Boondoggle in the Bronx

Neil DeMause nicely sums up why the new Yankee Stadium is nothing to celebrate:
“The Yankees deal actually manages to be both the largest team expense on a stadium in history, and the largest public expense on a stadium in history, somewhere in the neighborhood of $1 billion. The city gets no part of the new [...]

The Humiliation of Taiwan

When you see Taiwan competing in international events like the Olympics or the World Baseball Classic, you’ll notice it goes by the moniker “Chinese Taipei” and its athletes stand for the Chinese national anthem. This isn’t by choice, as “Uncle Popov” reminds us in an excellent piece at the Bleacher Report.
Depending on whom you ask, [...]

Just Curious …

Now that TARP-funds recipient CitiGroup has finally turned a quarterly profit, can we stop wringing hands over the company’s sponsorship of the Mets’ new ballpark–a legitimate advertising expense?
No?

The Yankee Stadium GBA Controversy

A fan is suing the Yankees and the City of New York for, as he claims, being ejected from Yankee Stadium for leaving his seat during the playing of “God Bless America.”
There’s a discussion of the legal elements in play over at BBTF, and, frankly, the lawyers in residence over there know far more about [...]

Off-Topic: MLB Predictions

Opening Day, finally and thankfully, is upon us. So please permit me to wander off-topic just a bit and make some predictions for the upcoming MLB season …

What Does Stevens Decision Mean for Bonds?

The feds have asked that the corruption case against former Alaska senator Ted Stcvens be thrown out. They’re doing so because of some prosecutorial misconduct (not an uncommon thing these days, it would seem). This leads Shysterball’s Craig Calcaterra, who’s a real-life lawyer and everything, to wonder whether this bodes well for Barry Bonds:
The Bonds’ [...]

The Obamas in Britain

While some in the blogosphere are getting the vapors over President Obama’s decision to give an IPod to the Queen, it’s worth noting that the First Lady came up big with her gift to the five-year-old son of PM Gordon Brown:
For yesterday’s return visit, the First Lady gave five-year-old John Brown a little piece of [...]

Sports and the Meddling Prosecutor

Reason has run an exceptional piece on law enforcement’s encroachment upon the sports world. To summarize,
Prosecutors are taking advantage of the drastic post-1970 expansion of the federal criminal code to conduct legal shaming exercises against notorious sporting figures, often using charges that are tangential at best to the behavior that sparked investigative interest in the [...]

More Blago and the Cubs

As a Chicago resident, I of course condemn our the actions of our defrocked governor, but at the same time I’ll miss his almost comedic levels of corruption. It made for good reading. For example …
“This could measurably complicate Project Elwood,” wrote William Brandt, chairman of the Illinois Finance Authority.
Project Elwood—an apparent reference to a [...]

Worst Idea of the Day

Over at Huff Po, Dave Hollander has a–and I’m trying to be charitable here–“novel” idea for exposing and punishing steroids users in baseball. He talks about it to Padres right-hander Chris Young:
So, why don’t clean players who’ve unfairly suffered sue the dirty players who unfairly profited?
I’ve wondered that myself. I mean that’s something that has [...]