Maria Ayerdi Kaplan Fights For Respect In Salesforce Transit Center San Francisco Story

In San Francisco, California stands the brand-new Salesforce Transit Center. It's six-stories high, 1,500 feet long, and costs $2.2 billion. It replaced the historic, yet earthquake-damaged Transbay Transit Center and has taken almost 20 years to start and finish.


The only news you may know is about cracks found in two steel beams, or about the cost overruns. If you read about Salesforce Transit Center, you may find references to any number of events that happened before 2017, and not between 2017 and now. None of those attempts to fix the news are true.



But what's true is this: a woman named Maria Ayerdi Kaplan was responsible for the conception, financing, and construction of what stands today. There were both private and public officials that worked to stand in her way during the process toward building what is Salesforce Transit Center. She withstood those challenges, and retired from running the organization she created and helmed since 2008, the Transbay Joint Powers Authority (TJPA), in 2016.





Now, Maria faces an attack that at times take on the appearance of racism and sexism, and from people who would seek to put their mistakes on her. That's wrong. First, they worked for her, and so she trusted them to get the project done. Second, they have an expertise she lacks, which is why you hire anyone to do a thing to start with. Third, Maria left in July of 2016, the project wasn't opened until August 12th of 2018.


With that, the focus has not been on what happened in the development of the Salesforce Transit Center from late 2016 to August 12th of 2018, and the over 10,000 people who walked on the pavement of Salesforce Park, but on inspections done in the past. There have been deliberate misrepresentations of the past, only to help make certain other people look good. The fact is, Maria Ayerdi Kaplan's reputation has been wrongly attacked and the people who have done it owe her an apology.


San Francisco should first know about and second be proud of the work Maria Ayerdi Kaplan has done. That includes the organizations that were hired to work for her.

Magic Johnson Introduced as Dodgers Owner by Vin Scully

Magic Johnson is introduced as LA Dodgers owner by legendary broadcaster Vin Scully. He says that his role is to stay in the background and not interrupt the daily routine of the players.

What Magic brings to the role of key Dodgers owner is the understanding of what it means to be a player and play at a championship level with respect to management. He's stayed in the background and worked to engineer aggressive trades to make the team better this year.

Congratulations to Magic Johnson.

The Jeffersons Theme Song Sang By Zennie Abraham

Texas Rangers Nolan Ryan Says "We Can Win Three In A Row" In World Series

As reported at Zennie62.com, after making them wait, Texas Rangers Team President and Pitching Legend Nolan Ryan came on The Dan Patrick Show this morning and deadpanned that he thinks the team, currently being clobbered 26 to 9 by the San Francisco Giants, can "win three in a row."

Was Nolan Ryan sending a message to his organization? Certainly. Was he trying to dis the San Francisco Giants? Not at all. Ryan praised the Giants performance, saying they are "by far" playing the best baseball, but Nolan did say he didn't expect the offensive performance he's seen from the Giants thus far.

The full recap of Dan Patrick's interview with Nolan Ryan is here at Zennie62.com.

Dallas Braden gets 2nd Oakland A's perfect game in 42 years (video)

Dallas Braden 

The Oakland Athletics Dallas Braden became the 14th player in Oakland A's history to throw a no-hitter or a perfect game, and just the second A's player to pitch a perfect game - the other being Catfish Hunter in 1968.

Braden led the A's to a 4-0 win against the Tampa Bay Devil Rays in Oakland on Mother's Day.

Now lost in all the celebration is what a "perfect game" in baseball is. It's not a "no-hitter"; it's beyond that. It's a game where no player from the opposing team gains a hit or gets on base in any way, even by a walk or a hit batter.

Nothing.  Nada.  Zip.

Here's the video:



That's what Dallas Braden did today. Braden's the first Oakland A's pitcher to throw a perfect game in 42 years. That's incredible.

Much has been made of Braden's feud with The New York Yankees' Alex Rodriquez, who's behavior has been rather salty since he was dumped by Kate Hudson after she learned A-Rod was allegedly cheating on her.



When the Oakland A's last played the New York Yankees, A-Rod crossed the mound that was manned by Dallas Braden. Braden took offense to the action and said that A-Rod did not understand baseball etiquette and their "would be repercussions" if he did it again, as this video shows:



The Yankees and A's face again July 5th, 6th, and 7th, in Oakland. Oaklander's, let's make those games sellouts!

