Hi StrangeOne--i was wondering what the buzz would be in Texas, from afar I really like the way the Rangers play and wished I got to see them much more often (damn schedulemakers), they look like a really exciting young team...They look like the type of team that would be a ball to watch if they can 'pull together' instead of 'imploding'.
That seems to me to be be one of the mystical but important qualities of baseball that is unpredictable but necessary.Last year I saw it with the Sox --it was the management, the owners, the media, the fans and the players that all got over some sort of hump together somehow, pulled together and that made it all happen.
I don't really buy the idea of 'creative tension', its too stressful, players need to be loose to perform to their abilities...
.plus I don't know how they play in that heat everyday.
I'm concerned about my Cardinals: once again they appear to be yawning their way to another 100 plus win season. Hopefully, if they get to the World Series again they'll remember last year.
I'm expecting the Yankees to have a surge, but now that the Red Sox have proven they can beat them, they can probably fend them off. Even without Schilling they look pretty tough. It'll be interesting to see if the White Sox can continue to win.
Yea, i haven't seen the White Sox in action yet, so it is hard for me to have a perspective although everything looks good on paper...I doubt the Nationals can keep it up although it would make for a great story....
The Red Sox have been...well --the RedSox---they still havent gelled like they can. They have seemed right on the cusp a few times but have yet to play the type of baseball over a sustained period that they are capable of...with 6 relievers having ERA's over 6.00, spotty starters, Schilling out, lackluster defense and Martinez gone its amazing to me that they are actually in first-
-I'd rather be 2 up than 7 down(like last year) but I still havent seen greatbaseball quite yet. It is almost time for teams to hit their strides (imo) --
I'm looking for a one or two key trades over the next few weeks , the team pulling together, an exciting stretch run, and the playoffs -when the real season begins.
as the stRangers slowly fade in the west... well, we got one from the evil empire tonight... let's see, last night 11-10 and tonight 2-1, I guess that's just the AL though...
Teixera, Young, Blaylock and now Mench, are as fine a young core as you'd want I think... and this season, for the first time, they're starting to "openly hint" that they want the front office to get them some pitching help, the stRangers have some "real talent" down on the farm (pitchers Diamond, Danks and Volquez-pardon my spelling) that the FO deems untouchable, and there's another power hitting first baseman there as well but the FO doesn't want to let him go because he's insurance for when (they figure) Boras makes Teixera the game's next go-zillionaire...
but the boys are starting to say they don't want to hear "we can't sell the future", they think they've got a window here that's closing up...
Personally, as a home town fan, I'd take this team's position players (as a group) over all of the other ones... I think they're just as good and sometimes better as a group than many (even keeping Soriano) but nobody wants to pitch in this heat so nobody comes... and the FO is so scared to make another mistake like Chan Ho that they back off of deals too quickly, and then you've got your veteran ace that's acting like a total arse hole lately...
Oh well, it's baseball isn't it? Just when you're ready to give up on some of these young arms they blow you away with a great game.
It'll be an interesting trade deadline won't it? How well they do win loss wise in the next 10 days will determine a lot but the quotes coming out of the locker room don't sound too optimistic... I hope they don't give up, they're by and large a great group...
johnilikeyourchances for SL to do it all this year, but they're going to have to travel for the first two games of the series! :)-->
Turns out the only curse we ever had was a bad front office.Last year it became as clear as a summers morning what a big part that management plays, at least as big as the game on the field (just not as examined or exciting), believe or not there was something very exciting about not only watching the team but the whole organization finally after 86 years working together with no grumbling. I like our front office!
Its corny but it works, looks like you got that damnable curse now. I hope things works out because I genuinely like those kids on the Rangers-they are ballplayers-which is about the biggest compliment I can give. In the last series with the Sox a few weeks ago even though they did well they looked a little tight,which seems to be a perpetual baseball problem when management is in the ozone.
The Sox have been tweaking the roster in dribs and drabs but still have to fill a few major holes in the next few weeks if they are going to be serious. Its agood feeling (for once in my life) to actually believe in the FO to do the right thing....
We'll see, as you said the next ten days are crucial.
Thr Rangers got one from the evil empire? You mean they're playing North Korea now?
oooooooh-you meant the Yankees. yes they're evil-in fact they should all be shot-that would make most everyone very happy, based on the name calling. Oh right, it's all in 'fun'.
