THE BOOK--Playing The Percentages In Baseball

How come?  Is there a special ceremony that’s worth paying extra for?

Nothing official has been announced, but you can bet there will be some sort of moment of silence or other measure of rememberance.

I’m sure there will be an enhanced atmosphere, but there are a couple of other things at work. For one, this is the first home game since the 4th of July and more importantly, it’s a Friday night. Though it would be a smaller sample size, I think the better comparison would be to the average Friday night game, not price of an average home game.

Good thing we bought out tickets for Friday night’s game 2 months ago then!

Yankees will probably pummel Shields, but it’ll be fun regardless.

ARod is approaching 600 HR’s too (though not likely to get 3 Friday night).  Look for something in the WSJ Friday about that…

He has 610 MLB HR

Looking forward to the article…

Maybe the boss had a purpose.  With his death he inflates the value of the Yankees so they can add Carl Crawford, Jason Werth, and Cliff Lee to the team.

Nah, Yankees could have bought them all anyway.

On another point: Isn’t it likely that the next owner won’t have Steinbrenner’s passion for winning at any cost, and so reduce the Yankees payroll over time?

That assumes, of course, that the Yankees spending all that money wasn’t a rational response to their cost/revenue curve.  That’s by no means certain ...

It may have been rational, but it was all b-llsy.  Bean counters don’t think like him, so you really need someone like him there.

This is all supposition, but I suspect that once upon a time, Steinbrenner did drag the payroll up with a “win at any cost” mentality. More recently, it’s my understanding that the Yankees bring in ridiculous oodles of cash and a 200 mil payroll is not only sustainable but a little bit on the low side.

Standard & Poor’s apparently reported recently that the Yankees have something like $600 million in revenue.

If this is true, a $200 million payroll is completely appropriate, though I wonder what the Yankees total payroll is (everyone employed by the Yankees, not just the players).  Salaries are usually the main expense for businesses.

Steinbrenner essentially moved his family from shipbuilding to entertainment.  This mirrors the direction of the U.S. economy, but I wonder about the extent this was deliberate and the extent this was forced on him.  One thing I wanted to see more from the obituaries was the shipbuilding side of his career.  Maybe I am the only interested in the decline of that industry on the Great Lakes.

Also, I’m curious why other teams have been unwilling or unable to emulate the Yankees business model.  The only ones who seem to have come close are the Red Sox and the Braves.  I think people exagerrate the advantages of being in the New York market.  The Yankees share that market with the Mets, but the two teams took very different trajectories when Steinbrenner owned the Yankees.

Also, this kind of sucks.  I usually try to get to two games a year, but I may be priced out this year.  I’ll have to look up when they next play in Baltimore.

"Also, I’m curious why other teams have been unwilling or unable to emulate the Yankees business model. “

Like I’ve said in the past: owners are unwilling to treat the team as an investment, and instead think of it as an expense.  Moreno / Angels are one of the few who think otherwise.

Every now and then, teams try it (Illitch / Tigers, etc), but it’s not a long-term move, just a short-term trial.