Wall St , Main St Who The Fu_k Can Tell The Difference Nowadays ?

Wall St , Main St Who The Fu_k Can Tell The Difference Nowadays ?

It’s really asinine to hear these late sports’ radio talk show hosts regale us about how passionate they are abourt sports and how they view it as part of the fabric of society. Well if that means lying cheating and stealing then it now most certainly is . Nowhere perhaps more so than within the sport of MLB (baseball) where Bud Selig and his pals have simply shat upon the fans while trying to portray themselves as the paragons of virtue . And for the imbecile who has his own syndicated late night talk show on Fox Sports Radio please shut the fu_k up once and for all as you’re making a complete ass of yourself kissing and licking the ass of Selig as if it’s actually the nectar of the Gods ……………. for the unitiatated that’s wine.

Within the past forty eight hours it’s come to the public’s notice what sort of fraud has been perpetrated upon the public and barely a damn thing will be done neither by the hierarchy of baseball , or for that matter the so called journalists who actually cover the sport in great detail. One thing I can assure you won’t hear anyone from within the so called hallowed halls of ESPN or Fox Sports question the actions of the teams and the office of Bud Selig as it has come to our notice the actions and antics of Bob Nutting ( Pittsburgh Pirates) , Jefrey Loria ( Florida Marlins) and to a lesser extent the Tampa Bay Rays’ front office in their business dealings . We’ve had Congress via the House Oversight & Reform Committee subpoaena Selig and slew of inidividuals within the game and representatives from the MLBPA in order to question them upon the actions that took place during the steroid era. Those hearings have turned out to be a farce and a complete waste of time as nothing has been resolved other than the idiotic claim by Selig that the game now has the most stringent testing policy of the four major sports . When Selig has the mind and wherewithal to blow smoke up someone’s ass he certainly doesn’t confine himself by doing it with half measures . He simply proceeds to commit you to bend over and drive that ramrod right up your rectum for good measure. In light of that I’m now beginning to wonder with the revelations that the profits earned by the Marlins , Pirates and Rays. And with them each having been in receipt of not only monies by way of MLB’s tax sharing revenues but also from the very fact that state governmental agencies as well as municipalities____ have gone out of their way to make sure that these teams have been given overly beneficial tax cuts and exemptions whilst little tangible has been recouped by those agencies in return.

====================================================================

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

====================================================================

Slide-show for your perusal .

It never ceases to amaze me when I hear certain individuals state that there ought not to be any government intervention when it comes to sports. Well to hell with that when the federal government has seen fit to give their governing bodies of all four major sports anti-trust exemption and then sit idly by when those hierarchies simply defraud the public and fans alike without doing anything . I beg the question why then did they seek to throw their full wrath against the likes of Bernie Madoff and the entire board of Enron , WorldCom Inc. and a slew of corproate entities who in effect through creative accounting were allowed to get away with bleeding billions out of the pockets of hard working employees and their shareholders. Granted, the SEC couldn’t find its ass from a whole in the ground . Simply another government agency that is about as much use as a piece of fecal matter stuck on the sole of one’s shoes. But when will the members in particular of the House Oversight Committee wake the hell up and actually do their jobs . Because as of now Bud Selig and the team owners cannot be trusted at all tell the truth much less be completely transparent in their dealings. The actions of the team in question though on the surface may appear to be legal but in some respects I do believe that were the FASB (Financial Accounting Standards Board) brought in to take a comprhensive look at the books of not only MLB but aslo each of the thirty ballclubs there would be some eyebrows raised as to what has gone on and what the heirarchy of the game has most certainly allowed them to get away with .

Courtesy of Yahoo Sports

Marlins’ profits came at taxpayer expense

By Jeff Passan of Yahoo Sports

The swindlers who run the Florida Marlins got exposed Monday. They are as bad as anyone on Wall Street, scheming, misleading and ultimately sticking taxpayers with a multibillion-dollar tab. Corporate fraud is alive and well in Major League Baseball.

A look at the leak of the Marlins’ financial information to Deadspin confirmed the long-held belief that the team takes a healthy chunk of MLB-distributed money for profit. Owner Jeffrey Loria and president David Samson for years have contended the Marlins break even financially, the centerpiece fiscal argument that resulted in local governments gifting them a new stadium that will cost generations of taxpayers an estimated $2.4 billion . They said they had no money to do it alone and intimated they would have to move the team without public assistance.

In fact, documents show, the Marlins could have paid for a significant amount of the new stadium’s construction themselves and still turned an annual operating profit. Instead, they cried poor to con feckless politicians that sold out their constituents.

The ugliness of the Marlins’ ballpark situation is already apparent, and the building doesn’t open for another 18 months. Somehow a team that listed its operating income as a healthy $37.8 million in 2008 alone swung a deal in which it would pay only $155 million of the $634 million stadium complex. Meanwhile, Miami-Dade County agreed – without the consent of taxpayers – to take $409 million in loans loaded with balloon payments and long grace periods. By 2049, when the debt is due, the county will have paid billions.

Most harrowing is the takeaway that baseball’s biggest welfare case could have funded a much greater portion of the ballpark. In 2009, when the Marlins started spending some of their profits on their portion of the stadium, they still had an operating income of $11.1 million. The team fought to conceal the $48.9 million in profits over the last two years because the revelation would have prompted county commissioners to insist the team provide more funding. Loria, an art dealer with a net worth of hundreds of millions, wouldn’t stand for that. He wanted as much public funding as possible – money that could’ve gone toward education or to save some of the 1,200 jobs the county is cutting this year.

