So no signings imminent. That suggests they’ll wait out the market and see what shakes out when other teams have spent their money, when the guys who want one-ways, or substantially more than $105k on the back end of a two-way, have either found it elsewhere or had the hopes dashed. It’s not impossible to find players in late summer — Alain Nasreddine, coming off a concussion, comes to mind* most readily — but it’s a dangerous path.
Good news from the Alumni Watch files, non-player edition: Vinny Ferraiuolo moves up to San Jose.
The New York Daily News reprinted (online, at least) its story from the day George Steinbrenner bought the Yankees. Two striking things. One, the obvious: Steinbrenner et al bought the team for $10 million, or about $49.1 million in today’s dollars by the Department of Labor’s inflation calculator; Forbes valued the team at $1.6 billion this year. Granted, a rising tide for the industry and all, but still: Steinbrenner didn’t buy the dominant force in American sports business. He bought a team that, despite all its winning, played in what had always been a National League town. Oh, speaking of which, two: Check out the fifth paragraph. The one that quotes Mike Burke as saying that the team was going to remain in New York. Sure, the Jersey threat carried into the 1990s. There was even a New Orleans rumor. But seriously: Can you really imagine that team anywhere else? Hard to believe. But Steinbrenner spent to rebuild it, Gene Michael solidified it in Steinbrenner’s exile, and that late-1990s run built the new Stadium.
For the other end of it, Dave Anderson.
Brilliance from NBC Hardball Talk: Classic “And That Happened”.
Things have gotten very interesting @MrAndyDufresne.
And a belated RIP, Crispian St. Peters. The BBC played his “Pied Piper” on Sounds of the Sixties on Saturday in his memory.
*-No pun intended.