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| 09 Jul 2005 12:11:22 am |
 Olympic Showdown; No Baseball? |
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With all the money the United States pours into the Olympic Games every time out, you would think the country would get a little respect. We get none! It was announced today that in the 2012 Olympics both baseball and softball would be eliminated from Olympic competition. The country which pours the most money into the sport gets brushed aside when it comes to its national pastime.
The US dumps tens of millions of dollars into the Olympic movement with television advertising and broadcast rights. For years we would not send our best athletes to the games because we strictly used amateurs while the Soviets, the Eastern Block and even the Asian countries sent professionals. They were professionals by the simple fact their sport was their profession.
Now after only a few Olympics of baseball and soft ball the US games are kicked out. It is also the national sport of Cuba and numerous other nations are picking up the great American game. Softball has been a huge hit with the women and now that is also gone.
The hint is there was some backlash to the Major League Baseball steroids controversy. Heck, the Olympics is where doping began! Remember in the 1960’s the charges the East German women and the Soviet women were drawing dangerously close to being men due to drug use.
Can anyone draw anything from Bulgarian weight lifters? C’mon! Doping in major league baseball compared to Olympic drug problems. Remember Ben Johnson, the sprinter who ran for Japan after failing his drug tests in 1988 during the Seoul games?
It’s time to draw the line with this one. Boycott the games. Not by pulling the athletes out as in 1984, but by withholding our money in any support of the Games except for our athletes. Let’s start with broadcast rights. Don’t bid the big bucks. Let the games go un-noticed except for a minimum sum. Congress needs to apply pressure here.
Let’s find a way to boycott the Olympic Games financially. There has to be a way to keep American dollars away from the IOC and still support our athletes who participate.
Let them pull soccer out of the games and draw the ire of the Italians, the Irish and the Argentines. Let them pull gymnastics from the games and see how fast the Chinese and the Russians scream. Let them pull the marathon from the games and watch the Kenyans and the other African nations yell at the IOC.
Pull any of those sports from the Olympic Games and the world would cry fix and politics. Let them pull baseball and softball and see the world cheer.
Okay, you won’t let us play the National Pastime, so let’s put our National Spectator Sport into the games: NFL Style Football. That will never happen as most of the rest of the world, beginning with the IOC isn’t man enough for a real sport. |
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Category : General
| By : kckings |  Comments [0] |  Trackbacks [5796] |
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| 07 Jul 2005 03:55:03 pm |
| Fleer and Upper Deck: a brand new day? |
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The latest word from the trading card world is while Donruss/Playoff etc, etc, was the destination of the Fleer Trading Card name and brand names, Upper Deck is making a big push. The west coast company has offered $2 million for the names associated with Fleer. This is higher than Playoff was negotiating and might just force Playoff out of the picture.
What would Upper Deck do with the name and why pay $2 million for the name of a company currently despised by collectors? The reason may be simple. Tradition and brand equity.
The Fleer name has been around for nearly a hundred years and people have short memories. Fleer by Upper Deck might actually be appealing to collectors; even those who are owed redemption cards from the former.
The brand name Ultra has a long tradition, especially in the retail end of the business (Wal-Mart, K-Mart, Target) and not a bad tradition in the hobby. There are other brand names, not as familiar, although Greats of the Game comes to mind and is a good one.
Topps certainly does not seem interested, or at least there doesn't seem to be any news of interest by Topps. Playoff could have used the name but $2 million is a lot of money for a question mark and for a company not as well off as the others.
An auction is expected for the name, inventory and the die-cast division on July 14th. Short notice but a quick resolution when choosing under New Jersey law not to place the company into bankruptcy.
There doesn't seem to be a bankruptcy filing at this point, with the lawyers charged with liquidating the company's assets going the auction route first. Liquidate everything you can, pay off the bills you can pay and walk away. No bankruptcy on the record and maybe the guys who took the company to this point do get some of their money back. They won't get $30 million for what they have to sell but they will get as much as they can and the legal fees won't linger forever as they would with a bankruptcy.
Whether Upper Deck will bid on the game used, autographs and cards will be another matter. We expect they would. Why not? The company could use this stuff in upcoming products.
As for the owners of Fleer, you might say it's easy in and easy out with the collectors left holding the bag in the meantime. |
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Category : General
| By : kckings | Comments [0] | Trackbacks [7268] |
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| 04 Jul 2005 09:52:36 am |
| THE FANS SCREW UP ALL STAR VOTING AGAIN |
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Fan voting for the Major League Baseball All-Star game is here to stay and this is still an unfortunate thing. Sure it gets the fans more involved in the game they want to see but again if you look at the rosters the fans voted into the game the same old discrepancies exist. The National League starters, voted by the fans, are dominated by the major market players. Fans can vote as often as they want and the more fans there are in a city, the more votes the home town gets.
