Let the people own the NY YankeesBy John BachtellThis article was reprinted from the September 26, 1998 issue of the People's Weekly World. For subscription information see below. All rights reserved - may be used with PWW credits. 
NEW YORK - New York has been a baseball crazy town this season. Everyone is excited over the McGwire/Sosa home-run race and a powerhouse Yankee team. Meanwhile, lurking under the cheering grandstands are Yankee owner George Steinbrenner and his mayor for hire - Rudolph Giuliani. They are plotting to steal the Yankees from their historic home in the Bronx. They have visions of a new billion-dollar stadium in Manhattan and hundreds of millions in profits. Despite record attendance, Steinbrenner is crying no one wants to go to the Bronx to see the Yankees. He's not making enough money and says he'll move the team to New Jersey if he doesn't get his way. But New Yorkers reject these racist and extortionist tactics. The majority favor keeping the Yankees in the Bronx, reflecting a growing anti-corporate sentiment. Steinbrenner is seen as another greedy capitalist who just wants more. The Yankees are the most valuable franchise in professional sports. The entertainment conglomerate Cablevisions is offering Steinbrenner $500 million to buy the Yankees, 50 times their value when he bought the team. Steinbrenner has a lucrative stadium lease with the city, a $500 million cable television deal and a $100 million promotional deal with Adidas. But this is not enough - he wants maximum profits. A new Yankee Stadium would create havoc on the west side and become a club for the rich. Ticket prices, already the highest in baseball, would skyrocket. The anti-corporate sentiment is expressed in popular support for a referendum initiated by city council president and candidate for governor, Peter Vallone (Democratic and Working Families line) to deny public financing for a stadium located in Manhattan. Giuliani wants to kill the referendum by placing a phony city charter revision on the ballot. He aims to block the will of the people who he thinks are a bunch of dummies. Consider this remark, "Politics and leadership requires a certain degree of wisdom, and not just pandering constantly to what public opinion polls tell you." Giuliani plans to divert $600 million from a commercial rent tax to pay for the new stadium. Meanwhile, the city is experiencing an infrastructure crisis, schools are overcrowded and there is a severe shortage of affordable housing. The latest campaign to build the new stadium began when a half-ton steel beam fell on some empty Yankee Stadium seats April 14. The accident exposed some nasty rust and the underbelly of corporate greed and privatization. The city leases Yankee Stadium to Steinbrenner. Under its terms he is not required to carry out major structural inspections, only non-structural maintenance such as checking seats, dugouts, bullpens, railings, the scoreboard and fences. Steinbrenner can then pass along the maintenance costs to the city. (Last week the city comptroller's office accused Steinbrenner of overbilling $1 million in maintenance repairs.) Consequently, no major structural inspection had been carried out in Yankee Stadium for 19 years! That's privatization. Inspections of all city bridges and major structures take place regularly by city engineers from AFSCME Local 375. Regular inspections would have prevented the accident. Instead of moving the Yankees from the Bronx, why not consider the following?
Let's block Steinbrenner's scheme this November. And while we're at it, take the drive for profits out of sports and end privatization of public property and services. John Bachtell is the chair of the New York district of the Communist Party USA.
PEOPLE BEFORE PROFITS! |
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