I don’t know about you, or about how Bud Selig was raised, but when I was a kid and I didn’t tell the truth the first time, the fellow in charge of our house didn’t allow a second chance, let alone a third. Know what I mean?
Under Commissioner Selig’s leadership, however, MLB team owners can do and say as they wish. They don’t even have to tell the truth the second time. The path of righteousness is paved with bad faith.
That’s why the Mets originally insisted that there isn’t a bad seat in its new, taxpayer-funded, federal bailout money-enriched Citi Field. Every seat’s a fabulous seat!
Of course, the Mets had to know better. Heck, after an April 3 exhibition game against the Red Sox in Citi Field’s big-league debut — a game played 10 days before the Mets’ regular season home opener — I was hit with a pile of e-mails from patrons who claimed — surprise! — that from their seats they couldn’t see what was going on in left field. And the Mets, well before the team’s regular season home opener, could have and should have addressed that simple, embarrassing truth before it made suckers out of customers. But they didn’t. They stuck with that “all great seats!” story.
And so the Mets allowed ticket buyers to continue to learn too late that there were many obstructed view seats, especially from the second deck and up down the left field line and then above left field.
Slowly, the Mets sorta, kinda began to come closer to telling the truth. On April 14, the day after the Mets’ regular season home opener, Mets’ VP Dave Howard, with Mike Francesa on WFAN, still insisted that there are no “obstructed view” seats, none.
Nevertheless, he did acknowledge that there are some seats that provide “blind spots.”
Obstructed view seats, Howard explained, are those in which a beam or a pillar blocks the view of the field. “Blind spot” seats, he further explained, are “a function of the geometry of the building.”
Got that?
Well, inspectors of the Mets’ Web site recently discovered that the team is now issuing a heads-up before selling such geometrically functioning seats. The Mets are warning online ticket buyers of obstructed view/blind spot seats with this: “View: Limited portions of the playing field may not be visible from this seat location.”
Better yet, the Mets are holding the line on their “Limited View” seats — no extra charge!
So, if you’re scoring at home, it took the Mets only a year to finally (but quietly) concede a conspicuous, irrefutable truth, a truth they last year refuted.
Heck, when I was a kid, if it took me that long to tell the truth, my old man would have given me an obstructed view for a month.
Ripping ABC? Cablevision, you’re one to talk
For colossal gall, no corporation can compete with the Cablevision/Dolan empire.
In its latest right-to-the-edge TV hassle — this one with ABC/Disney — Cablevision, never known to play fair, again aimed below the belt. Apparently, it knows no better.
In one televised propaganda message, Cablevision portrays itself as the avenging angel on behalf of recession-gripped little guys, attacking the exorbitant salaries paid to ABC/Disney execs, including CEO Bob Iger.
What a hoot.
Since Cablevision subscribers bought Madison Square Garden for the Dolans, consider how many tens of millions of dollars The Garden has wasted on here-and-gone executive hires, bad coaching hires, ridiculous player buys — and the subsequent payouts to all, long after they have left. How much did Isiah Thomas’ sexual harassment suit — another Knicks loss — cost Cablevision subscribers?
Cablevision last week complained that ABC is seeking to impose “a new TV tax.”
Say, that wouldn’t be anything like the tack-on “Facility Fee” that Madison Square Garden invented and began to charge ticket-buyers after Cablevision bought it, would it?
And in the end, the viewers lost last night as ABC-7 went ahead and pulled its signal from Cablevision.
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Six weeks from the Stanley Cup playoffs, and with many playoff telecasts the exclusive property of Comcast-owned Versus, the DirecTV vs. Versus conflict, which has, since September, eliminated the network from the satellite service, remains unresolved, and no relief is in sight.
Same old issue — Versus wants more money to be carried than DirecTV will pay. Rooting interest? Neither company has done much to endear itself to subscribers, especially the sports fans among them.
Paterson is only pol to ride ticket gravy train?
Control to Gov. David Paterson: Not for nothing, but what are the chances that as Mayor of New York City, Rudy Giuliani, Yankees fan extraordinaire, attended scores of Yankees games, sat in the very best seats for the very biggest games, and he and his party paid for each and every ticket?
How about tennis freak Mayor David Dinkins? Ya think he dug deep every year for his U.S. Open tickets?
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Last week, 21-year-old PGAer Rickie Fowler hit a par-5 in two, then, yuk, four-putted for bogey. On Golf Channel, Frank Nobilo picked it up after two putts: “You saw his eagle attempt, you saw his birdie attempt; this is his par attempt.”
The scene and sound was reminiscent of a four-putt years ago from Seve Ballesteros. In the press tent, after the round, the Spaniard was asked how it happened.
“I mees, I mees, I mees, I make,” he answered.
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John Daly is golf’s other overly indulged star.
The TV folks always were eager to suggest or claim that he has purged his demons, no proof necessary. And they always were eager to portray him as the pro “regular Joes” could identify with, when the only things regular about Daly were his deep and desperate troubles.
Just like with Tiger Woods, the TV guys and gals knew better; they knew that Daly wasn’t anything close to the huggy-bear with a six-pack they portrayed him as or wished he was. But rather than tell the truth — or say nothing — they kept telling us that John Daly is just another way to spell fun!