1.15.2004
P-Mag, Rising Star
Here's an almost offhanded tidbit from an AP piece on the owner's meetings and, specifically, the latest word from Big Bad Bud.
Baltimore's Peter Angelos and San Francisco's Peter Magowan were elected to the sport's eight-person executive council, replacing Atlanta's Bill Bartholomay and Minnesota's Carl Pohlad.
I always thought that Magowan was excluded from the owners' inner circle because he had the temerity to use (gasp!) private money to build Pac Bell Park, thereby providing dangerous ammunition for cities and citizens' groups that don't want to be blackmailed into subsidizing rich mens' toys. It cannot be emphasized enough: for all his other faults Magowan deserves eternal kudos for not pulling the typical horsecrap stadium politics.
But I always thought the reason the Giants haven't gotten to host an All Star Game at their lovely little jewel of a stadium is because the rest of the owners don't want to reward their private-sector behavior.
Maybe the pain and jealousy are wearing off. I don't know much about the eight-person executive council, but I assume it has power associated with it. Does this mean Magowan's no longer being punished? That he never was in the first place?
During the labor agreement negotiations of 2002, P-Mag emerged as a real hard-liner, if I remember correctly. I wrote him a couple letters, to which he responded each time and expressed his belief in no uncertain terms that compromise wasn't really in the cards. Perhaps that's what got him onto the executive council.
Curious that the two new members of the council have franchises going in opposite directions in terms of payroll: the Giants slightly down, the O's on a shopping spree. Curious also that they're political opposites: Magowan as noted below is a Friend of W., while Angelos is lefty enough to be labeled a "Democrat fat cat" by the Republican National Committee. (Given that they're both filthy rich baseball owners, "political opposites" is probably too extreme a term. Let's save that one for, say, Matt Gonzalez and Ralph Reed.)
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Here's an almost offhanded tidbit from an AP piece on the owner's meetings and, specifically, the latest word from Big Bad Bud.
Baltimore's Peter Angelos and San Francisco's Peter Magowan were elected to the sport's eight-person executive council, replacing Atlanta's Bill Bartholomay and Minnesota's Carl Pohlad.
I always thought that Magowan was excluded from the owners' inner circle because he had the temerity to use (gasp!) private money to build Pac Bell Park, thereby providing dangerous ammunition for cities and citizens' groups that don't want to be blackmailed into subsidizing rich mens' toys. It cannot be emphasized enough: for all his other faults Magowan deserves eternal kudos for not pulling the typical horsecrap stadium politics.
But I always thought the reason the Giants haven't gotten to host an All Star Game at their lovely little jewel of a stadium is because the rest of the owners don't want to reward their private-sector behavior.
Maybe the pain and jealousy are wearing off. I don't know much about the eight-person executive council, but I assume it has power associated with it. Does this mean Magowan's no longer being punished? That he never was in the first place?
During the labor agreement negotiations of 2002, P-Mag emerged as a real hard-liner, if I remember correctly. I wrote him a couple letters, to which he responded each time and expressed his belief in no uncertain terms that compromise wasn't really in the cards. Perhaps that's what got him onto the executive council.
Curious that the two new members of the council have franchises going in opposite directions in terms of payroll: the Giants slightly down, the O's on a shopping spree. Curious also that they're political opposites: Magowan as noted below is a Friend of W., while Angelos is lefty enough to be labeled a "Democrat fat cat" by the Republican National Committee. (Given that they're both filthy rich baseball owners, "political opposites" is probably too extreme a term. Let's save that one for, say, Matt Gonzalez and Ralph Reed.)
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