Marlins Stadium and Selig

I am not one to usually post such short blog entries, but felt my last post was appropriate. It comes after the announcment of Allan 'Bud' Selig's salary of the fiscal year ending October 31, 2007 being $18.35 million. $17.47 million in base compensation, and "$461,540 in contributions to employee benefit plans, and $422,590 in expense accounts and other allowances." That is $7.15 million more than his NFL equivalent, Roger Goddell. Surely he could afford to give himself more (hopefully he won't!), however, that is still a huge sum. I have no idea how much of his personal money he gives to charity, but surely the MLB endorsed Boys and Girls club would not mind some!

My logic for being happy to see him go is mostly for his role in helping the demise of baseball in Montreal. He was there during the 1994 strike, where the Expos were the best in baseball at the time, and there all the time Montreal was struggling to keep a team, until becoming a lame duck team, and of course their departure. I'm sure there are plenty more reasons people do not like him.

In other news, the Florida Marlins new park which would be scheduled to open in 2012 comes down to two votes today (city, 9 a.m. county, 1 p.m.). Even if it indeed comes to fruition, looks like it will be just like Montreal's Olympic Stadium, being paid off for years to come. It took 30 years after the Olympics to pay off the Olympic Stadium, and for the new Marlins park it would look like this: "roughly $1.8 billion over 40 years, with payments starting small but escalating significantly over time." Read more, Florida Marlins stadium comes down to two votes Friday. Also check out Field of Schemes for this and other ballpark, stadium and arena fiascoes news. Oh, and check out the local coverage links to the side for respective newspaper coverage.

Finally, looks like 762* is back in the news (That, and all it encompasses is another story in itself to tie to Selig!)