Surely Samson was joking when he called the leak of the Marlins documents and those of five other teams “a crime.” No, the real misdeed occurred when the head of a professional sports franchise misled the public in order to secure money that wasn’t his. When Forbes in 2007 reported the Marlins had the highest operating income in baseball, Samson denied the team profited, saying: “Very often the mistake that’s made is they look at revenue sharing numbers and the team’s payroll and take the difference and see profit without looking at our expenses.”

============================================================
Click on the above link to read this article in its entirety .
==============================================================

Marlins’ owner Jeffrey Loria and his stepson , team President David Sampson seems aggrieved that documentation has come out detailing the profits of the ballclub and the fact that they have misled the Miami Dade County Government as well as the city of Miami Government with regard to financial well being. And all of this was done during and prior the leadup of the vote that would clear the way for a new ballpark to be built for the team on the land where the Orange Bowl Stadium was situated in downtown Miami. Whilst this has gone we’ve also had the rancourings of Nutting whose simply tried to abate the growing resentment of his actions and that of the Pirates’ front office . Their lackadaisical approach to what Nutting believes is a step in the right direction as to the competitiveness of the team belies what has taken place since he took over the organization. He and his syndicate members have pocketed tens millions of dollars while the team still remains the laughing stock of baseball and around the entire league . As many of you will no doubt know the monies given to the teams via thei league’s tax sharing revenue scheme is meant for the organizations to bolster their rosters in order to place a competitive product on the field of play. In all honesty can anyone actually attest to that the fact that is what has been done by the Pirates who play their games at PNC Park ? In recent years the same could be said of the Marlins , albeit that they have won two World Series titles in the past fifteen years.

Now Bud Selig could well plead to the fact that he simply knew nothing of what has taken place and the actions of the teams therei . But given what we’ve seen from Selig and his handling of the steroid and the total intransigence shown by him and then union Executive Director Donald Fehr . Once again has to ask if he actually knew nothing then he should’ve made it his business to know . It’s not as if the actions of the owners have been completely above board and at the same time the naivete shown by the respective governmental agencies at all levels has to come into question. I mean who the hell nowadays simply takes the word of multi-millionaire or billionaire franchise owner as if their word is gospel ? Only a complete idiot one would hazard a guess but then again simply look at the actions of the present administration and that of both Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner and Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke ? Inaction on both their parts and that of what many believe be collusion on the part of Congress and the US Senate has led many to believe that the financial meltdown could have been avoided had both legislative chambers not been in the pockets of the lobbyists of Wall St and beyond. The same can be said of Selig and his interaction with the owners around baseball. How can anyone tell the difference anymore with regard to the actions of those on Wall Street and that of the actions of the owners within MLB ? Can you actually say that there’s no difference between the two given the most recent revelations made ?

=====================================================================================

Florida Marlins’ owner Jeffrey Loria whose actions and that of the team’s front office in misleading the governmental agencies of Miami Dade County the city of Miami and that the of the state of Florida has proven to be embarrassing for the owner and the hierarchy of MLB . Getty Images / Doug Benc ……….

An artist’s rendition of what will be the new proposed Marlins ballpark set in downtown Miami. The venue is due for completion before the start of the 2011-12 season . courtesy of Getty Images ……..

(L-R) Florida Marlins team President David Sampson , City of Miami Mayor Manny Diaz, MLB Commisioner Bud Selig , Florida Marlins owner Jeffrey Loria and Miami-Dade County Mayor Carlos Alvarez attend the groundbreaking ceremony for the Florida Marlins baseball team’s new stadium on July 18, 2009 in Miami, Florida. The park is scheduled to open in 2012 and the team intends to change its name to the Miami Marlins prior to the completion of the ballpark. Getty Images North America Inc / Marc Serotta ……..

Commisioner Bud Selig (L) and Florida Marlins owner Jeffrey Loria (R) attend the groundbreaking ceremony for the Florida Marlins baseball team’s new stadium on July 18, 2009 in Miami, Florida. The park is scheduled to open in 2012 and the team intends to change its name to the Miami Marlins prior to the completion of the ballpark. Getty Images North America / Marc Serotta ……….

(L-R) Florida Marlins team President David Sampson, City of Miami Mayor Manny Diaz and MLB Commisioner Bud Selig attend the groundbreaking ceremony for the Florida Marlins baseball team’s new stadium on July 18, 2009 in Miami, Florida. The park is scheduled to open in 2012 and the team intends to change its name to the Miami Marlins prior to the completion of the ballpark. Getty Images North America / Marc Serotta ……..

Major League Baseball commissioner Bud Selig speaks at a ceremony to unveil a statue of Selig outside Miller Park Tuesday, Aug. 24, 2010, in Milwaukee. Selig is the former owner of the Milwaukee Brewers. AP Photo/Morry Gash ………

Selig (center) is seen here alongside Hall of Famers Hank Aaron (right) and Rollie Fingers (left) outside Miller Park , Milwaukee at the unveiling of a statue to honor Selig and his commitment to the Milwaukee Brewers , the team he once owned before assuming the role as MLB Commissioner . courtesy AFP/ Reuters / Chris Parker

=======================================================================================

Picture gallery for your perusal .

What thoughts if any do you have on the revelations that are now coming to light as to how many of the teams within baseball big and small actually now derive their profits ? Do you believe that in any way the government ought to intervene ? Or do you believe that this is best handled by the hierarchy of baseball and the team owners themselves ? Simply chime on in with a comment as to your own thoughts on the matter either way .

Alan aka tophatal …….. 🙂

Actress Sasha Alexander formerly of the CBS hit series “NCIS” and now can be seen on TNT’s new crime drama “Rizzoli & Isles” in which she co-stars alongside Angie Harmon formerly of NBC’s Law & Order