Maybe you just caught me on a bad day. I just find most sports rhetoric , cliches, and team bashing, tedious in my old age. The sox were never 'cursed', the yankees aren't really an 'evil empire', the mets were never 'lovable losers', the rangers aren't really the 'strangers'- but the cubs still won't see the world series in this century.
Just out of curiosity-how are they evil? By having too big a payroll? Would it bother you if the Rangers were trying to win that aggressively? I can see the 'empire' term, based on the last 80 years, give or take a couple of decades, but how does that make them 'evil' outside of not liking them?
I believe the term was coined last year by one of the Red Sox owners after things had been really hot for a few years, when Steinbrenner persisted in trying to send salaries skyrocketing yet higher in hopes of buying another world championship
.
It was a metaphor during the heat of battle in a competitive offseason, Steinbrenner slung back something forgotten--somebody (Fox probably) picked it up and it stuck. It doesn't mean they are 'evil', baseball is full of metaphors for life, living and everything under the sun-Its been a tough battle for years but the death star has finally exploded and the rebel forces have gained respect and at least equal footing.
I forget when I first heard them called "the evil empire" but it's been years ago I think (or maybe just seems like years)... as mstar said, it's the comparison to the imperial forces, the storm troopers, the hired guns, etc...
...and if you'll see the article I posted above, a lot of us local folks down here would love for Hicks to start behaving like "The Boss" (Stienbrenner, not Springsteen)...
But mstar, you now praise the Sox ownership for finally making moves that will help. and I see no difference between that and the Steinbrenner formula.
Of course you hate the yankees-it's unamerican NOT to hate the yankees. If they were the mets one could just ignore them.
I see no difference between that and the Steinbrenner formula.
[/quote They are not really Steinbrenner moves closeup,they are almost an antithesis. The one thing that I like about them is that they go about it in a much much different way than Steinbrenner does. Although they spend alot of money (not nearly as much as the Yankees)they always keep in mind the team concept and look for players that will click into the organization, as opposed to big names that are expected to bring results on the backs of their names and paychecks alone.
Lots of things like that ,that are hard to explain,
They also have great respect and understanding of the fans ( I can't underscore that enough), very interesting and new insights into the how of good baseball play and ownership and a type of charisma that is ...for ack of a better word...endearing.
Its about winning but its not all about winning,they are good people and have done a lot for the people of New England outside of baseball and don't lose sight of that. They have avery interesting compass.
Looking from the outside , it may look the same, but John W. Henry the principal owner is about as far from Steinbrenner that a human being can possibly get. He is quiet, soft spoken and incredibly shy man who just happens to be a genius who has made a billion dollars without being a dog eat dog type obnoxious of guy doing it.
Its been good for me to see that you can still be one of the 'good guys' and rise over the crass, crude, obnoxious and boorish who at times seem to run nearly everything, thus finally proving Leo Durocher is wrong.
Its really not the same, the Red Sox ownership would be respected anywhere that they went--even if they weren't baseball people--I cant say the same about Steinbrenner and his methods.
and just for clarification I really dont hate the Yankees, I have been frustrated by them at times over the years, and by years of inability to overcome them, but generally I respect them like anybody except when they do something that is out of bounds or doesn't merit respect
#1 -I am not a Steinbrenner apologist, and am really not even a Yankee fan anymore.
I think it's great that you think so highly of your team and it's owners, and far be it from me to want you to think diffently.
I do have to say that until last year, such glowing reports have been rare from Boston. It still looks to me that winning generates good feelings. With all this charisma, I'm already hearing Johnny Damon talk about leaving at contracts end, and taking some of his favorite teammates with him.
As far as doing for the people of New England, I don't know what you mean by that outside of making and buying a winning team. Steinbrenner is also extremely charitable, and i just don't buy the 'white hat/black hat' picture of the 2 teams. It was just last year(or was it the year before?) that Manny was getting sick on selective days in the middle of the pennant race.
I'm really not against the Sox. As I've said before in here, I grew up being that rare breed who liked both the yankees and the red sox. I'm just saying that ultimately the Sox have built their team very similar to how the Yankees have-I honestly don't see the difference. The yankees core players of the last 10 years have been largely home grown, contrary to popular opinion, and the Sox wanted, and were ready to pay, Alex Rodriguez as much as the Yankees did.
I wasn't looking for a fight between teams,or anyone in here by the way.
I'm headed to Anaheim tonight to see the Angels beat the Yankees again, and will be at Dodger Stadium on wednesday to see the Reds beat the triple A team known as the Dodgers, so I'm having a fine baseball summer.
