the defendants knew that the monies received over the course of time had been derived fom an illegal act .

Courtesy of the New York Times

Madoff Trustee Gets a Green Light on Clawbacks

By Peter J. Henning

Irving H. Picard , the trustee overseeing the liquidation of Bernard L. Madoff’s investment advisory firm, received good news from the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit on Tuesday when it affirmed his position on how investor claims should be treated.

Under his approach, those who invested more than they received from Mr. Madoff’s huge Ponzi scheme , the net losers, can pursue claims for reimbursement, while those who took out more than they put in, the net winners, are subject to lawsuits to recoup their gains.

The Second Circuit found that Mr. Picard’s position for assessing investor claims, called the “net investment method,” was more consistent with the applicable legal standard “than any other method advocated by the parties or perceived by this court.”

The appellate ruling comes on the heels of a recent decision by Judge Jed S. Rakoff of the Federal District Court in Manhattan rejecting the trustee’s authority to pursue claims against banks and others who were accused of helping to perpetuate Mr. Madoff’s scheme.

That decision throws into doubt some of Mr. Picard’s multibillion-dollar claims against deep-pocketed defendants like JPMorgan Chase , Bank Medici and UniCredit.

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Click on link to read this article in its entirety .

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Both Katz and Wilpon , as the two prominent defendants in the case have denied all culpability and any wrongdoing with regard to knowlingly profiting from Madoff’s scheme . However , much of their defense juxtaposes and hinges on the premise that the duo were also victims of Bernard Madoff’s malfeasance . It has been intimated that Katz and Wilpon’s investment company Sterling Equities Inc used their company to siphon off the monies they claimed to be profits from their original investments in the Ponzi Scheme __ moving those funds around various resources at their disposal including the New York Mets and other associated companies within Sterling Equities Inc . It is hard to actually quantify the misdeeds of Madoff but it is even harder to believe that both Saul Katz and Fred Wilpon would think that the public at large are susceptible to their claims that they did not know that the person, who they personally knew and trusted had been in fact been compliant and complicit in perpetrating a massive fraud and grand larceny. And the two defendants are said to be investment gurus , beloved by investors and financial institutions on Wall Street, alike .

Now far be it for me to suggest that Bud Selig’s handling of the Mets’ affair has been a classic case of a bungling executive who’s simply clueless as to how dire this situation has become . Now as we all know David Einhorn CEO of Green Light Capital Investments Inc. has plowed $250 million of his own money to purchase a stake in the New York Mets . I can only surmise that that Einhorn and his legal counsel were advised that this was a prudent investment by the business entrepreneur . Far be it for me to suggest this but it is my honest opinion that Selig sought Einhorn’s intervention in purchasing this stake as a way and means of avoiding any further misconception that he’s (Bud Selig) not fully aware of the ongoing saga and how best to deal with that situation . Public statements from the commissioner’s office have been minimal at best , other than to suggest that they are closely monitoring the matter . If that means , Selig’s scrutiny was along the lines of watching the Los Angeles Dodgers’ saga unfold to the point where owner Frank McCourt took the team and filed for Chapter 11 Bankruptcy proceedings , then it leads me to believe that the commissioner is an even bigger ass than I originally took him for ! He has simply watched as McCourt and his associates have maliciously caused irreparable damage to the image and reputation of the ball-club. And though the organization are the recipients of a $150 million loan from JP Morgan Chase until the end of the baseball season.

I’m no conspiracy theorist but JP Morgan Chase as a major financial institution was also one of the biggest recipients of taxpayers’ monies under the federal government’s TARP Program ( Troubled Assets Relief Program) which was overseen by the US Treasury Dept and its head Tim Geithner . If an institution the size of JP Morgan Chase can be the recipient of $45 billion ($45,000,000,000) of the public’s money and then simply have the brevitas to state that they are now lending more money to small and mid-sized businesses across the nation than ever before , then I would have to believe that Los Angeles Dodgers would now have to be considered a small to mid size business ! How do you feel about that as a perception in the grand scheme of things ?

Over the ensuing months I would like to think that the league hierarchy under Bud Selig’s tenure would now show some common sense in dealing not only with the Los Angeles Dodgers and now the New York Mets’ situation . But given the commissioner’s premise that under the watchful eye of C. Thomas Schieffer the league can closely assess the ongoing actions of Frank McCourt during these deliberations , it would be safe to think that the commissioner has the fortitude to do what is right . In the case of the New York Mets , well that is one saga that as it unfolds has become a soap opera that still has many episodes to played out for the public’s consumption.

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Picture gallery for your perusal .

Given the ongoing saga of the Los Angeles Dodgers and New York Mets how would do you now view the commissioner’s handling of both situations ? And do you feel that the decision by the league hierarchy will prove to be a hindrance in the sale of the Houston Astros at this juncture or merely the process being delayed until a time more fitting for league and owners to take a vote on the matter ? Last but not least , how do you believe that Jim Crane will fare as the owner of the Houston Astros and do you feel that he will ultimately be a success ? Do offer up your comments as to the points raised and thanks as always for the continued support as it is greatly appreciated !

Alan aka tophatal ……. https://tophatal.wordpress.com

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Picture and slide show details below.

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(1) Houston Astros owner Drayton McLane, left, listens as Jim Crane, right, speaks during a news conference to announce a group led by Crane is purchasing the baseball team from McLane, pending approval from Major League Baseball, Monday, May 16, 2011, in Houston. AP Photo/David J. Phillip …….

(2) MLB Commissioner Bud Selig seen here at the dais addressing the press and fans prior to the commencement of 2011 All Star Game staged at Chase Field in Phoenix , Arizona home to the Arizona Diamondbacks . In what was thought to be a straight-forward process in approving the vote in the sale of the Houston Astros the commissioner sought to postpone the vote in order to ratify what he believes to be are several anomalies that do not meet his approval . There is now some speculation that Jim Crane the Houston businessman whose consortium bid $680 million for the team may well withdraw that offer and walk away from the deal altogether. Courtesy of AFP/Photo/ Mark Templeton ……….

(3) Pitcher Bud Norris (20) of the Houston Astros talks with manager Brad Mills (2) at Minute Maid Park on August 17, 2011 in Houston, Texas. The Astros would go on to defeat the Chicago Cubs 4-3 . Photo by Bob Levey/Getty Images ……..

(4) Third baseman Jimmy Paredes (38) of the Houston Astros tags out Darwin Barney (15) of the Chicago Cubs who was caught in a rundown at Minute Maid Park on August 17, 2011 in Houston, Texas. Houston won 4-3. Photo by Bob Levey/Getty Images …….

(5) David Einhorn, part owner of the New York Mets, watches the game against the Philadelphia Phillies at Citi Field on May 28, 2011 in the Flushing neighborhood of the Queens borough of New York City. Chris Trotman / Getty Images North America …….

(6) Irving Picard the court appointed trustee entrusted in seeking to recoup the losses of the plaintiffs in the Bernard Madoff Ponzi Scheme. Bloomberg News / Daniel Acker …….

(7) New York Mets team President Saul Katz (left) and principal partner and owner Fred Wilpon seen here at the team’s new venue Citi Field in Flushing , New York. The two as well as the Mets’ organization and their jointly owned investment company Sterling Equities Inc . are defendants in a civil suit filed by plaintiffs who are victims of the Bernard Madoff Ponzi Scheme. Getty Images / Andrew Burton …………

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