Take a look at my latest on Senate Bill 292, which the Indianapolis Colts ownership claims will endanger fans and players by prohibiting the Capital Improvement Board (CIB) from banning firearms at Lucas Oil Stadium.
Great idea, GOP! Nothing spells party like guns, firearms, and fans angry at a bad call!
Jacob Lacey is over it, but we shouldn't be.
The Indianapolis Colts' second-year cover man said he was driving near Avon at noon when police stopped him, handcuffed him, and searched his vehicle. According to Lacey, his vehicle was surrounded by eight squad cars.
Lacey added that one officer told him he fit the description of a crime suspect, but when police found nothing (or when somebody realized they had a Colts player in cuffs without any probable cause), they left without any apology.
Curiously, neither the Avon PD nor the Hendricks County Sheriff's Office have record of it. Sergeant Linda Jackson with IMPD said "she had not heard" that IMPD was involved. (I am following up to find out for sure).
One of three things can be true: (1) Jacob Lacey is a pathological liar who felt the need to concoct a fantastic story just before a critical football game, knowing the distraction it could create for his team; (2) Lacey got the wrong police department (maybe IMPD was wrong or it was the Indiana State Police); or (3) a lot of law enforcement officers are engaged in a cover up in Hendricks County because they all realized they'd walked in it big time.
I'm opting for two or three, and while I applaud Lacey for not wanting to literally make a federal case out of this, somebody needs to investigate this further. But for the fact Lacey has the media's ear, nobody would blink on a story like this, and too many would assume the black person pulled over in the white suburb MUST have done something wrong.
We need to know what crime report police were allegedly responding to in their investigation, and if it comes back as just "black male," it will tell you why we still have two systems of justice in this country.
Sadly, "driving while black" isn't anything new; it's expected, and that's the most distressing part of the this story. The reason Lacy has already moved on? In his words, "it's not my first go-round."
Maybe not, but it should be his last.
Braveheart is one of my favorite movies. One of the most affecting scenes is when William Wallace realizes he's been betrayed by Robert the Bruce, a man he considered to be of high ideals, capable of leading Scotland to independence. Periodically, I take a gutshot like that from my own party.
My hope has been to minimize those angst-filled moments by administering "tough love." My hope has always been that maybe some Democrats will find their higher angels, lead by example, and bring this community out of the cynicism that permeates political life.
That need for "tough love" was never more apparent than when I read that 26 of 29 city-county councilors took the Colts up on their offer to acquire Superbowl tickets for the councilors at the $800 face value.
Senior Executive Vice-President for the Colts, Pete Ward, said this was done "as a show of appreciation for their public service." This is a ludicrously insulting quote. The Colts made the offer to curry favor with people who control the Colts financial future, and if you think otherwise, ask yourself why this offer wasn't extended to police officers, fire fighters, postal employees, and sanitation workers, among our many "public servants."
I have tremendous respect for many members on the city-county council. They work in a poorly-compensated, often thankless and immeasurably time-consuming job. But they chose to put their names on the ballot to serve, and respectfully, if our city-county councilors missed a meeting, most of us would never know, and in most cases, that absence wouldn't change anything. Can we say the same about our garbage or postal workers? Seriously, if the Colts are not kowtowing to voting power, what about the councilors service is so noteworthy? All the sitting or all the listening?
To my councilor friends, remember that leadership is a straight walk in the shoes of those you serve, not running in well-heeled circles. Leadership is holding your palm up instead of holding your hand out when perks are offered. Leadership is never being oblivious to a single instance of an obvious double standard. If you want a Superbowl ticket, go scrounge on Craig's List like the rest of us.
The Star reports that the Colts have no obligation to disclose who bought the tickets, and in truth, I'm grateful in not knowing. I don't think I could handle the disappointment.
Unfortunately, I don't expect I'll be permitted to stay ignorant. The questions will not stop until the media knows every person who took the tickets and the disposition of those tickets. So, to my council friends, if you are going to ignore the personal code of conduct component to this deal, at least don't be stupid on the politics.
Were I Democratic Party dictator of the universe, I'd corral everybody who bought the tickets, we'd sell them, and we'd donate all the profit collectively to the United Way of Greater Indianapolis or the Red Cross for relief to Hait. But as the only title I have is "party activist," I'll just implore all of my D colleagues to go to the game if you aren't donating all the proceeds to charity. I assure you that if you keep a single dime of profit, you're going to get hammered politically. And, frankly, you should be.
Scotland ultimately got its independence when Robert the Bruce became king. But that didn't happen until after the following exchange:
Robert Bruce, Sr: "All men betray. All men lose heart."