I drove by the new park in San Diego last week, and must get there this year also. It looks mighty fine from the outside at least.
As expected, The Angels won last night. The Yankees lack of starting pitching will bury them this year, so no one needs to worry.
Angel Stadium is a jewel of a park. The renovations made when Disney owned them have turned one of the ugliest parks to one of the best. Tho I still don't understand the rockpile in center field.
Just found out the future plans for Dodger Stadium, thanks to the 'Boston parking Lot attendant" who owns the team. Turns out he's salivating over the 18 acres of parking lot, and is going to turn the whole joint into a mall with condos, for a total 'Dodger experience'. We were worried about him moving the team downtown, now we find he's bringing downtown to us. Based on the many similar condo-mall 'improvements' that are cropping up everywhere in LA, we have gang hangouts, overcrowding, incessant commercialism and a whole lot of noise to look forward to. Somewhere in all that mess one assumes the stadium is still there, tho what it will look like is a mystery.
Frank McCourt from Boston bought the Dodgers last year , on shaky credit, and no cash, and it's been all downhill from there.
The Dodgers managed to win their division last year, even while a really appealing team was being dismantled piece by piece.
Chavez Ravine is still a wonderful place-it will take Mccourt a few years to totally destroy it, so I'm enjoying it while i can. I grossly misstated the parking lot space before-it's not 18, but hundreds of acres to fill with condos, malls, and other 'improvements.'
about this Boston ownership mstar... aren't they "new" in the last two or three years???
Yea it was about then, John W. Henry, Larry Lucchino, and Tom Werner, they are a real breath of fresh air for me. I havent got alot of time at this moment to explain it but they really have shown an understanding of the fans,the game and have done it up right.
It was tough coming into a cynical town like Boston, but they knew what they had and worked with it.
For the first year they were regulars in the bleachers (they atill are) and not some owners box somewhere and actually listened to the fans.(When do owners do this?) Most of the improvements to Fenway have been directly related to the fans in one way or another...they stay cogniscent of the fans in the way they do business and go out of their way to show them appreciation and respect sometimes above and beyond what anyone could expect......They have made good improvements to the Park without having it lose its feel and flavor, they put good teams on the field, treat the players well, and they have worked hard to understand the dynamic of Boston and Boston fans.
They are very progressive, its just not the same old same old, and they have given me a new eye for baseball, in many ways they have found the formula to just make it plain good again.
Theo Epstein, the GM, who was in his 20's at the time was their first hire, he is of the Billy Beane "Moneyball" school and is incredibly bright if not a genius but he is still just a local kid who plays in a Rock Band on weekends. Bill James, the sabermetrician, is also on their staff, when the old school was afraid of him-they scooped him up.
I like the way they go about their business, no threatening players and coaches like Steinbrenner, destroying things like Bubba in Dodgerland, or just sitting back counting their money oblivious to the fans suffering like many owners. But soft spoken open minded guys who know the pulse of what is going, are very smart,and arent afraid to pursue improvements outside of the established norms....
we used to think that we had three owners that were great... not necessarily 'likable' but not afraid to spend money and do what it takes to win a championship...
now we're definitely down to two... and unfortunately the third one (Hicks) owns two teams... all he cares about is "is the team making money"... which isn't so unusual I guess, but he actually goes on TV/Radio and says it openly... he says things like "if we exceed 3 million at the ballpark, we'll spend some more money"... now remember, the stRangers make in the neighborhood of $56 million a year before they've sold ticket number one... yet he wants them to have a budget smaller than the Twins'...
He tried to play with the big boys for a while, but did so stupidly... he spent with them but didn't spend wisely (see ARod, Chan Ho, Darren Oliver, etc) and now they back out of everything...
Here's an unbelievable (but sadly true) quote from Hicks last Sunday with a local sportscaster. Hicks was being asked again about if they were going to try and do something this year or next to help 'get there'...
Hicks: "Well, we're not going to go out and spend a lot of money to bring people in here. We tried that with the Stars and unfortunately we won the Stanley cup"...
They always draw 2.5 mil plus. IF THEY'D PUT A ROOF ON THE DANG PLACE AND AIR CONDITION IT, THEY'D GO WAY OVER 3 MIL A YEAR... EASY.
And... an added benefit would be that pitchers wouldn't mind coming here...
I would include Art Moreno, who owns the Angels, as another owner who has done wonders for the franchise. Outside of the 'Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim', debacle, he's done evrything right, and Angel stadium is a terrific experience now.
