Diane M. Grassi attempts to shine new light on issues centered on professional and amateur sports through her writing, by going beyond the headlines and sound-bites and to present sports fans with the back-story. In that effort, she seeks out those issues that rarely become headlines and elicits discussion as to why that is case.
Grassi’s goal is to not only provide content, but to offer an outlet for sports fans of all types, of various backgrounds and life experiences, to engage in topical issues with candor, good humor and provocative thought. Yet, to Grassi, it is the issues that are paramount, as opposed to the messenger, while maintaining intellectually honest and original fact-based reporting and research without an agenda.
It was revealed that NYC on behalf of the NY Yankees, is seeking relief from the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) to receive a special waiver from a law that the IRS amended in 2006 concerning the amount of tax-exempt bonds that may be allotted for the public financing of sports stadium facilities. And any net gains will come at the expense of taxpayers.
Praise is deserved for those MLB players who have personally taken it upon themselves to raise awareness of the needs of our active-duty troops, veterans and their families and largely with their own funding and ingenuity.
The story of Jamiel Shaw, Jr., as reported, is not that of sensation but rather that of the war between our communities and our federal, state and local governments. For they have dropped the ball, not Jamiel, not his family, not his neighborhood.
It is bad enough that much of MLB’s revenues come by way of the very taxpayers it seeks to disenfranchise, and namely the African-American communities in the inner cities. However, now they are after even more. Read on to find out what.
By Diane M. Grassi
But MLB has not learned much in the past couple of decades when it comes to the integrity of the game, in obeying the law and in protecting the best interests of its athletes, its most precious commodity.
If MLB does not proceed with caution and realize it has not merely entered the domain of industrial globalization but the world of global politics and diplomacy, it could prove damaging.
Since statistical information has always been considered in the public domain according to prior case law, it was a rather creative leap in legal gymnastics that MLB came up with in order to ward off other fantasy league owners, especially those who beat MLB to it.
How MLB differs in the late 20th and early 21st centuries from its historic past, is by virtue of its yearly multi-billion dollar revenues it now enjoys, enabling it more unilateral power over the game of baseball in spite of the Major League Baseball Players Association (MLBPA) and the World Umpires Association (WUA) with which it must collectively bargain.
Scrutiny which has been paid, in only just the past two years, over drug use among MLB players, while having been a black eye for MLB, is also convenient as Commissioner Bud Selig need not address myriad other issues which also play their part in preserving the integrity of the game.
When speaking about the integrity of the game of baseball, we must address the very basic idea of baseball as being a team sport, which takes the efforts of every player to be in attendance for every game, whether or not they are actually participating on the field that day.