Yankees’ Mondesi
trade hurts baseball
O n Monday, the New York
Yankees continued to
show the rest of Major
League Baseball just how much
of a gap exists
between its pocket-
book and the rest of
the league’s.
New York’s swap
for Raul Mondesi,
who was traded to
the Yankees on Monday for a
Double-A relief pitcher, repre
sents everything that is wrong in
the game of baseball.
Mondesi, who makes $13 mil
lion a season, will put the
Yankee’s payroll at over $133
million, more than double its
payroll of $65 million in 1998.
At this rate, the Yankees will
have a payroll of over $250 mil
lion by 2006 with no end in
sight. Meanwhile, the rest of the
league is struggling to make
ends meet, forced to trade off its
most valuable players so the
owners in the luxury boxes stay
in the luxury boxes, away from
the cheap seats and $6 beer.
The amount of money it takes
to pay these outrageous salaries
is too much for most other teams,
who raise concession and ticket
prices in order to keep up with
the “Jones” of MLB.
The gap continues to grow
between the rich and poor teams
of MLB. Compare the Tampa
Bay Devil Rays’ payroll of $22.6
million to the Yankees’ $ 1304-
million.
How does a team like New
York make so much money?
Simple. TV revenue for the
Yankees in 2001 was over $70
million. Montreal brought in just
$700,000, barely enough to pay
the beer guy. Meanwhile, the
Expos play in front of a crowd
that would be put to shame by a
Saturday afternoon game at
Olsen Field.
The Devil Rays
and Expos are not
the only teams that
cannot measure up
to the Yankees
payroll. Even mid
dle market teams like the
Houston Astros cannot compete
year in and year out despite their
$63 mill ion payroll, which four j
years ago would have been at the
top of the list. Now it is in the
middle of the pack.
Astros pitcher Billy Wagner
said it best in an interview con
cerning the Astros recent strug
gles.
“Let’s see how the Yankees
would do if you kept taking
pieces away,” Wagner said. “We
say, ‘We want to be champions.’
Well, you can’t be champions
when you're putting young, inex
perienced guys out there and ask
ing them to play above their
means right now. We’re putting
them in tough situations.”
However, inexperienced young
rookies are all the Astros — and
many teams around the league —
can afford thanks to rising salaries
encouraged by huge free-agent
signings, such as the Yankees’ off
season acquisition of Jason
Giambi. New York signed Giambi
to a multi-year contract worth
over $120 million.
Attendance around the league
is down substantially this season
and will continue to drop until
something drastic is done to keep
See Yankees on page 4
Sports
The Battalion
I;...-.;:.; : ; . . : L ' ^ s ^ t : 4'. 4 ' ’ ✓ ' •' " • •• - •• '• • :: ■ ■ : ■
Williams lands in
Page 3 • Wednesday, July 3, 2002
semifinals
Henin ousts Seles, Krajicek-Phillippousis postponed
WIMBLEDON, England
(AP) — Venus Williams raced
in behind a stinging approach
shot, all 6-foot-1 of her poised
at the net.
Her opponent barely got to
the ball and spun a stroke wide,
giving Williams a break point
during their Wimbledon quar
terfinal on a rainy, windy
Tuesday.
“Game, Miss Williams,” the
chair umpire said.
Well, not quite — that was
the proper call a point later,
when Williams planted a fore
hand winner right on the base
line.
It is tough to keep track of
the score when the top-seeded
Williams is at her best.
The two-time defending
champion beat 48th-ranked
Russian Elena Likhovtseva 6-2,
6-0 in just 47 minutes, taking
her total court time to little more
than 4 1/2 hours in five matches.
While she overwhelmed yet
another unheralded opponent
for a 19th straight victory at the
All England Club, 2001 run
ner-up Justine Henin overcame
Monica Seles for the first time
in five tries, 7-5, 7-6 (4).
Williams and Henin
will meet in a semi
final.
“It’s going to
be tough for
me. Especially
on grass courts,
she’s playing
so well,” Henin
said. “She won
her matches so eas
ily. So I know it’s
going to be difficult. You
know what happened last
year.” Williams beat the
Belgian in three sets for the
title.
The other semifinal’s partic
ipants will be decided
Wednesday. Venus’ sister,
French Open champion
Serena, will play No. 1 1
Daniela Hantuchova in one
quarterfinal, while Jennifer
Capriati faces No. 9 Amelie
Mauresmo in another.
No. 3 Capriati advanced to
the final eight when her
rain- and darkness-
delayed fourth-
round match
against Eleni
D a n i i 1 i d o u
was finally
completed
Tuesday.
Capriati won 6-
, 3-6, 6-1.
The match,
called Monday at a
set apiece, resumed just
before 6 p.m. after a series of
rain delays and was moved
from Court 1 to Court 18 to
ensure it could be completed.
“The player today and yes
terday was completely differ
ent,” said Capriati, who huddled
in a towel between changeovers
to brace against temperatures in
the 50s and winds topping 25
mph. “In that second set, she
was playing pretty unbeliev
able. It would have been very
tough to beat her if we would
have kept playing.”
Play was stopped at 7 p.m.,
leaving a men’s match unfin
ished. Richard Krajicek, the
last Wimbledon champion left
in the tournament, and Mark
Philippoussis split the first four
sets — all tiebreakers — of a
fourth-round match. They’ll
resume Wednesday.
The winner faces No. 27
Xavier Malisse, who completed
his 3-6, 6-3, 3-6, 6-3, 6-4 victo
ry over No. 23 Greg Rusedski.
That fourth-round match was
halted Monday after the fourth
set, and Malisse wrapped
things up by breaking the
Canadian-turned-Briton in the
seventh game of the final set.
See Williams on page 4
S. Korea, Japan benefit from World Cup
TOKYO (AP) — The World Cup
brought good news to some. Digital TV
sales, the thirst for beer and a craving for
jerseys of blue and red, the team colors
for co-hosts Japan and
South Korea, all shot up
during the monthlong
tournament.
The tournament, which
ended Sunday, also deliv
ered a bit of economic blues. While sports
pubs everywhere and boxed-lunch stores
near stadiums were booming, restaurants
and travel suffered as nearly everyone turned
into a homebody to watch the games on TV.
And a big event comes with a big bill.
Security and other World Cup-related
expenses at team camp sites are expected
to cost local communities millions of dol
lars. Although the tally is not
yet final, the town of Tsuna,
the camp site for the English
team, is preparing to foot a
bill of about $750,000.
Maintaining Miyagi stadi
um, where three World Cup games were
played, will cost the prefecture $2.3 mil
lion a year. As with other stadiums,
prospects for turning profits at Miyagi are
slim. Only one professional soccer game is
scheduled there this season.
It’s too early for a precise count of how
the pluses stack up against the minuses for
both Japan and South Korea, where tough
economic times had stirred hopes for a lit
tle help from the World Cup.
On the negative side, ticket distribu
tion problems, which left thousands of
empty seats at the games, are still under
investigation and have left a sour after
taste. Attendance at the games totaled 2.7
million, short of the 2.8 million tickets
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