|
OUT OF LEFT FIELD |
 |
 "Gentlemen, the U.S. Treasury Dept. claims we can't use bailout funds to put our corporate name on the new Mets stadium, so we have to use our own funds. Unfortunately, we only have enough to acquire naming rights for a vacant lot in the Bronx, which we will now call CITI LOT!" |
These are the times of
stadium, golf boondoggles
of TheColumnists.com
As my simple mind sees it, the current outrages of banks and big companies milking the government for bailout and stimulus money while sponsoring sports entities would be the equivalent of this situation:
Smitty the Moose wins a big bet on a horse race. He hits a bookmaker for $500. A week later The Moose makes another $500 bet with the bookie, this time on a football game. He loses. When the bookie comes to collect The Moose claims bankruptcy. The bookie says, “What about the $500 you won last week?” The Moose answers. “Oh that went into my horse-race betting account. I don’t have any money in my football account.”
So, Citigroup, which has received $45 billion in bailout money from the government, is allowed to continue to heap $400 million on the New York Mets for the right to have the Mets new ballpark named Citi Field for 20 years. It, in effect, is allowed to use some of the bailout money--taxpayers’ money--to have its name on a baseball park because it considers that money separate from the money it got from the government.
As much as the government and the rest of us are outraged by this, the bank and the Mets can hide behind the legalese of a contract to hold firm.. A contract is a contract is an oy-vay contract.
No wonder some of the names now being hung on Citi Field are “Losers Park,” and “Shitty Field.”
There is shame in some quarters at least. The Bank of America, recipient of $45 billion in Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) money, decided last month not to proceed with a multi-million sponsorship at Yankee Stadium.
And Wells Fargo Bank, a $25 billion recipient of TARP money, took over Wachovia Bank. Inheriting the Wachovia Golf Championship, it got out of the line of fire a bit by renaming the tournament the Quail Hollow Championship. Wells Fargo does have a contract to sponsor golf championships through 2014.
The cushiony world of golf and banks and money came into the open when it was revealed last month that the Northern Bank Trust in Chicago, a recipient of $1.58 billion, was asked by the government to reimburse it for the lavish entertainment and hospitality it supplied clients and employes during the Northern Trust Open at the Riviera Country Club in Los Angeles.
Barney Frank, the chairman of the House Financial Service Committee, said the behavior of the bank “demonstrates extraordinary levels of irresponsibility and arrogance.” He said of the Mets stadium deal, “Important men like to hang out and ingratiate themselves with sports figures. Marketing expenses should be for real marketing, not ego boosts, which is what I think naming rights are.”
US Bancorp, Morgan Stanley and General Motors, all on the government dole, are involved with sponsorships of upcoming golf tournaments.
The New York Times may be doing the right
thing by placing its sports section at the end of the financial
pages these days.
LETTERS
ABOUT THE MEL OTT TRIBUTE
Last week’s 100-year anniversary appreciation of Mel Ott
in this column brought some interesting letters.
Bill Nack of Washington took me up on my note that I couldn’t quite make out all the numbers in The New York Times box score of the Giants-Boston Braves final game of the 1929 season. This was Ott’s last chance to catch the Phillies’ Chuck Klein, who led him in homers, 43-42, partly because the Phillies would not pitch to Ott in the next to last game of the season the previous day at the Polo Grounds.
Nack commented: “You wrote that the Giants-Braves box score in that game of yore was too small or blurry to read on a microfilm of The New York Times. Online I looked up the box score of the game in the Oct. 7, 1929 issue of The Washington Post. I found that Mel Ott had two hits in four at-bats, scored two runs and two runs batted in.”
Klein held the home run lead.
George Vecsey of Port Washington, NY, was reminded that Japanese pitchers refused to pitch to American hitters when they threatened the one-season home run record of Sadaharu Oh, the all-time Japanese home run leader. Oh’s record of 55 homers was challenged several times, but each time the American imports were walked intentionally or not allowed to reach wide pitches.
Incidentally, Oh, who wound up with 868 career home runs, had a distinctive batting stance, lifting one leg--like Mel Ott.
Jay Rosenstein of Haverstraw, NY said that Ott’s name would never fade into the mists of time, because it is one of the most frequently used answers in New York Times crossword puzzles. Yes. Ott, Bobby Orr, any of the Alous and Arthur Ashe are crossword puzzle stalwarts. And Sid Frigand of Manhattan added that crossword puzzle eminence will give Ott’s name staying power that would be the envy of the Robinsons, DiMaggios and the like.
An Ogden Nash ditty about Ott inspired
this one sent in by David
Corcoran of Northvale, NJ:
X is the first
Of 2 xs in Foxx
Who was right behind Ruth
With his powerful soxx
And Marty Bregman of Venice, FL recalled that as a drugstore delivery boy in Manhattan in 1943 he once delivered a pack of cigarettes to Ott at his apartment on Central Park West, and received a 10-cent tip. “I was so excited by the tip,” Bregman wrote,,”I forgot to ask for his autograph….maybe that was because I was a Dodger fan.”
FAREWELL
TO JOHNNY KERR
Johnny (Red) Kerr, a longtime pro basketball guy as a player
and broadcaster, died last month at 76. He was an engaging guy.
I have a favorite Kerr story.
In the days when there was no great regard for Japanese goods, Lucious Jackson came back to the Philadelphia 76ers training camp after winning a gold medal in the 1964 Olympic Games in Tokyo. When he was welcomed back by teammates gathering around him to look at his gold medal, Kerr interrupted.
He said, “Let me see that medal.” He studied it, turned it over and said, “Bah. ‘Made in Japan.’ ”
©2009 by Stan Isaacs. The Stan Isaacs caricature is ©2001 by Jim Hummel. The cartoon illustration is from IMSI's Master Clips Collection, 1895 Francisco Blvd. E., San Rafael, CA, 94901-5506, USA. This column first posted March 16, 2009.
TO ACCESS STAN ISAACS'S ARCHIVE OF COLUMNS ON THIS SITE, CLICK HERE: ISAACS ARCHIVE
You can comment
on this column online. Please address your message to either
"The Editors" or Stan Isaacs. To send an email, click
here and don't forget to mention Stan's name: talkback@thecolumnists.com
|
|
|
Archives |
|
|