"Right-Wing Billionaire Wins the World Series!: Most of the Major League Baseball teams are owned by billionaires. But the owners of the Rangers and the Diamondbacks are particularly disgusting”, Nov 2, 2023, Peter Dreier, Common Dreams, at < https://www.commondreams.org/
~~ recommended by dmorista ~~
Introduction by dmorista: Drier points out, not to any particular surprise, that nearly all the 30 Major League Teams are owned by rich people. Anybody who is at all perceptive has noticed that teams, owned by billionaires, have players that include many millionaires, who play in front of upper-middle class crowds (a typical working class or middle class person can no longer afford to go to these overpriced events, where they start by charging outlandish prices for parking, then the expensive tickets, then very high priced food and drink). In many cases the expensive stadiums that the team owners demand (with private suites where the truly rich can avoid rubbing elbows with the merely well-off) are paid for with regressive sales taxes and bond issues. The new stadiums, in some cases, are located in land stolen from the working class. For example the new Yankee Stadium was built by destroying a New York City Part that was over 100 years old and that traditionally served working class people from the Bronx. No recompense and no other land for a replacement park was ever offered or requested.
The World Series game reflected the Southernization of U.S. culture. The Diamonbacks, from Phoenix, are from the hottest and most water stressed urban area in the U.S. Hundreds of people each year in the Phoenix Area suffer serious (3rd Degree) burns if they make the mistake of touching the metal parts of their seat belts when they get in their cars if they have been parked in the sun (pretty hard to avoid in a city with few trees). And who can forget the paramilitary fascists who camped out, with their machine guns, at the main ballot box in Phoenix to try to intimidate people who voted against Trump, or Paul Gosar, Kari Lake, and other obvious fascists on the Arizona ballot in 2020. The civic leaders of Dallas / Ft. Worth did plan to buy out and otherwise gain control of all the surface water surrounding that urban area. They even struggled with the Frackers who did some damage to the River Impoundment lakes that hold the water supply for the Dallas / Ft. Worth area. But they are (like the Phoenix ruling class) relentless real estate speculators and DFW has long been a center for far right political operations (it was no accident that JFK was killed in Dallas).
Drier does a nice job of pointing out the typical reactionary inconsistencies of Davis (owner of the Texas Rangers) and Kendricks (owner of the Arizona Diamondbacks). Both like to feed at the public trough while trying to end any help for common people. In fact, before Davis came on the scene Bush the Younger worked to condemn the land, using eminent domain, where the new “Ballpark at Arlington” is located. In fact they forced a large landowner to sell at a low price, however that was the Curtis Mathis family ranch (the TV manufacturer) and they sued and won in court. The difference between the original forced-sale price and the court mandated price was paid for with a sales tax in the DFW area. Bush the Younger, and his partners in the real-estate hustle, made off with their millions.
Right-Wing Billionaire Wins the World Series!
Most of the Major League Baseball teams are owned by billionaires. But the owners of the Rangers and the Diamondbacks are particularly disgusting.
To be honest, I didn't really care whether the Arizona Diamondbacks or the Texas Rangers won the World Series. Once my two favorite teams—the Dodgers and the Red Sox—were eliminated, I didn’t have a stake in the outcome of the World Series. I just wanted to watch to see first-rate baseball and see interesting games, and the Diamondbacks and Rangers didn't disappoint.
Most of the 30 MLB teams are owned by billionaires. But the owners of the Rangers and the Diamondbacks are particularly disgusting. Ken Kendrick, who owns the Diamondbacks, and Ray Davis—whose Rangers won the World Series in Game 5 on Wednesday night with a 5-0 shutout win—are both billionaires with a history of providing financial support for Republican candidates and right-wing causes.
According to Forbes magazine, Davis has a personal net worth of $2.9 billion. Before getting into the baseball business, Davis was CEO of two fossil fuel corporations—Energy Transfer Partners (ETP) and Energy Transfer Equity (ETE). ETP is a natural gas distributor and pipeline company. Davis stepped down as CEO in 2007 but still owns 2.4% of the company. In 2017, despite protests by the Standing Rock Sioux tribe, Energy Transfer finished building the $3.8 billion Dakota Access Pipeline. The corporation operates over 125,000 miles of pipeline that move approximately 30% of America's oil and natural gas. Davis and a group of investors bought the Texas Rangers for about $600 million in 2010; it's now worth $1.5 billion. Since 2021, Davis has donated at least $225,000 to Texans for Greg Abbott, the state's right-wing Republican governor, according to state campaign finance records. He's also donated to other Republican candidates.
In 2003, the Chicago Cubs hosted the first Pride game to celebrate their LGBTQ fans. Since then, all but one of the 30 Major League teams have hosted an annual Pride Day or Pride Night event. The Texas Rangers are the only team without a Pride Night.
Ken Kendrick is only worth $1 billion, according to Forbes, but he's a much bigger donor to politicians and right-wing causes than Davis. He and his wife Randy have made large donations to conservative groups connected with the Koch brothers. According to FEC filings, he has donated to many Republican election deniers, including Arizona U.S. Congressman Paul Gosar and Andy Biggs as well as to conspiracy-theory nutjob Congresswoman Lauren Boebert of Colorado.
Kendrick founded a software company called Data Technology which merged in 1979 with another company called Datatel. General Motors bought the company in 1988 for $511 million, giving Kendrick a big boost in his personal wealth. He made more money by investing early in Woodforest National Bank, which now has more than $1.7 billion in assets. Woodforest National Bank is Walmart’s largest retail partner. Kendrick became part-owner of the Diamondbacks with the team's inception in 1995 and has been the managing general partner (the major owner) since 2004.
Kendrick is one of those Republicans who decry "big government," but he's perfectly happy receiving government subsidies for his business from Arizona taxpayers. The Diamondbacks built Bank One Ballpark (later renamed Chase Field), the first retractable roof stadium in MLB with a grass field, in 1995 with the help of $253 million dollars in public financing through an increase in sales tax in Maricopa County. This happened during a huge county budget deficit and lack of funding for other services. The County Supervisors approved the tax increase without asking for voters' approval. In 2016, Kendrick decided that the stadium needed about $65 million worth of repairs, and estimated that it would need a total of $187 million of upkeep costs over the final 12 years of its lease with Maricopa County. And of course, they wanted the taxpayers to pay for it. County officials refused. One of them, Andy Kunasek, described the Diamondbacks as “parasitic enterprise.” When the County wouldn't provide Kendrick with the subsidy, he sued the County in an attempt to get out of the Diamondback's lease, which expires in 2027. Kendrick has hinted that if the County doesn't pay for those improvements, he'd consider moving to the team and building another stadium.
Oh, and in case you're wondering, Kenrick is also a union-buster. In 2020, when the 30 major league owners locked the players out for three months (essentially, an owners' strike), Kendrick was one of the four most reactionary owners who voted against signing a new collective bargaining agreement with the players union.
So it was a win for the Rangers last night, and congrats to all the players. However, no matter which way this series may have gone, it would have been one right-wing billionaire or another holding the trophy in the end.
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