Angels baseball beats Yankees baseball 5-4: battle of payrolls

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Angels win was a Money-ball story

The old saying: the more things change the more they stay the same. The Los Angeles Angels beat the New York Yankees 5-4 today in the AL Championship Series. They're back 2 games to one and could make a real game of it with another win.

But don't make the mistake of thinking that it was David beating Goliath, where the New York Yankees monster payroll was clobbered by the miserly fiscal practices of the Angels.

Ha!

The truth is that the 2009 player expeditures for both teams are not far off. The Yankees payroll was between $192 million and $201 million this year; the Angels payroll was at $113 million.

Both teams are part of the top six highest payrolls in Major League Baseball, proving that it takes money to win, even in this post-Moneyball era. This was supposed to be the time when the Internet and sabermetrics created a baseball team that could consistently when with a low payroll.

But the reality in 2009 is the same as it was in 1993 and in 2002 when I created the Oakland Baseball Simworld in partnership with Forio Business Simulations, and 2003 when University of San Francisco Professor Dan Rascher and I founded Sports Business Simulations.

Payroll rules.

Our simulation was and is designed to reflect both the "Moneyball" approach and the more common "Pay-To-Win" strategy, but it's the latter that's hard to beat.

In fact, Smith college Sports Economist Andrew Zimbalist (who's also a member of our simulation advisory board) determined that after 1990 there was a more powerful correlation between higher payrolls and team performance.

I tried for years to make a team "work" in the context of the current Oakland Coliseum using the Oakland Baseball Simworld (which I developed from scratch for the purpose of teaching marketing, business, and sports finance in high school and college classrooms and is based on my work at the City of Oakland). It's hard to achieve the 250 and up score that indicates baseball business success.

The only answer is to build a new stadium. Location aside - Oakland's better - it's the best tonic to turn any Oakland-based baseball team into a winner, including the one currently called The Oakland Athletics.

Meanwhile, the Yankees and Angels will keep being in the hunt for the World Series. Some things never change.

Erin Andrews's Bottom

Coliseum Stadium Plan For Oakland Athletics Revealed

The Commissioner of Baseball on Monday announced a new committee devoted to determining the viability of baseball in the East Bay. In his statements Commissioner Bud Selig said that the A's owners have exhausted their efforts in Oakland.

But really, they have not.

Here's an example in this plan for a new Coliseum baseball stadium on the parking lot land of the facility.

The plan, created by architect Frank Dobson and Retail Leasing expert Bob Leste with Oaklander Steve Lowe was first introduced in 2004 and while it was presented to the then-new ownership group and A's Managing Partner Lew Wolff, it went largely ignored by them. Wolff was known to be in love with a concept called a baseball village and needed a lot of land to make that work, hence the Fremont land chase.

But the idea called for hundreds of acres of land, more than the A's organization could afford given the economy and so needing public money turned to Fremont, which turned a deaf ear to their request.




Wolff has not wanted to be in Oakland, but the Mayor's Sports and Entertainment Task Force wants to maintain the A's here in Oakland. To that end, it supports the plan you're about to see in this video.

The plan needs to be upgraded for 2009 and a financing plan developed. It also lacks an economic impact analysis and a job development report. But just eyeballing the plan I can say it can generate about 10,000 construction jobs and 4,000 permanent jobs. It calls for a new stadium, a parking structure, and a retail structure at the Coliseum as well as an enlarged BART bridge. The total cost is about $440 million but we at the task force understand that was a 2004 estimate.

The video shows much of Bob Leste's presentation to the task force last Thursday and the discussion as well as the plan itself.

Barry Bonds Arraignment in San Francisco Federal Court

From Inside Bay Area: Former San Francisco Giants slugger Barry Bonds pleaded not guilty to 11 criminal counts as part of an indictment accusing him of lying about steroid use before a 2003 grand jury.

ARod? Steroids? Blame Baseball and The Commissioner

Alex Rodriguez admitted that he took performance enhancing drugs in 2003, and perhaps between 2001 and 2003 while with the Texas Rangers. But I don't blame him, I blame Baseball and the Commissioner of Baseball for the "Golden Home Run Age."