Robert the Bruce: "I don't want to lose heart. I want to believe, as he does."
So do I.
Last week I begged your pardon for writing about the Colts because they’re “off topic” from my typical political posts. Now I wonder.
Listen to what the best writer in the game, Sports Illustrated’s Peter King, has to say about the prospect of a lock-out in the 2011 season (which would mean no January 2012 Superbowl for Indianapolis):
At the core of the problem is ownership's demand for players to bear an equal part of the cost for stadium construction, debt service and upkeep -- and the players saying it's not their problem.
In NFL Players Association executive director DeMaurice Smith's recent e-mail to player representatives, he startled player leaders by saying ownership wanted to cut player compensation by 18 percent per year in the new CBA.
I thought the 18 percent number might be an exaggeration, a scare tactic to get players' attention. It's not. The owners, one management source said, have asked that the players' pool of revenue against which the salary cap is calculated be reduced by 18 percent.
You wonder what 18 percent means. So did I. The management source said the owners want $1 billion a year credited to ownership and not subject to being part of the pie that the players divide. "There's obviously been an enormous shift from public financing of stadiums to private funding,'' the management source said. "Those costs are not recognized in the current CBA, and we feel that has to change.''
But from the players' perspective, it's got to be a tough sell to union leaders. Imagine Smith going into a union meeting at a team and telling the players that the average compensation to the men in this room is about $1.8 million this year in salary and bonus payments, and explaining to them in a time of bountiful success for the NFL, each of the players is going to have to take, on average, a $324,000 pay cut. The players will never go for that, absent the owners being able to prove they're losing money in a time of unparalleled wealth in the league.
Okay, so let's think this through collaboratively, dear readers. "The owners," of which Irsay is one, claim they need to cut player salaries to pay for "the enormous shift to private financing" of stadiums. (Apparently, this "shift" to private financing happened right after we built Lucas Oil using a stadium full of tax dollars).
How in the world could Jim Irsay keep a straight face and vote for a salary cut for players on the basis of needing to pay for private financing and operations costs? Yet he needs to lead the revolt against this talk because, if he doesn't, there will be a lockout, and we will lose the 2012 Superbowl, a venture into which we've sunk dollars too plenty to count.
What makes this possibly even more ironic is that NFL costs overall are allegedly 51% payroll and the rest operational (including the aforementioned dome financing, maintenance, and operations). If we have a lockout, most owners will save on the payroll, but lose on the revenue and operation costs. Irsay won't lose on the latter because we're covering it all (see CIB bailout plan!).
In other words, the guy we're relying upon to talk some of these other owners off the ledge has less of an incentive than anybody in the league. Unless...dear God, somebody please tell me he doesn't get the money from the Superbowl concessions, too.
I seldom stray from politics, but today I do so to defend Colts fans who find themselves being trashed as "spoiled whiners" following their near universal disappointment that the Colts management sat their starters against the New York Jets, effectively foregoing pursuit of a perfect, not just a 16-0 season.
I had a friend who said the following about the movie Underworld: "This is so unrealistic. They wouldn't be able to put sunlight into a bullet." And I thought, "That is the unrealistic part?!? It's not the centuries old blood-feud between vampires and werewolves?" But I understood his point. If you're going to offer "fiction," it has to be consistent within its own little universe.
Jim Caldwell and Bill Polian said their goal was to win a Superbowl, not go 16-0. Presumably, they didn't mean they would purposely tank the perfect season, but rather, would sacrifice the latter to preserve the former. Under what circumstances would such a sacrifice be necessary?
Because you need starters to win, but playing starters can get them hurt, costing you a Superbowl. Sound proposition, right?
I'm going to completely put aside: (1) how demoralized the Colts players looked; (2) how the decision will likely mess with them subconsciously; (3) how Manning admitted this was discussed widely among the players; (4) how you don't take your "foot off the gas" when you are trying to get momentum going into the post-season; (5) how having the offense go consistently three-and-out against the Jets increased the risk of injury to an exhausted defense; (6) how Manning looked rusty in the first half against the Jets and some more reps against a real team, not a practice squad, would have helped him; and (7) how, by the time the Colts take the field this week against Baltimore, it will be four weeks from the last game during which they played hard.
I'll just focus exclusively on management's offered rationale that you don't play key guys in meaningless games.
Okay, then explain why, even though we wrapped up the AFC number one seed, we had starters playing the entire game at Jacksonville? And explain why Peyton Manning took a single snap on a snow-covered (and slick) field in Buffalo, along with Dallas Clark and Reggie Wayne?
