Tom the Dancing Bug by Ruben Bolling for December 22, 2001

Transcript:

Bud's All Stars Hey, baseball fans! Collect the 2002 baseball cards for these team owners who tore up the league last year! Yes, this fearsome foursome of entrepreneurial and accounting superstars were able to show losses so outrageous, I was able to cry to Congress about the sad shape the sport is in. -Bud Selig, commissioner, M.L.B. Commish Edward Rogers Blue Jays Owner Blue Jays management was induced by such evil forces as "the free market" to sign their first baseman to a $36 million contract! 2001 Statistics: Revenue $78m Expenses $131m Loss $53m Rupert Murdoch Dodgers Owner Someone's got to stop Rupert from doing thins like paying $105m to a pitcher and $84m to an outfielder! This guy apparently can't run a business! 2001 Statistics: Revenue $144m Expenses $189m Loss $45m Jerry Colangelo 2001 World Series Champ Diamondback Owner Poor ol' Jerry overspent in order to have a trophy he could show his rich friends. If he isn't the poster child for public subsidies, who is? 2001 Statistics: Revenue $125m Expenses $157m Loss $32m Tom Hicks Rangers Owner Let's see... expenses exceed revenues. What to do, what to do? I know -- I'll spend a quarter-billion dollars on a shortstop. 2001 statistics: Revenues $135m Expenses $151m Loss $16m The dazzling incompetence of business all stars like these caused a baseball-wide $5199 million loss--And that's why baseball needs its antitrust exemption and contraction plans! Of course, all the losses could be mere accounting chicanery, but these boobs aren't capable of that, are they?