State of the Game: Two MORE Reasons Rob Manfred is an Idiot

It is becoming more and more apparent that the concept of "professional sports", in this day and age, is far too flexible of a term to be defined.

And a lot of this is not only the incompetence of the owners, but also the incompetence of the Commissioners of these leagues to force a concept that "professional sports" requires a given level of player and effort on the part of the organization to be considered "professional".

Two more cases of that came across the transom this morning.

Deadspin has resurrected a long-standing debate:  When will Rob Manfred throw out the Wilpons, for not only incompetence, but financial malfesance?

The Wilpons were of a number of people swindled by Bernie Madoff -- and, to cover themselves, took what assets they had and leveraged them.  This included the Mets.  In 2011, they needed $100 million to keep afloat from Major League Baseball, and wanted another $50M!

The Wilpons also were part of a sexual-discrimination plot against employees, including one who was fired for becoming pregnant!

Just in the last week, one player was ordered to pitch through symptoms of hand, foot, and mouth disease -- while another player was forced to play with a chronic heel condition that now will have him, after surgery, out a year at least, if he ever plays again!

The Deadspin post puts it best:

"But the cascade of disgrace over the last week has been both so dramatic and so dramatically mishandled on the team’s part that the McCourt Standard—an ownership group that is sufficiently embarrassing and sufficiently over its head as to have an actively negative impact on the broader state of play in the league—is now not just in sight but tentatively in play."

As my anonymous baseball-historian friend points out, this was talked about by many baseball fans when the McCourts were getting thrown out!  Now it's seven years later, and New York is trying to pass off a mid-market (if not small-market!!!) team???  Now, it's seven years later, and no one seems to get that the Wilpons are using this team, at best, as an ATM?

But, at least to me, I begin to wonder if one of the reasons it's not happening is because most of the league doesn't give two shits about the concept of a professional sports team and a concept called WINNING...

Because you could be San Diego right now.  The Padres have put together what would be an innovative ticket plan, but Yahoo! Sports reports that discards the singular major notion of a sporting event.

How do I say this?  The more the Padres lose at home, the more that a person holding this ticket can attend.

For $99, you can buy as many games as you want to attend at the Padres stadium -- with one catch.

The ticket (and it's tracked electronically when you are scanned into the stadium, I would assume) expires when the ticket is used for five San Diego wins.

San Diego is 42-63, 20-31 at home.  Meaning that, at least on average, that ticket would probably be good for thirteen games...

But are we basically, then, rooting for San Diego to lose?

Unintended Consequences Department:  Would this not encourage fans of other NL West teams to possibly take over the stadium?

Arizona has ten games left in San Diego.  San Francisco five, Colorado has three.

Oy vey.  Blinded By The Light.  Again.