Hightower Lowdown

Bud Selig, the commissioner of baseball and himself a team owner, has been wailing and moaning like some impoverished wretch out of a Dickens novel.

He’s been brandishing corporate balance sheets and lamenting to anyone who’ll listen that he and his fellow owners lost half a billion big ones last year. Business is so bad, he says, that baseball has to contract and eliminate two teams—and disappoint millions of fans.

Despite having an antitrust exemption that lets them operate as monopolies, despite enjoying special federal tax breaks, despite having their stadiums paid for by local taxpayers, despite charging exorbitant ticket prices and $6 for a cup of beer—still, says Selig, choking back a sob, they’re broke.

Before you break down and send Bud a personal donation, you might want to take a closer look at baseball’s books. Only, you can’t, because Selig won’t even give Congress the full set of financials. Left out of his accounting, for example, are hundreds of millions of dollars the owners sock away each year in deals with cable-TV companies.

One wonders, if it’s such a lousy business, why are other supposedly savvy corporate types lined up to out-bid each other so they can become team owners?

Spare us the spare-change routine, Bud. I say, save baseball—contract the greedhead owners!