No one is saying Mike Piazza and Carlos Beltran of the NEW YORK Mets are not deserving. But at .264 (Piazza, 9 HR) and .262 (Beltran 9HR) are not more deserving than Paul Lo Duca (.30 and Jason Bay (.311 15 HR), Miguel Cabrera (.342 16 HR) or Andruw Jones (.280 26 HR). How Jones was not voted to the starting line-up after carrying the Braves hitting attack is beyond me.
There are three ST. LOUIS Cardinals on the starting team, two NEW YORK Mets, one CHICAGO Cub, one PHILADELPHA Phillie and one LA Dodger. No medium or small market teams are represented.
Albert Pujols did not make the starting team but his first base rival Derek Lee is having a monster year. This is correct and the right way to vote. However, voting Piazza and Beltran or even David Eckstein over his SS counterparts, is just wrong. Eckstein at .290 is the Cardinals sparkplug. Are the fans saying he’s that much more deserving than the CINCINNATI Reds Felipe Lopez at .321 with 14 HR?
Take a look at the American League. Four BOSTON Red Sox, two BALTIMORE Orioles, one NEW YORK Yankee, one LOS ANGELES Angel and one lonely TEXAS Ranger. At least in the case of the American League fans they got the voting right. All of the players selected are much better, or are having better years than the reserves selected.
The problem exists though with the major market teams seemingly stuffing the ballot boxes. With baseballs disparity of the haves and the have-nots continuing to grow with small market teams left in the dust, the AS Game remains an enigma.
Making the game more important by giving the winner home field advantage in the World Series is as much of a joke as having fans decide who deserves to play in the AS Game. As long as baseball continues on this course of action the All-Star Game will be more of a showcase for the pre-game skills competition than it will ever be as a game to showcase the best of the best for the year it’s played.
At least when the writers voted to pick the players for the game you had someone to blame you could call by name. There was much more objectivity and there would be more today with the vast amount of media scrutiny of the writers and broadcasters.
It is definitely time to return the balloting to where it belongs. In the hands of the writers who cover the game and not the fans, many of whom haven’t a clue as to who the players are. |
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Category : General
| By : kckings | Comments [0] | Trackbacks [8009] |
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| 02 Jul 2005 12:25:38 am |
| Spielberg & Cruise lose the War of the Worlds |
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Tom Cruise is Tom Cruise, Dakota Fanning is wide eyed and dramatic when she’s not screaming, Tim Robbins is the consummate actor, Morgan Freeman phones it in and picks up a paycheck and Steven Spielberg loses the battle in ‘The War of the Worlds.’ And did I mention opening 4th of July weekend the film will make a hundred million bucks before it goes to video and will be THE blockbuster hit of the summer.
Why? You ask.
Because it has Tom Cruise as Tom Cruise, Dakota Fanning as the wide eyed little girl, Tim Robbins the consummate actor, the voice of Morgan Freeman and Steven Spielberg’s name out in front. And a lot of destructive action.
All this despite the fact it’s a pretty lousy movie.
Most people will spend their $9 to see it. It has some of the same twists as the original film with Gene Barry who makes a cameo at the end. I would say it has some of the same ‘plot’ twists but you have to have a ‘plot’ to twist in the first place.
The video action is pretty good, the Martians somewhat creative or at least true to the original film in many respects. There were the three pronged, or tripod Martian machines from the original film although vastly updated due to modern technology. This was nice.
The original film won an Oscar for Best Effects, Special Effects. This one could be nominated for the effects video work. There is a lot more competition for this kind of thing 52 years later however.
While the original had Barry as a scientist looking for a way to destroy the Martian menace, the Spielberg version had Tom Cruise (a dockworker) wandering aimlessly through New York and New England trying to get to Boston to dump off his kids with their mom (Tom’s ex).
All the while Cruise is trying to keep the horrors of the Martian invasion (which is destroying their home, their street, and everything that moves right in front of them) by telling Fanning to ‘close your eyes’ so she won’t see anything. His teen-aged son keeps asking what’s going on and Cruise acts confused in trying to tell him ‘don’t ask.’
While all the electric power is out (even in the cars on the street) Cruise conveniently tells his mechanic friend to change a solenoid in the car he’s working on. This sets up the obvious. Cruise grabs the car when the guy says he was right about the solenoid and our dockworker quickly becomes the ONLY person in New York with a working car (and all of New England as well). Well, except for the military and one lone news crew, which has a working van.
Robbins is wonderful as a somewhat eccentric citizen who offers Cruise and family shelter during an attack. He offers him Peach Schnapps. For a second I thought they were going to say the Peach Schnapps was what was going to kill the Martians. That would have been funny and as campy as ‘Mars Attacks’ based on the Topps trading card set of the late 1950’s. Sorry, it’s still the bacteria which kill the Martian hordes despite the fact the word ‘bacteria’ is never used.