The answer became obvious when Manning threw only to Reggie Wayne and Dallas Clark until both of them had 100 receptions for the season, then the troika exited stage left. Those passes were almost all dinkers that even our 3rd-string backup could have completed. So why was Manning in the game? Oh, right. He has a consecutive starts streak going.
Is there anybody else in this city who doesn't see that management risked our Super Bowl victory so that three guys could achieve individual accolades but that same management would not take that risk for a more laudable team achievement of perfection? How can anybody say management used consistent logic, even in their own little universe?
I'll bet anything that Wayne and Clark were in because Manning told Caldwell that get them their pieces of history was the only way to bring peace back to the mind of his two star receivers.
Now, some say the injury to Patriots receiver Wes Welker in a game the Patriots didn't need rebuts Colts detractors, in particular now that the Pats got bounced by Baltimore.
It does no such thing. Welker was untouched on the play that resulted in his injury. It was just one of those freak things. Just like with Marlin Jackson and Chad "Ocho Cinco" Johnson, guys can get hurt in practice. The only guaranteed way to keep players safe is to not let him leave their homes. But as former Pacer Ron Artest showed when he face-planted on his staircase, even that isn't foolproof.
Peyton was more likely to twist a knee on a snowy field than he was from getting hit by a mostly non-existing Jets pass rush.
But, ultimately, none of this matters. We folded up shop, and that's inexcusable. And because of the illogic of when we play/don't play starters, I'm starting to wonder if Teddy Bruschi had it right when he said the Colts wanted an excuse because they were afraid to play for perfection. What if the starters stay in against the Jets and lose? Or what if the Colts win against the Jets, bring the starters and lose against Buffalo? Being afraid is the only thing that makes sense because playing your stars even for a second on a sheet of ice sure as heck doesn't.
Understand I never called for Caldwell or Polian's resignation. Those folks are going overboard. I remember well being 0-13, not 13-0. What Caldwell did as a rookie was outstanding, and Polian's decision does not change my belief that he is the best operations guy in the NFL.
But you know why people follow sports? No, it's not primarily to see beautiful athleticism, though that’s part of it. Just like with political parties, it's about a feeling of belonging to something bigger than you, even though you aren't the star on the field.
Most fans watch sports because their lives will never be as exciting as having millions transfixed, waiting to see in the last instant if he can stretch his arm across the goal line and turn his team into a world champion, or instead come up a yard shy, making the other team the world champion. Every member of that city or state or even national fan base can live vicariously through those players. They can say that MY team has achieved something only a handful of others have had. Every Colts victory is our victory. That perfect season would have been our perfect season. Didn't millions of Democrats feel that same exhilaration when Obama was declared our president?
I don’t mean to overly minimize the Colts' sustained excellence of winning the most games in a decade of any team in the NFL history, but how’s that play in the debate down at Spencer's Stadium Tavern?
Dolphins fan: Yeah, well, my Dolphins had a perfect season!
Me: Oh, yeah, well, the Colts had…the most victories spanning a decade in NFL history.
Pats fan: Yeah, but they had ONE Superbowl during that time! By your own rationale, all those season victories are meaningless because your alleged ultimate goal was to win the Superbowl, a task you failed at nine of those ten years. We played in four Superbowls and WON THREE during YOUR alleged decade of dominance!
When Peyton Manning was pulled from that field, it suggested that neither Polian nor Caldwell cared whether Colts fans would be deprived of the chance of saying that the team for which they root, for which they invested money, sacrificed work, gave sacred leisure time, and used as a means to bond with family and friends, had achieved what nobody else has ever achieved - the perfect season with Superbowl victory in the 16-game NFL era.
And why did we give up the pursuit of perfection? To keep guys safe WHO WE JEOPARDIZED THE WEEK BEFORE AND THE WEEK AFTER!
If the Colts don't win the Superbowl, most people will think it's because we didn't keep them sharp, and we demoralized our players by suppressing their killer instinct. If we win, that will be awesome. But who among us won't wonder, "What if?" It will be the first Superbowl victory with a mental asterisk next to it.
At the end of the day, fans (and political activists) want to see a fighter’s spirt. They aren't bothered by the fights we lose as much as the ones we don't suit up for.
Let’s be honest. Winning a Superbowl requires some luck keeping players healthy, and it requires that destiny to be on your side. How often do you see a quarterback elude an almost certain sack to heave a ball down the field to have the receiver catch it while falling down and holding it against the top of his helmet? But that’s precisely how the New York Giants took it all away from the last alleged team of destiny, the New England Patriots, isn’t it?