It's true that Disney renovated the park, and brought the Angels their first world championship. It's also true that they were eager to dump them even as the Angels were winning the series. Moreno has done nothing but improve the team, the stadium,and the area.
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mstar1
Hi StrangeOne--i was wondering what the buzz would be in Texas, from afar I really like the way the Rangers play and wished I got to see them much more often (damn schedulemakers), they look like a really exciting young team...They look like the type of team that would be a ball to watch if they can 'pull together' instead of 'imploding'.
That seems to me to be be one of the mystical but important qualities of baseball that is unpredictable but necessary.Last year I saw it with the Sox --it was the management, the owners, the media, the fans and the players that all got over some sort of hump together somehow, pulled together and that made it all happen.
I don't really buy the idea of 'creative tension', its too stressful, players need to be loose to perform to their abilities...
.plus I don't know how they play in that heat everyday.
Anyway its officially half way--
Please send relief pitching.
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mstar1
Jees Louise --Its halfway...and its awful quiet in here.....
any observations? comments? snide remarks? predictions? favorites? pleasant surprises?
rants?
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johniam
I'm concerned about my Cardinals: once again they appear to be yawning their way to another 100 plus win season. Hopefully, if they get to the World Series again they'll remember last year.
I'm expecting the Yankees to have a surge, but now that the Red Sox have proven they can beat them, they can probably fend them off. Even without Schilling they look pretty tough. It'll be interesting to see if the White Sox can continue to win.
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mstar1
Yea, i haven't seen the White Sox in action yet, so it is hard for me to have a perspective although everything looks good on paper...I doubt the Nationals can keep it up although it would make for a great story....
The Red Sox have been...well --the RedSox---they still havent gelled like they can. They have seemed right on the cusp a few times but have yet to play the type of baseball over a sustained period that they are capable of...with 6 relievers having ERA's over 6.00, spotty starters, Schilling out, lackluster defense and Martinez gone its amazing to me that they are actually in first-
-I'd rather be 2 up than 7 down(like last year) but I still havent seen greatbaseball quite yet. It is almost time for teams to hit their strides (imo) --
I'm looking for a one or two key trades over the next few weeks , the team pulling together, an exciting stretch run, and the playoffs -when the real season begins.
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Tom Strange
as the stRangers slowly fade in the west... well, we got one from the evil empire tonight... let's see, last night 11-10 and tonight 2-1, I guess that's just the AL though...
Teixera, Young, Blaylock and now Mench, are as fine a young core as you'd want I think... and this season, for the first time, they're starting to "openly hint" that they want the front office to get them some pitching help, the stRangers have some "real talent" down on the farm (pitchers Diamond, Danks and Volquez-pardon my spelling) that the FO deems untouchable, and there's another power hitting first baseman there as well but the FO doesn't want to let him go because he's insurance for when (they figure) Boras makes Teixera the game's next go-zillionaire...
but the boys are starting to say they don't want to hear "we can't sell the future", they think they've got a window here that's closing up...
Personally, as a home town fan, I'd take this team's position players (as a group) over all of the other ones... I think they're just as good and sometimes better as a group than many (even keeping Soriano) but nobody wants to pitch in this heat so nobody comes... and the FO is so scared to make another mistake like Chan Ho that they back off of deals too quickly, and then you've got your veteran ace that's acting like a total arse hole lately...
Oh well, it's baseball isn't it? Just when you're ready to give up on some of these young arms they blow you away with a great game.
It'll be an interesting trade deadline won't it? How well they do win loss wise in the next 10 days will determine a lot but the quotes coming out of the locker room don't sound too optimistic... I hope they don't give up, they're by and large a great group...
johnilikeyourchances for SL to do it all this year, but they're going to have to travel for the first two games of the series!
:)-->
mstar, curses back on your sox! (no offense)
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mstar1
Sorry boss thats all done!
Turns out the only curse we ever had was a bad front office.Last year it became as clear as a summers morning what a big part that management plays, at least as big as the game on the field (just not as examined or exciting), believe or not there was something very exciting about not only watching the team but the whole organization finally after 86 years working together with no grumbling. I like our front office!
Its corny but it works, looks like you got that damnable curse now. I hope things works out because I genuinely like those kids on the Rangers-they are ballplayers-which is about the biggest compliment I can give. In the last series with the Sox a few weeks ago even though they did well they looked a little tight,which seems to be a perpetual baseball problem when management is in the ozone.
The Sox have been tweaking the roster in dribs and drabs but still have to fill a few major holes in the next few weeks if they are going to be serious. Its agood feeling (for once in my life) to actually believe in the FO to do the right thing....
