New Sports Trend: The Team Doctors Now Pay the Team In a long New York Times article, Bill Pennington reports: Despite concerns among many doctors and the players' unions over the ethics of putting health care out to bid, about half the teams in the four major North American professional sports are now tied contractually to a medical institution. Industry analysts expect that number to grow

Baseball Revenue Sharing Going to Prospects The AP has obtained a list of unaudited revenue sharing payments and distributions for 2003. A total of $220 million was redistributed, up from $169 million in 2002. Highlights: Big recipients: Montreal ($29.5 million), Florida ($21 million - the other playoff teams must have loved paying this), Tampa Bay ($20.5 million), Kansas City ($19

Crucial Hearings Begin in Legal Battle Over Expos Deal Jeff Blair of the Globe and Mail provides a few more details about the Expos arbitration, which began today. More than 30 witnesses are expected to testify, including MLB President Bob DuPuy. Bud Selig's testimony has yet to be scheduled. Former MLB President Paul Beeston has already given a videotaped deposition which will be

Padres Owner Strikes Riches Near New Ballpark This AP article describes how Padres owner John Moores is benefiting from the construction of Petco Park. In return for the taxpayers footing most of the bill for the ballpark, Moores agreed to ensure at least $300 million of development in the surrounding area. He bought 21 acres near the park, an area which is now seeing $1.4 billion of

Arbiters to Hear Claims Vs. Loria The action brought by the Montreal Expos' former limited partners against former owner Jeffrey Loria goes to arbitration on Monday in New York. A three-arbitrator panel will hear the claims. The hearings are expected to run through June 9. Note to those interested in this case: arbitration proceedings are non-public, and at the end of the process the

Twins Give Nice Twist to Athletics' "Moneyball" Murray Chass of the New York Times reviews how the Minnesota Twins have built a repeat division winner through scouting and smart trades, contrasting them to Those Soulless Number Crunchers By the Bay. One of his paragraphs requires a bit more context, though: Ryan, as it has turned out, traded judiciously. For Milton, he got Carlos Silva, who

Bud Selig Unplugged The title refers neither to life-support systems nor to cutting him off in mid-speech -- it's a long interview with the Commissioner, conducted by T.J. Quinn of the New York Daily News. A few highlights: Bud says interleague play was almost adopted in 1973: "I can tell you just on inter-league play we had a deal done in 1973 and the National League guys killed it. We

More Than Two Dozen Negro Leaguers to Get Pension From New MLB Fund The 27 players affected by the new fund played in at least four Negro League seasons after Jackie Robinson's debut in 1947, but never played in the majors. In 1997, MLB voted pensions to similarly situated Negro Leaguers who played at least one day in the majors. These 27 won't receive the same benefits, though: while the

Investor Says Group Wants Braves One Charles Vaughn, last seen trying to move the Expos to Puerto Rico, has announced that he'd like to buy the Atlanta Braves. Interestingly, he made this announcement before contacting Time Warner, which owns the club: "Our firm would like to get involved with the Braves. We are going on the offensive. We are just going to approach them and see."Time

Vacation Time I'll be away on vacation (or, as I think of it, gathering material for the other side of my site) from tonight through Saturday, May 22. Will update the site when I can, but the updates will be less frequent than usual, especially when I'm around here. If you see something interesting while I'm incommunicado, post it in the Comments to this message. When I return, I'll

Portland Sweetens Its Pot Portland has cobbled together a package of taxes and fees that city officials say would cover $340 million of the $350 million cost of a new major league stadium. The package includes: Income taxes on players and team officials: High enough to cover $125 million of stadium bonds. Ticket taxes: A 10% admissions tax, enough to cover $75 million of

Lamping Is Busy Marketing Ballpark Naming Rights Naming the St. Louis Cardinals' new ballpark may not be as simple as asking the club's former owner for a large check. The St. Louis Post-Dispatch quotes Cardinals president Mark Lamping: "We're actively marketing the naming rights to companies, both locally and outside the city, and hope to have a deal concluded by the end of the year."

Vegas Stadium Funding Still Unclear Nevada baseball promoters are scrambling to come up with public money for use in stadium construction. MLB wants local taxpayers to pay 2/3 the cost of any new stadium, but none of Las Vegas' proposals would come close to generating the $300 million that ratio would suggest. Stadium supporters have talked about using tax increment financing, but it may

Red Sox Dodged a Bullet My May column for Boston Baseball, in which I discuss Boston native Frank McCourt's undercapitalized acquisition of the Los Angeles Dodgers, and the challenge he faces in his local market from Anaheim's Arte Moreno.

Vegas' Field of Dreams Won't Come Cheap Las Vegas may have just taken itself out of serious contention for the relocated Expos. The Las Vegas Sun reports that the local baseball backers want the public to pay some of the estimated $450-$500 million cost of a proposed 40,000-seat, retractable-roofed stadium, possibly through a bond issue to be repaid from taxes on tickets, concessions and

District Said to Be In Front for Expos The Washington Times picks up and runs with a comment made by John Alevizos, the man who wanted to move the Expos to Connecticut. Alevizos says that Jerry Reinsdorf told him that MLB's relocation committee had narrowed the potential destinations for the Expos to Washington, Las Vegas and Monterrey, Mexico, and that Washington was the front-runner. A

Miami-Dade Gives Blessing to Marlins Park at Orange Bowl By an 8-3 vote, the Miami-Dade County Commissioners have joined the Miami City Commission in endorsing a new ballpark for the Marlins southwest of the Orange Bowl. The vote doesn't come with any more money, though, and the project remains $30 million short of the optimistically-estimated $367 million cost of a retractable-roofed home for

Now I'm a Shill for MLB! My cretinous correspondent from the pension suit thinks he has me figured out. On the Web site created to drum up support for the dismissed action, he writes: "You can see from his article on the pension plight that he did not do his homeowrk and only wrote these two ill-informed articles to curry favor with MLB. Assuming he is a wannabe friend of the MLB attorneys

Ballpark Vending Policies Throw Fans, Workers a Curve Neil deMause's Field of Schemes site alerted me to this story from the San Diego Union-Tribune. Sportservice, which has concession rights at San Diego's Petco Park, Cincinnati's Great American Ballpark and other venues, is increasingly replacing ballpark vendor employees with volunteers recruited from local charities: For routine counter

MLB Drug-Testing Programs Move to Olympic-Certified Laboratories MLB and the MLBPA have agreed to transfer administration of their drug-testing program to a lab certified by the World Anti-Doping Agency, the INRS-Institut Armand-Frappier Research Center of Montreal. In MLB's press release, Rob Manfred and Gene Orza say nice things about the WADA, but never mention the biggest benefit of