ARod? Steroids? Blame Baseball and The Commissioner

Alex Rodriguez admitted that he took performance enhancing drugs in 2003, and perhaps between 2001 and 2003 while with the Texas Rangers. But I don't blame him, I blame Baseball and the Commissioner of Baseball for the "Golden Home Run Age."

2009 Go Cubs Go Chicago Cubs Promotional Video - Miracle On Addison Street

Emails Between Mark Cuban and SEC Attorney Jeffrey Norris

Now comes the strange tale of Jeffrey Norris, trial counsel for the SEC in Fort Worth, Texas. His emails to Cuban critical over Cuban's involvement with Loose Change are at the center of Cuban's claim of bias.

read more | digg story

MLB Awards: How Did We Do With Our Predictions?

Here’s a list of the recently assigned MLB awards and how Baseball Reflections fared in predicting them.AL Rookie of the YearWe at Baseball Reflections were right on with selecting Rays 3B Evan Longoria as the hands down choice. But in all fairness, this wasn’t difficult to predict. No one else even came close to Longoria in 2008.

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Mariners Name Don Wakamatsu Manager

Don Wakamatsu became the first Asian-American manager in major league baseball history when he was hired Wednesday by the Seattle Mariners.

read more | digg story

A's owner suggests making first round of playoffs one game

Lew Wolff has a way to shorten baseball's postseason: Make the first round best-of-one.

read more | digg story

BREAKING NEWS: Mussina to retire

There it is. We all thought we knew what was going to happen, and it turned out to be true. Mike Mussina..coming off one of his best seasons in his career, will be retiring from baseball. Mike never got the championship ring he wanted, or 300 wins, but he had one heck of a career. He is going out on top. Mussina is one of the few FA transactions

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Barry Bonds To Sign With Tampa Bay

Remove the label of free agent from the home run champions slate. Barry Bonds is the newest member of the Tampa Bay Rays. The AL East leading Rays are expected to add a thunderous jolt of offensive prowess and media frenzy to their lineup with the late season addition of the 42-year old Bonds.

The announcement could come later this morning as the surging Rays begin the second of a three-game set against the Oakland Athletics. As if the questionable timing does not appear peculiar enough, the seven-time MVP might make his American League debut Thursday afternoon at the Coliseum, minutes away from the city in which he established himself as one of the premier sluggers in major league history.

After returning from the Rays 2-1 defeat last night, rumblings were blatantly evident among A's fans on the train system that Bonds was now back, and ready to wreck havoc on AL pitchers en route to a potential World Series run with the surging Rays.

Forbes: Yankees worth $1.3 billion

NEW YORK (AP)—The New York Yankees’ value increased to $1.306 billion over the past year, according to the annual estimates by Forbes magazine, a rise of 9 percent over the past year.
The New York Mets were second at $824 million and the Boston Red Sox third at $816 million, the magazine said Wednesday. After that, there was a big gap to the Los Angeles Dodgers ($694 million) and the Chicago Cubs ($642 million).

The Yankees were listed by Forbes as having $327 million in revenue last year and a $47.3 million operating loss, up from a $25.2 million loss on revenue of $302 million the previous year. Forbes’ revenue figure is after deducting revenue sharing payments, which the Yankees estimate at about $92 million. The team also paid approximately $24 million in luxury tax, which is reflected in the operating loss.

The Mets had an operating profit of $32.9 million, according to Forbes. Boston, according to Forbes, had a $19.1 million operating loss.

Both New York teams are planning to move into new ballparks in 2009, which should significantly increase their revenues.

At the bottom, the three teams with the lowest values were Florida ($256 million), Tampa Bay ($290 million) and Pittsburgh ($292 million). Forbes estimated the Marlins had an operating profit of $35.6 million, the Rays $29.7 million and the Pirates $17.6 million.

Washington had the highest estimated operating profit at $43.7 million. Forbes said the average operating profit in the majors was $16 million.

Lackluster Start For The Detroit Tigers

Anchored with a $136 million payroll and an All-Star studded lineup featuring the likes of 25-year old slugger Miguel Cabrera and batting champion Magglio Ordonez, the Tigers have faltered out of the gate to a dismal 2-10 start in the highly competitive American League Central.


Plagued by injuries to left-handed hurler Dontrelle Willis, designated hitter Gary Sheffield, center fielder Curtis Granderson, and relievers Joel Zumaya and Fernando Rodney, Detroit is winless at home and has been outscored 69-21 through the first two weeks of the season.