http://disqus.com/by/evanus/enTue, 17 Feb 2009 21:25:18 -0000http://ecsiegal.tumblr.com/post/78557534#comment-6360269<p>Well written Ronny and you are ask the right questions. I have made dishes and restaurants better in my mind then they were in real life. Unfortunately for PJs, I think the food is just not the same.</p>evanusTue, 17 Feb 2009 21:25:18 -0000http://ecsiegal.tumblr.com/post/78898487#comment-6322983<p>Despite Sam's inability to spell Pythons correctly, he is a truly credible source of information when it comes to the NJ Nets. Off the record, it has been told to me he is on a first name basis with former Nets great Buck Williams.</p>evanusMon, 16 Feb 2009 23:36:03 -0000http://www.mokoyfman.com/post/77354403#comment-6264950<p>It is a shame what has happened to baseball. The union, since its inception, was always designed to help the players from the powerful collusion of baseball owners. And in that goal they achieved great success. Arguably the players association is the most powerful union in the country. The days where major league stars required off season jobs to support themselves and their families are not only long gone but also so far from today's landscape that they are difficult to believe.</p><p>Nevertheless, isn't it our misguided belief that the union's purpose was ever anything other than to look out for its own. The reality is that baseball players were being exploited and the need for a union was necessary. Furthermore, the owners for their part are still comfortably profiting in today's modern baseball era. The solution to your cry for "for pay and treatment" lies not with altering the structure of the union but with altering the oversight in baseball. Fans are clearly not capable of steering baseball to a moral high ground. Despite the news of Arod or the publication of the Mitchell Report, baseball revenues have continued to soar.</p><p>Once upon a time, the commissioner of baseball was not merely an employee of the owners or even an owner himself, as is the case with Bud Selig. The commissioner had a lifetime appointment and did care about the long-term interests "rather than the short-term gains." Like the financial crisis today, the risk reward balance is out of whack and the industry is incapable of regulating itself. Baseball is a business. You hear it often, but we never want to accept that. The players, the owners care about profits. The powers of the oversight authority, in this case the commissioner, need to be augmented. They need to be independent of the business.</p><p>However, that obligation is on the owners. It's easy to get mad at the players. They are the ones that cheated. It's their faces on the Wheaties box. They are the ones that disappoint our children and tarnish our nostalgic recollection of the game we played as children. That said, we gave them that power. And the sad reality of human frailty is that at some point they were going to disappoint us. Just ask Michael Phelps. We we just too naive to think otherwise. The owners decide the direction of the game.</p><p>I don't care about the money the players make and your anger shouldn't be directed at the player's union. They are operating within the construct created by the owners. I just get frustrated that they cheat and we keep paying to see them. In New York, if you win it's all forgiven. The fans can't balance the game, the players union sure won't do it. The owners have the power and it is them we must direct our attention towards. Just realize their is some billionaire owner laughing at all of us when we direct our distaste at the players but he realizes we aren't coming for him. If we were, then maybe he might change his ways. Worker's protection did not allow us to get in this position and neither did the Managing Director who underwrote the massive sub-prime loans that were made. The entire baseball industry did this and they did it on the backs of the owners. </p>evanusSat, 14 Feb 2009 17:14:57 -0000http://www.mokoyfman.com/post/69007493#comment-5154616<p>I hope this proves right as well. My concern is that the appetite to invest in new innovative businesses coupled with the elimination of significant wealth pushes individuals down more conservative routes. </p>evanusThu, 15 Jan 2009 18:10:30 -0000