Miami-Dade County is paying billions for their new ballpark

People complain about government spending, right? How half of the country is on food stamps and sucking the other half down because they refuse to work, right? Costs need to be cut! Local governments need to stop giving these handouts that only help lazy people!

Then you read a story like this and realize that the needy might be the cause of the problem, it might be the rich people. Public financed stadiums are the biggest farce in all of sports. We pay billionaires to build these palaces designed to charge us more money so we can go watch our favorite baseball team play. The public doesn't get the money back, it goes back to the rich owners. Owners that worth billions of dollars themselves.

Now Miami is on the hook for BILLIONS of dollars for their new ballpark. That's right, they are going to have to pay back billions of dollars so people can go to a privately owned ballteam's game. Good lord.

FROM DEADSPIN:

The county chipped in $500 million for the construction of Marlins Park. The county did not have $500 million, but construction needed to start and be paid for immediately. So Miami-Dade borrowed the money by selling bonds on Wall Street, a loan which won't come due for decades.

When it does, it's going to hurt. The Miami Herald does the math on just one set of those bonds, which raised $91 million. Payments begin in 2026, and quickly skyrocket. By 2048, when the last payment is due, the total reaches $1.18 billion.
....

this $1.2 billion is only on one set of bonds. The total payments for all of the $500 million borrowed by the county will eventually come in at a whopping $2.4 billion. Not only did Jeffrey Loria get taxpayers to buy him a stadium, but they bought him the most expensive stadium ever built.

One thing I noticed is that they'll be paying in 2048. Anybody think that the stadium will still be around by that time? The owner will probably be clamoring for a new state-of-the-art ballpark that actual pickpockets fans as they walk through the concourse far before the date.

Now since it was voted that the county had to build the stadium, they had to find the money somewhere because they just didn't have that kind of cash laying around. Apparently we're more concerned about our cool new stadiums then the local government actually serving some public good.

(If you want to waste money, buy this Marlins hat.)

Epic Video: Yankee fans are douchebags

Here's a brawl video from a Yankees-Marlins game where a dad gets a little... physical. This Blair Witch-like brawl footage is highlighted by the Yankees fan 10-year old daughter crying (Obviously because she's seeing her dad take and receive swings) and him telling her to quiet down. Ladies and Gentlemen, parenting in the 21st century!

Thanks to Deadspin for this.

JustSON the Numbers: Ryan Zimmerman

Lets hear it for the Washington Nationals everybody, they have now made the big time........crickets. Oh well JustSON the Numbers is big for the Nats. This edition I'll dig into Ryan Zimmerman and his 30 game hitting streak and May hot streak.

Zimmerman's streak started on April 8th of this year against the Florida Marlins at Dolphin Stadium (I know people are wondering "I thought this was baseball not fishing") and is still good as of yesterday against the San Francisco Giants. This was the Nationals 3rd game of the year and Zimmerman went 1 for 5 with a double. Before this game Zimmerman started the year going 1 for 9. The streak is the longest active streak by any player and is tied for the 35th longest streak of all time.

Up until the month of May Zimmerman wasn't really scorching at the plate as he had a lot of games where he went 1 for 4 or 1 for 5 so his batting average coming out of April was at .289. So far this month Zimmerman has played in 11 games and 9 of those games he has gotten at least 2 hits in. 3 of the 11 games Zimmerman has gotten 3 hits or more. He is hitting exactly .500 this month which has raised his batting average on the year to .364.

I think another amazing stat is that on April 20th Zimmerman signed a 5-year $45 million contract that replaced the one-year $3,325,000 contract he had in place. It seems most players try too hard after signing a huge contract or decide to put it on cruise control, in this case Zimmerman appears to have put it in overdrive (sorry for the car references but I like cars).

Currently Zimmerman is in the top 10 of many statistical categories in the National League including batting average (.364, 3rd), home runs (8, tied for 8th), RBI's (26, tied for 8th), runs scored (27, tied for 3rd), hits (51, 1st), doubles (12, tied for 3rd) and slugging percentage (.621, 6th).

So far Zimmerman's success at the plate has not translated into success for the Nationals as a team. Currently Washington sits in last place in the National League East with 10 wins and 21 losses. They are actually dead last in all of baseball as well. If only Zimmerman could pitch also.

If anyone has any requests for this column let us know. I don't discriminate, no matter the sport or the stat.