We'll see, as you said the next ten days are crucial.
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Tom Strange
Here's the kind of stuff being written here... Boss in Arlington should be more like The Boss... it pretty much sums up the feeling around here...
Oh, and johniam, I know what you're saying about Oakland fans... but... if you're a pro player, you've just got to "walk away"...
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hiway29
Thr Rangers got one from the evil empire? You mean they're playing North Korea now?
oooooooh-you meant the Yankees. yes they're evil-in fact they should all be shot-that would make most everyone very happy, based on the name calling. Oh right, it's all in 'fun'.
Maybe you just caught me on a bad day. I just find most sports rhetoric , cliches, and team bashing, tedious in my old age. The sox were never 'cursed', the yankees aren't really an 'evil empire', the mets were never 'lovable losers', the rangers aren't really the 'strangers'- but the cubs still won't see the world series in this century.
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Tom Strange
maybe it is a bad day hiway... but they're still the evil empire!
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hiway29
fine Tom, well they should be shot and killed then.
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hiway29
Just out of curiosity-how are they evil? By having too big a payroll? Would it bother you if the Rangers were trying to win that aggressively? I can see the 'empire' term, based on the last 80 years, give or take a couple of decades, but how does that make them 'evil' outside of not liking them?
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mstar1
I believe the term was coined last year by one of the Red Sox owners after things had been really hot for a few years, when Steinbrenner persisted in trying to send salaries skyrocketing yet higher in hopes of buying another world championship
.
It was a metaphor during the heat of battle in a competitive offseason, Steinbrenner slung back something forgotten--somebody (Fox probably) picked it up and it stuck. It doesn't mean they are 'evil', baseball is full of metaphors for life, living and everything under the sun-Its been a tough battle for years but the death star has finally exploded and the rebel forces have gained respect and at least equal footing.
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Tom Strange
I forget when I first heard them called "the evil empire" but it's been years ago I think (or maybe just seems like years)... as mstar said, it's the comparison to the imperial forces, the storm troopers, the hired guns, etc...
...and if you'll see the article I posted above, a lot of us local folks down here would love for Hicks to start behaving like "The Boss" (Stienbrenner, not Springsteen)...
Oh... and they are to be hated!
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hiway29
But mstar, you now praise the Sox ownership for finally making moves that will help. and I see no difference between that and the Steinbrenner formula.
Of course you hate the yankees-it's unamerican NOT to hate the yankees. If they were the mets one could just ignore them.
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mstar1
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hiway29
#1 -I am not a Steinbrenner apologist, and am really not even a Yankee fan anymore.
I think it's great that you think so highly of your team and it's owners, and far be it from me to want you to think diffently.
I do have to say that until last year, such glowing reports have been rare from Boston. It still looks to me that winning generates good feelings. With all this charisma, I'm already hearing Johnny Damon talk about leaving at contracts end, and taking some of his favorite teammates with him.
As far as doing for the people of New England, I don't know what you mean by that outside of making and buying a winning team. Steinbrenner is also extremely charitable, and i just don't buy the 'white hat/black hat' picture of the 2 teams. It was just last year(or was it the year before?) that Manny was getting sick on selective days in the middle of the pennant race.
I'm really not against the Sox. As I've said before in here, I grew up being that rare breed who liked both the yankees and the red sox. I'm just saying that ultimately the Sox have built their team very similar to how the Yankees have-I honestly don't see the difference. The yankees core players of the last 10 years have been largely home grown, contrary to popular opinion, and the Sox wanted, and were ready to pay, Alex Rodriguez as much as the Yankees did.
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hiway29
I wasn't looking for a fight between teams,or anyone in here by the way.
I'm headed to Anaheim tonight to see the Angels beat the Yankees again, and will be at Dodger Stadium on wednesday to see the Reds beat the triple A team known as the Dodgers, so I'm having a fine baseball summer.
I drove by the new park in San Diego last week, and must get there this year also. It looks mighty fine from the outside at least.
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hiway29
As expected, The Angels won last night. The Yankees lack of starting pitching will bury them this year, so no one needs to worry.
Angel Stadium is a jewel of a park. The renovations made when Disney owned them have turned one of the ugliest parks to one of the best. Tho I still don't understand the rockpile in center field.
