there has been a lot of collusion last offseason with big names getting blackballed, so it's good that they are looking into it.

Prices will be low for free agents this year b/c the list of high profile players is no where near where it was last season. Lackey leads the list of free agent pitchers and Bay/Holliday for position players. Outside of them 3 there are some solid players but not exactly top dollar players unless you see teams not picking up options

artist the day game thing might work,more people have free time during the day.

Tyson,
What big name was blackballed last year. And if you Mention Barry Bonds I think I am going to have to kill myself.
Teams are losing fans left and right especially in Northern CA's Oakland area where Billy Beane's decisions year after year to go after smaller prospects and dump high yielding contract players has finally backfired in his face. Looking at his money ball scheme I knew it was only a matter of time before he would ultimately destroy the A's organization and deplete the farm team which had up until this season been a power house at the AAA level. The A's are an organization that needs to have not only home grown talent but, also have some players with experience to get them back to a somewhat competitive one. Therefore, the A's will need to move quickly on two key avenues. First develop a better third baseman to replace Chavez(who we all know will never be back because his back is shot). Second he needs some pitching not grade A+++ stuff but, a good B to B+ range. Third, they will need some talented management on the field. Geren I am sorry you are not meant to be a Major League manager and sadly the A's lost Ron Washington in the process by promoting you. The one bright spot or spots I should say the A's have is a never ending depth chart at the OF level. While Rajai Davis is no Rickey Henderson from time to time he has stints of becoming an excellent outfielder. 1st Base is a toss up because there have been more part time role players at that position in the last four years than I can remember. First there was the Big Hurt, then he got hurt and never returned to his normal playing ability and was

To bad!!! these guy are over payed!!!!! it the common people like us who paying
large sums of monety to watch them!!!!!!!!!! what do the players unoin give back??????
nothing!!!!!!! they should be helping older players!!!!!!

delegated to a DH. Then they even had Garciapara, Piazza, and finally the Return only to be ushered out at mid season Jason Giambi (who ironically gave the A's a pricing break to come home).
What the A's should have done was kept Giambi as a face for the organization while they used him to build up guys like Crosby and a few others. Sadly I go to alot of A's games because I like the AL product even more than the their Bay Area counterparts in the SF Giants.
Which now leads me to the NL where the Giants should have paid for Manny last season and will nonetheless wind up never living up to the hype they built up this season. They were competitive in the NL West's wild card for only one reason. The Rockies were horrible at the beginning of the season and as we saw the Giants could have played the Phillies better in the playoffs than the Rockies did from top to bottom. With that said the Giants are only two players away from a NL Pennant and that is where the management better make some decision at the minor league level. There is a kid that is a catcher in AAA that tons of great things were said about. He was brought up but, not for very long and from what I have heard he did fairly well. Maybe there will be a new changing of the guard at the catcher position and Molina will be gone.

Wow,
MLB has just had one of the worst seasons in recent memory. Attendance down, no competitive divisional races except the AL Central, and thus far not one competitive playoff series. Against this backdrop the Union's concern is "collusion to reduce player salaries? How f'd up are these people?

If you want attendance up in any of these ball parks two things come to mind. First you need to start giving a lot away to get a busier ball park.
Promotions limited to the first 20k in attendance is a joke. Why reward people for showing up early? Why not give to all in attendance (hint to Oakland) give away bobble heads to all in attendance and stop being so greedy with your pricing. Although you are cheaper than your NL counterparts in the SF area.
Second, if you do go out and do promotions maybe you might consider a discounted ticket price based on the last games played like for each run give a buck off the ticket price. It might make for a busier crowd.
Third and finally, do exactly what the A's have done but, expand it to other seating, charge less for Mon-Thursday games and surely you might have some more casual fans come out and spend their paychecks.
Just a simple thought, maybe in Oakland's case they should just start to give tickets away when the Orioles, Royals, and Rays come to town. Those teams area in as much trouble as Oakland and they never sell out those games anyhow.

