It is truly becoming a Boston Nation.  But, contrary to a headline I've read somewhere, it's midnight for the Rockies Red Sox's.   Little ball v. Goliath, has won in the past.

sfboston and I would tend to disagree.....

I'd like to see the Rockies win, but they won't.

8 to 1 Red Sox are leading!!!!!  BTW neva neva say the Red Sox are the new yankees, yankees are hated here. Red Sox nation is made up of all New England and those individuals who know a great team. The only reason the Red Sox didnt win for 86 years was due to the curse.

Sorry make that 9 to 1

And all great teams are in NE!

The Red Sox have to spend close to what the Yankees do, otherwise they would have little chance of making the playoffs.  Teams in the National League West don't have to spend, because none of the owners in that division give a crap about their teams.  They are nothing more than tax write offs..

13-1 is the final. The Red Sox are the new Yankees, and only Red Sox fans don't seem to understand this. Boston is a great city, and one that I enjoyed visiting on business tours every year, but when one team's payroll is 2 and a half times  that of the other team on the field it does not seem equitable in any sporting sense. Long time fans are frustrated by the lack of competition in major league baseball.  Smaller market, or cost conscious, teams have no shot at a title. The playoffs always come down to the heaviest spending big market teams. Some owner groups tease fans by spending briefly to look competitive, but within a season or two go back to sitting on their monopoly money while allowing for appreciation to work magic on their billfolds. Baseball is no longer a game, it is strictly an insider club business of extremely wealthy individuals.

I think the same issue is beginning to unfold in the NFL where mega franchises are beginning to distance themselves from most of the league. New revenue procuring arrangements in the NFL are creating vast differences between the teams. The old rules of shared revenue that allowed smaller market teams to stay in the hunt have given way to vastly differing revenue making deals of today that see franchises like Dallas, New England, Washington and Denver begin to pull away from the pack. The biggest current earner in the NFL is the Washington Redskins franchise with revenues of  $312 million this past season and operating income of $66 million. New England had the second highest revenues at $255 million. Compare those numbers with the $186 million in receipts by the San Francisco 49ers. That is a significant gap, and it is widening.

You might argue that the Colts are a smaller market team and are in the hunt these days. That would be correct on one count, but the Colts are one of only four NFL teams which lost money last year, and only the Vikings lost more than the $17.3 million in red ink the Indianapolis franchise saw. This helps explain why the St. Louis Rams have become so hopeless, so quickly. After losing money during their "Greatest Show on Turf" days, this franchise has turned the corner on profitability by fielding the worst team in the league. The Oakland Raiders, last year's joke franchise, had the second highest earned income in the NFL behind only the Washington Redskins. The guys in the NFL must be taking tips from the health care industrialists on how to truly profit when operating a monopoly. 

It is the World Series, it is just not much of a sporting event these days. Go Rockies!



 

Go Heathens!

Red Sox payrol is just over $145 mil, not $160 btw.   Rockies can not stop the Boston juggernaut!!!!  Go RED SOX!!!!

Poprocks, yes, the Rockies are not given much of a shot to win this series. The payroll figures I quoted were from column I recently read but cannot find. Most of the published payroll figures on the web are from the start of the season that has Boston listed as anywhere from $143 million to $146 million in payroll. The Rockies were pegged at around $54 million at the start of the season. When I find that article I'll post an update, because I believe it represents some of the trades and moves made during the season by both teams. Regardless of these types of posted figures the net result is that the Red Sox are only being outspent by the Yankees, and if Alex Rodriguez leaves New York the two will be almost on equal spend-footing.  The Rockies still have spent almost three times less than the Red Sox for this series on players most people know nothing about.

2 down and 2 to go...

Looking grim for the Rockies huh?  Not even the disadvantage of the other team being from a warmer climate.  I noticed a little steam from the players last night.

If memory serves, one year the Braves played Montreal and about froze.  (a warm climate team anyway.)

I think it was in the 50s last night. I watch the game until about 10 then needed to go home and get some sleep.

Bread & Circuses (Circus Maximus) sf. Placate the masses with kids games, gladiations, spectacles, celebrities.

Give 501 ( c ) status to all the gladiation entities (LLC's => 501's) and allow them to pay the gladiators huge sums of money. Skew the economy away from the production of core goods, medical breakthroughs, energy sources & methods, etc. All for the placation of the masses of A$$es!

Good job America! 

