April 8, 2005
Take me back from the ballgame
Let me start off by stating that while I may sound anti-baseball at times, I assure you that I am a huge fan of our national pastime and while my loyalties lie elsewhere, you will likely find me in the cheap seats at RFK more than a few times this summer.
But baseball is just baseball, nothing more, nothing less. And while we may idolize our favorite players, the team owners are simply the businessmen who make money off our pastime, selling $8 hot dogs and $20 nosebleed tickets and television rights and whatnot, as they should.
The problem comes when the owners start to think of themselves as star players, expecting to be fawned over every time they make a request. So when the owners (the Nats are owned by all of the other MLB owners for now) ask for yet another special favor, after fighting to get a stadium built on somoene else's dime, it's no surprise that people are starting to tire (if they weren't tired already) of the escalating special favors they keep requesting in exchange for blessing us with their presence.
As you may have heard, it's asking Metro to keep its trains running late for free, something it doesn't even do for charitable events.
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| Robert Smith |
A good attitude is best expressed by Metro Board member Robert Smith (pictured here in an undated photo):
"I think Major League Baseball is run by a significant number of millionaires," Smith said. "I think they could pick up $18,000 for an extra hour of Metro service. They need to pay the price to operate their business like any other business in the city."
Why, I think you're right.
(And yes, if you're asking, I did this entire post just so I could run the Robert Smith picture.)
Posted by rj3 at April 8, 2005 10:02 AM
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Comments
RJ,
While I agree with you that most owners are rich douchebags who charge too much for hot dogs and should damn-well shell out the funds to have metro open late I'll disagree with you on one point.
"selling...$20 nosebleed tickets"
You've got your sports confused, because in baseball, this just isn't true.
The "nosebleed tickets" or Outfield Upper Reserve for the Nationals cost $7. In contrast, the crappy seats for a Skins game are in the $40 range, Caps have $20 bad seats (although they get lower occasionally), and the Wizards upper concourse go from $10-48 (although i've never gotten a $10 ticket to a basketball game).
Even the premier teams in the baseball, your Yankees and my Sox offer $12 bleacher seats.
I'll let you get back to your regularly scheduled bitching.
Posted by: chris at April 8, 2005 10:37 AM
I think there are some pretty bad $20 seats out there.
Posted by: rj3 at April 8, 2005 10:46 AM
The article continues:
"We're already providing Metro with an additional customer base," Barry said.
If it were only that easy. That only works when you're running a PROFITABLE business. Each one of those extra clients doesn't earn Metro extra cash -- it costs metro money. Idiots.
Posted by: amg at April 8, 2005 11:44 AM
Wow RJ, you really never are willing to give in.
Posted by: Chris at April 8, 2005 3:29 PM