there are a lot of productive guys who got blackballed last offseason.
for example, jim edmonds (who hit 20 homers and a .937 OPS in the 2nd half with the cubs while playing good centerfield defense. hell, he's an upgrade over melky cabrera. cabrera stinks.), mark grudzielankek (batted .300 as a 2nd baseman), ray durham also had a great year as a full-time 2nd baseman and an upgrade over a lot of active guys right now, pedro didn't get signed until the summer.
and there are more. older guys who should at least get spring training invites.
moises alou (could be a great DH), odalis perez (had a 4.34 era yet couldn't find anything more than a minor league deal), frank thomas (still has more power than 95% of the active players), luis gonzalez couldn't get signed even as a backup 4th outfielder, keith foulke and rudy seanez had a solid year but couldn't find a job, jon lieber, orlando hernandez, curt schilling and mike timlin were forced to retire, richie sexson and jay payton couldn't even get a minor league deal,.
not to mention established productive players such as orlando cabrera, orlando hudson, ivan rodriguez, garrett anderson, livan hernandez, juan cruz, joe beimel, and dennys reyes didn't get signed until spring training already started.
if that wasn't collusion. i don't know what is.

morning Surf and Real - Real this world series has been great and competitive. This series easily could be 2-2 if Damon didnt battle like he did. I imagine with no DH and Molina batting tonight that Lee has no problems mowing the Yankees down again so Phillies are not out of it yet. Im just glad that Rollins was wrong for once

just sayin yankees and mets market to 19 million people in their metro area. dodgers and angels market to 13 million. giants and a's market to 4.3 million, chicago markets to 9.6 million.btw. seems like a pretty small market to have 2 teams, when the giants are more popular

just sayin a's average is 23,558, most of the first 20,000 will get a bobble head,don't have to get there early..

artist ,you got a nice bb team, good draft by you..the dude i'm playing says i should get out now and change my yahoo i.d.

real attendance is really down. of the 9 teams that were up boston+14,000,colorado15,000,and dodgers 31,000,,rays 94,000 ,marlins 129,000 to edge out the a's for 29th.overall. mets were down 888,000 to wipe out all those gains,and most of the others.. detroit down 636,000 toronto 523,000. yankees 580,000. padres 506,000. the biggest gain was the royals 219,000. i guess they will be spending more. giants were down 3000 fans this year.baltmore,toronto,and the rays reside in the bottom third in attendance for 2009. ya think if the yankees win the title that will bolster their spirits?

Sayn, you make to much sense. Just a warning, that doesn't fly here!! Seriously, I like some of your ideas.
Tyson, you are making your point with a bunch of old farts that are probably to proud to take the necessary pay cut. You make a good point but look at Pedro Martinez. He started out the season wanting a high $$ contract and there was to many question marks. When he lowered his asking price, he was worth the risk. He did well but who's to say what would happen over a whole season. You use Garrett Anderson as an example. He was making about $12 mil a year with the Angels. The Angels started talking pay cut, which would have been right, and he gets all pissy and goes out and hires Borass. Borass puts him out there at a high to high asking price. The Braves got agood deal on him. A lot of teams could have gotten the same deal is his original asking price would have ben in the ballpark. I understand no one wanting to sign Bonds. Who wants a guy that might get indicted at any second? Self centered, old, and possibly injured would be the next things.

live, Nocal population for the 48 counties is 13 million according to the 2000 census.

It's the economy stupid. Football attendance is down as well.

jd 48 counties lol. gosh i wonder what the population is of the 48 counties are around new york? public transportation is probably better also..

Let the players be tested by the most modern methods possible and often or just be part of the ...
PED cheats = Owners (hence Bud), players and the union.
* Ending the Asterisk era DEMANDS the union allow MORE testing *

The economy is bad. Sure hope that last February's stimulus package kicks in soon.

live. ok, 7.4 mill in the San Fran bay area.

JD, maybe if you draw a line half way thru Califonia and go straight north I would be willing to bet the Giants and the A's aren't drawing much from Shasta, Tahoe or Eureka. Try drawing a 150 mile radius around the bay area and remember half that radius is water. I think that is a little more accurite picture.
Real, it did kick in. You should have bought a car. Remeber, 450,000 people brought new cars to get themselves out of stupid deals that made in the first place. Opp's, is that politics? I better switch to cars. And not cars bought in that deal.

Collusion? I sure hope teams work on keeping "prices low"... although "low" prices are something from the distant past. If salaries were cut in half they would still be too high.

Hi scott,
My car didn't qualify as a "clunker" so there was no incentive for me to buy new wheels. Local elections tomorrow. Some special interests in my home town have a ballot question that is really an "end around" grab for power. I think the people here have it sniffed out though. lol