The holding capacity for the Circus Maximus was a quarter of a million people! This was about one quarter of Rome’s population.
The Circus Maximus was a track used primarily for horse-racing, although it was used on occasion for hunts or mock battles. It had 300,000 seats and was famous throughout the ancient world. Built in the 6th century B.C. during the time of the Tarquins, the history of the Circus Maximus is troubled. It was twice destroyed by fire and on at least two occasions the stands collapsed, killing many people. There was a long barrier (spina) that ran down the middle of the track, in the area of the picture where you now see only grass. In addition to obelisks, fountains, statues, and columns, there were also two temples on the spina, one with seven large eggs and one with seven dolphins. At the end of each lap of the seven lap race, one egg and one dolphin would be removed from each temple, to keep the spectators and the racers updated on how many laps had been completed. In the Circus Maximus, unlike the amphitheaters of the day, men and women could sit together. The Circus Maximus also had the ancient equivelant of the skyboxes you see now in stadiums for professional sports. The Emperor had a reserved seat, as did senators, knights, those who financially backed the race, those who presided over the competition, and the jury that awarded the prize to the winners.

"Bread and circuses" has come to be a derogatory phrase that can criticize either government policies to pacify the citizenry, or the shallow, decadent desires of that same citizenry. In both cases, it refers to low-cost, low-quality, high-availability food and entertainment that have become the sole concern of the People, to the exclusion of matters that some consider more important: e.g. the Arts, public works projects, human rights, or democracy itself. The phrase is commonly used to refer to short-term government palliatives offered in place of a solution for significant, long-term problems.

A "liberal" Wiki spin...................

As a dumb half breed farmer I have a question. Perhaps Mattloch or some others a bit more sophisticated than myself (TomW, TSM, etc.) in these matters fiscal could help me out:

THE COUNTY FY07-08 BGTD PROP TXS = $216.7  MILLION  (so 0.2822% of AV right?)

THE COUNTY FY07-08 AV = $76.8 BILLION!

AV WENT UP 9.1% FOR 07-08 BUT 20.2% FOR 06-07

PROP TXS WENT UP 7.7% FOR 07-08 BUT 27.2% FOR 06-07

FIRE FUND WAS 30.5% OF PROP TXS IN 07-08 AND 28% IN 98-99 WHILE AV FIRE FUND WAS 26.8% OF TOTAL AND 24.8% OF TOTAL IN 98-99.

Now, for Field Boxes in Denver with sf & friends, what is wrong with this picture?

Hint: go back 20 years and Fire Fund was around 50% of AV. O&G props are butting up against Prop 13 max's now. Residential and other AV's will "free-fall" in the next couple of years.

County retirements "perfect storm" (3@50 & 3@60) have created dearth of mgmt expertise in all areas of County. Huge "sustainable" (on-going) cost increases due to raise settlements with unions, leaving many at manager level twisiting in the wind -- County has been forced to "bring back mgmt expertise in the form of retiree's" in all areas of expertise.

County "Planned" Perfect Storm => Fiscal Tsunami!

2 years out...... Is tide running away from us now? Do we know what that means in say a year or two?  (hint: it'll be coming baaaaack esse! -- en espades vato's!)

Think about it. Then let me know. I'm just a dumb dirty farmer with dirt under his nails and Skoal can rings on his old worn out wranglers....... hep me..........

what the are you talking about Chico? I saw the game from a local sports bar in Boston, I didnt buy tickets that were cost well over $700 for standing room only.

Only 2 games left, hopefully Sunday night this will be finished and the Red Sox will again be World Champions, very similar to how they were back in the early 20th century, before the curse of the bambino.

BTW great vidoe of the PRU and Red Sox http://www.boston.com/sport...

I didn't really expect an answer from the sf. Wasn't trying to hi-jack yer thread on series either....

Just the bread & circuses aspect hit me will reading posts and I had question for one of the fiscally astute libs on here about County finances.

Guess I could copy them to another new thread.

When I get these gaskets in I'll do that.

As you were

Red Sox Nation...nothing but the best of baseball

Got a kick out of Matsuzaka's "wiggle."  So far I haven't seen any mention of it but he'll be famous after this and I'll bet it gets mentioned then.

When I don't have a favorite team playing, or a vested interest, I always root for the underdog.  A while ago I got on the computer and when I got back to the TV is was 6-zip.  Dang..can't leave those boys alone for a minute without them screwing up.

Makes ya wonder why I root for the underdog..they usually lose.  I guess that's why they're the underdog.

gee sf

talk about circus maximus

you are poster boy

<oh boy>

Ya know..it's hard to stick with baseball sometimes...and a four game sweep of the series is boring enough but this year it's mind numbing.   GeeezLouize how did the Rockies get in the game?  Am I missing something here?

Sf I know you're cheering for the Sox but criminy, the Rockies aren't even making them work for it.  Grooaaannnnn.

What was it someone said? I think it might have been Doubleday ( or maybe Yogi Berra)  It's just a game played with a stick and a ball, don't make it too complicated or take it too seriously.