Just found out the future plans for Dodger Stadium, thanks to the 'Boston parking Lot attendant" who owns the team. Turns out he's salivating over the 18 acres of parking lot, and is going to turn the whole joint into a mall with condos, for a total 'Dodger experience'. We were worried about him moving the team downtown, now we find he's bringing downtown to us. Based on the many similar condo-mall 'improvements' that are cropping up everywhere in LA, we have gang hangouts, overcrowding, incessant commercialism and a whole lot of noise to look forward to. Somewhere in all that mess one assumes the stadium is still there, tho what it will look like is a mystery.
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Tom Strange
ahhh... Chavez Ravine... what a nice place to have a dodger dog and watch a game... sounds like your summer is going well hiway...
about this Boston ownership mstar... aren't they "new" in the last two or three years???
...as the stRangers slowly melt away...
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hiway29
Frank McCourt from Boston bought the Dodgers last year , on shaky credit, and no cash, and it's been all downhill from there.
The Dodgers managed to win their division last year, even while a really appealing team was being dismantled piece by piece.
Chavez Ravine is still a wonderful place-it will take Mccourt a few years to totally destroy it, so I'm enjoying it while i can. I grossly misstated the parking lot space before-it's not 18, but hundreds of acres to fill with condos, malls, and other 'improvements.'
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mstar1
Yea it was about then, John W. Henry, Larry Lucchino, and Tom Werner, they are a real breath of fresh air for me. I havent got alot of time at this moment to explain it but they really have shown an understanding of the fans,the game and have done it up right.
It was tough coming into a cynical town like Boston, but they knew what they had and worked with it.
For the first year they were regulars in the bleachers (they atill are) and not some owners box somewhere and actually listened to the fans.(When do owners do this?) Most of the improvements to Fenway have been directly related to the fans in one way or another...they stay cogniscent of the fans in the way they do business and go out of their way to show them appreciation and respect sometimes above and beyond what anyone could expect......They have made good improvements to the Park without having it lose its feel and flavor, they put good teams on the field, treat the players well, and they have worked hard to understand the dynamic of Boston and Boston fans.
They are very progressive, its just not the same old same old, and they have given me a new eye for baseball, in many ways they have found the formula to just make it plain good again.
Theo Epstein, the GM, who was in his 20's at the time was their first hire, he is of the Billy Beane "Moneyball" school and is incredibly bright if not a genius but he is still just a local kid who plays in a Rock Band on weekends. Bill James, the sabermetrician, is also on their staff, when the old school was afraid of him-they scooped him up.
I like the way they go about their business, no threatening players and coaches like Steinbrenner, destroying things like Bubba in Dodgerland, or just sitting back counting their money oblivious to the fans suffering like many owners. But soft spoken open minded guys who know the pulse of what is going, are very smart,and arent afraid to pursue improvements outside of the established norms....
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mstar1
..scuse me for going on
anybody that brings a championship to the Red Sox deserves at least minor sainthood
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Tom Strange
we used to think that we had three owners that were great... not necessarily 'likable' but not afraid to spend money and do what it takes to win a championship...
now we're definitely down to two... and unfortunately the third one (Hicks) owns two teams... all he cares about is "is the team making money"... which isn't so unusual I guess, but he actually goes on TV/Radio and says it openly... he says things like "if we exceed 3 million at the ballpark, we'll spend some more money"... now remember, the stRangers make in the neighborhood of $56 million a year before they've sold ticket number one... yet he wants them to have a budget smaller than the Twins'...
He tried to play with the big boys for a while, but did so stupidly... he spent with them but didn't spend wisely (see ARod, Chan Ho, Darren Oliver, etc) and now they back out of everything...
Here's an unbelievable (but sadly true) quote from Hicks last Sunday with a local sportscaster. Hicks was being asked again about if they were going to try and do something this year or next to help 'get there'...
Hicks: "Well, we're not going to go out and spend a lot of money to bring people in here. We tried that with the Stars and unfortunately we won the Stanley cup"...
They always draw 2.5 mil plus. IF THEY'D PUT A ROOF ON THE DANG PLACE AND AIR CONDITION IT, THEY'D GO WAY OVER 3 MIL A YEAR... EASY.
And... an added benefit would be that pitchers wouldn't mind coming here...
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hiway29
I would include Art Moreno, who owns the Angels, as another owner who has done wonders for the franchise. Outside of the 'Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim', debacle, he's done evrything right, and Angel stadium is a terrific experience now.
It's true that Disney renovated the park, and brought the Angels their first world championship. It's also true that they were eager to dump them even as the Angels were winning the series. Moreno has done nothing but improve the team, the stadium,and the area.
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