While the original had the creatures dying outside a church where everyone went to pray, no such Godliness in this one. Instead they destroy a church in the beginning. They used a lot of the same scenes, or settings, as the original and as a fan of that film this was interesting. Just not entertaining.
In 1953 maybe having a love story mixed into the plot was a good thing. It would have been a good thing to have the same in this plot as well. Then again, forgive me. There wasn’t a plot. A Barry and Ann Robinson duo would have been nice. It would have added interest instead of the less-than-caring father figure Cruise was supposed to be. It did not work, at all.
Oh, and that Morgan Freeman hack job? Ouch, Vittorio Cramer is the man, and his wonderful pipes did the voice over real justice in the 1953 version. Freeman must have read the script and said ‘sure I’ll do it, as long as I don’t have to appear in it.’ His lack of intensity at the end could have been done better by a dead Martian. He just threw away the lines; lines which were very important to the film.
So, did I mention it will be the big blockbuster hit of the summer? Mr. Spielberg will take home millions on this one. It will do especially well in Europe and around the world where a lot of people actually don’t mind seeing Americans losing the battles. One actor remarked ‘I heard Europe didn’t have any damage’. Stevie S., give us back our money!
‘Zip zip zip zip.’ That is the sound of the ray gun. Actually if the Martians had seen the script first they would have sued for mis-representation and the film never would have been made. ZIP ZIP! H.G. Wells and Orson Welles are both turning in their graves. |
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Category : General
| By : kckings | Comments [0] | Trackbacks [6303] |
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| 30 Jun 2005 09:13:06 pm |
| FLEER TRADING CARDS OWES ME & HANK AARON WHEN DO WE GET OURS |
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Fleer Trading Cards (a proud tradition for nearly a hundred years and now defunct) is a lesson in learning how not to treat sports fans, collectors and even players. The latest court documents reveal more about what Fleer was unable to do than what it could accomplish. The bottom line comes with what can only be called ‘the redemption mess.’
When Fleer management fired everyone a few weeks ago and basically shut the company down it left owing a whopping $33 million to creditors. Hundreds of those creditors were professional athletes and retired players who signed autographs for the company’s trading cards and never got the money owed them.
It is a list of names which reads like a pretty good team. In right field Hank Aaron owed $80,000. At first base, Don Mattingly $23,000, at shortstop Jack Wilson $4500, Al Kaline joins Aaron in the outfield owed $5,000 along with Carl Crawford $21,000. At third base is Cal Ripken Jr., $12,800, Carlton Fisk is behind the plate with his hand burning for $12,600 while Edgar Martinez can slip over to second waiting for his nearly $12,000. These are just a handful of the baseball players who didn’t get their money.
There were more in the other sports too but time and space doesn’t allow us to name them all. Then there are the printers, the designers, the photographers, the companies which supplied game used items and the list goes on and on.
Oh, the collectors who faithfully bought Fleer products which were filled with redemption cards for autographs? They get nothing. There will be an auction, planned if the court approves for July 15th. This auction will be held for furniture, a van, office equipment and thousands of autographs and game used items. None of which the collectors who expected these items will ever get.
The only way this could happen is for some magnanimous gesture from a card company, a league, a player’s association or even some rich dude who might buy them…and…in turn get the list of redemptions owed and make good on them. Of course this would never happen as who is going to lose money doing this in today’s world?
By the way there is one more big name on the list of creditors. A guy named Alex Grass. Grass owns 51% of Fleer and took over when son Roger bailed out. Alex Grass has put in for $17 million in loans he made to Fleer. More than half of Fleer’s debt.
Now before anyone suggests the arrogance of such a move, remember that any businessman who legitimately loaned a company $17 million to stay afloat would have done the same thing. It is called protecting your assets.
One should draw no conclusion between the history of the Grass family and it’s involvement with the Rite-Aid Stores scandals and Fleer. We won’t be doing that certainly in this public forum. It just should be said the Grass family has had its problems previously with other companies. Then again if Alex Grass did loan $17 million to Fleer he had to have some business sense to have $17 million to begin with. One would hope so anyway.
Then there is the fact three people are being employed to stay on through the liquidation. Chris Tobia the CFO is being paid $1000 a day, as are two other management individuals who are being paid less. Before anyone says this is questionable you must realize someone who knows something about the product and its whereabouts and what things are worth, is needed to help organize stuff for the auction. It is a thousand-dollar-a-day job to say the least. Organizing thousands of autographs and game used jerseys and detailing what they are worth for an auction.
One might suggest any 15 year old with a Beckett Price Guide could do it just as quickly but that wouldn’t be too accurate. An 18 year old with a Beckett Price Guide might be more legitimate.
But I digress. Oh by the way? What about that Dwyane Wade Sweet Sigs Autographed card #1/3 I have been waiting for, for nearly a year? For $1000 a day I’ll come find it myself if I get the call. |
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Category : General
| By : kckings | Comments [1] | Trackbacks [8608] |
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