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.

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