Extra-super-brief news roundup this week, regular programming to resume next Thursday:
- Derek Jeter is all set to become owner of the Miami Marlins (though really a billionaire private investor who was nicknamed “the Paper Shredder” for helping start the newspaper industry’s downward spiral will be majority owner, with Jeter as the public face of the team), and he reportedly hates Marlins Park’s home run sculpture, but it belongs to the county so he can’t move it. Giancarlo Stanton, though, he’s fungible.
- The judge in the Arizona Diamondbacks‘ lawsuit to get Maricopa County to pay for $187 million in stadium upgrades has ordered the two sides to go to arbitration to resolve the issue, as apparently that’s what the team’s lease says they have to do. This could go really poorly, as the two sides have fundamentally incompatible views of what the lease says about who’s responsible for paying for upgrades, but I guess it’s worth a shot, and at least will save on lawyers’ fees for the time being
- The Oakland A’s owners have launched a new website asking fans to chime in on three proposed new stadium sites — the site of the current Coliseum, Howard Terminal in the Port of Oakland, or the location of Peralta Community College’s administration buildings — of which team chief operating officer Chris Giles said, “we have three great sites, all of which are viable, all of which have their different kinds of pros and cons.” Except Howard Terminal has reportedly been ruled out, according to … “a number of reliable sources” and former A’s exec Andy Dolich, who also thinks traffic issues would make the Peralta site unworkable? Here, go look at the website, which includes answers to such questions as “How will the new ballpark be funded?” (“Our new ballpark will be privately financed”) and “When will the new ballpark open?” (“We will announce more details about the timeline later this year”).
That’s it for now. Que vagi bé, i fins ara.
“This could go really poorly, as the two sides have fundamentally incompatible views of what the lease says”
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It won’t go any more poorly than it would in actual court and the outcome wil llikely be the same. I seem to recall the lease language being published (probably on this site) and it was very clear the D-Backs were on the hook for those expenses. They can wish they weren’t all they want but ultimately they’re either going to pay for all of them or work out some sort of deal with the county to get some relief–which seems unlikely.
I hope you are right (and re: the language, I remember reading it and thinking the exact same thing… it’s clear as day).
However, arbitration is a different process from an actual court fight (which generally results in one side or the other being declared right and the other wrong). In an arbitration, it is “reaching a mutually agreed solution” that is paramount, not findings of fact.
Maricopa county might well stick to it’s guns and say “it’s a contract and it’s clear what it says”. Or they might be prevailed upon to vary the contract requirements in the interest of ‘co-operation’.
Now that we know that arbitration is a requirement in the lease, it makes more sense to me that the team accepted the clear and direct language in the contract in the first place… They knew that they had a potential out in the form of arbitration.
I hope the county remains firm on this and the team has to pay for the required work (I bet we’ll find the amount of work actually required is much less than $187m if they do). But cue the public angst about “saving our team”, and the little kids (and their dogs) lining up to speak/bark at the public hearings (if any) about this…
In the end, the arbitrator/arbitration panel may well decide that a contract is a contract and deny the team’s request. But that is not certain from where I sit.
Well to be fair to the hideous home run statue, if it had the same massive pay raise kicking in next season as Stanton the Marlins would find a way to dump it too.
I do not believe that this will go well for the Diamondbacks.
“Maricopa County has declared that the Arizona Diamondbacks are responsible for most of the repairs at Chase Field, according to two letters provided to Cronkite News by the county.
The Diamondbacks “have almost total responsibility for the maintenance, operation, and repair of Chase Field,” and the agreements between the team and the county “do not establish any contractual requirement to provide the Team a ‘state-of-the-art’ stadium,” the letters stated.”
http://ktar.com/story/1018819/maricopa-county-arizona-diamondbacks-are-responsible-for-chase-field-repairs/
Al Doltish- whyis he an expert? He was wrong on the Raiders and the election. He is a clueless old fool.