We all will be pulling mightily for you, Indianapolis Colts, to win it all. But I will always steadfastly believe this: to BE a team of destiny, you have to play like one. On December 27, 2009, the Indianapolis Colts didn't.
I want people to weigh in because this is very much a "stream of consciousness." I have been thinking about the CIB, Lucas Oil stadium, the Colts, the Simon Property group, the Pacers, and the firestorm of criticism surrounding it all.
The recurring theme from critics (who seem more Republican of late than Democrat) is that "powerful interests," usually the owners, the powerful law firms who represent them, and the contractors who stand to benefit from x, y, and z have worked hypnotic magic on elected officials while the public takes a bath. A great populist sound bite for any mayoral candidate: "I won't kowtow to millionaire ballplayers and their billionaire owners when we can't get air conditioning in our schools!"
Sounds great, but isn't kissing the behinds of millionaires what elected officials do in a capitalist society? Cities do tax abatement deals and pay for new infrastructure for specific companies all the time on the taxpayer's dollar. Has anybody calculated the value of Lilly's tax writeoffs? What about what the State of Indiana coughs up for every foreign auto maker? Some may say, "Yes, but those were worth it." Okay, but now we're just negotiating over price, right? We have agreed that instead of just setting a low tax rate and saying, "Come here if you want" to all businesses while letting the chips fall where they may, our elected officials pick favorites.
I wonder if any of the outrage comes from the fact that the critics don't like who was picked. The Pacers and Colts are functionally owned by two (Herb and Mel Simon) and one (Jim Irsay), respectively. It's easier to direct populist outrage toward Jim Irsay than a Lilly CEO most people don't know. Also, does any of the outrage come from the critics' personal sentiments about the intrinsic value of the product - in both cases, a game?
That's a hard thought to shake, but when you're talking about a billion to build a stadium plus operating expenses in the millions annually, you have to give the benefit of the doubt to critics. But how can so many people be outraged when it appears that no fewer than five people in the City could give you a meaningful analysis on the pros/cons of professional sports. (Mark Rosentraub, come back!)
What is the value for a city in having a professional franchise? How much WOULD a Pacers or Colts departure hurt us? Can we do a "fair" analysis on the dollars with some sense?
Here's what we might lose:
Direct and Immediate loss:
- State and local income tax paid by people who now work for the Pacers who would lose their jobs. (This would include taxes paid by some millionaire ballplayers).
- State and local income tax paid by people who now work to support Pacer games who would lose their jobs. (This would be the concession and security people who work at Conseco).
- Sales tax revenue paid for goods purchased by the Pacers. (This would not be equal to the Pacers total expense budget, of course, because goods are probably only half of that budget, if that, and only in-state goods would result in sales tax benefits to the state). Does anybody have figures on these top three, which would seem easy enough to gather?
- Sales tax revenue lost for goods purchased in downtown after Pacers games (patrons going out to eat, for example - but more on that in a second).
Secondary Loss:
- State and local income tax paid by people who now work for businesses that benefit from downtown crowds. (This would be people like restaurant waiters, taxi cab drivers, Circle Center Mall store employees, etc.)
- State sales tax paid for goods purchases by businesses that benefit from downtown crowds.
Tertiary Loss:
- Lost state and local income taxes when businesses that benefit from downtown crowds have to either close or reduce their workforce because there isn't enough of a "downtown presence."
- Lost sales tax when businesses that benefit from downtown crowds buy less from in-state vendors.
- Payments for unemployment insurance to employees with no jobs in all categories.
- State and local income tax, sales tax, and hotel tax losses when conventions don't come here because there isn't anything to do now that so many restaurants have closed due to inconsistent downtown patronage (a/k/a "the catastrophic collapse theory").
The restaurant industry is highly competitive. It is conceivable that not having at least 10-12,000 additional people downtown at least 42 nights per year might actually cause some restaurants to collapse. (Have you BEEN to Hooters downtown? Not all that great, folks!)
But do yourself a favor and distinguish between losses for the City of Indianapolis (meaning "to the county border") from "downtown" losses. You see, the SAs act like if you don't go to a Pacer or Colt game, you'll stay home and starve. They don't seem to account for you going to a neighborhood restaurant or theater for a Sunday dinner and movie. In other words, all of the sales tax dollars might still be injected into the county economy, just in different ways. Downtown's loss might be everybody else's gain.
I'd love to look at the total sales tax revenue in the county on a home game day and compare it to the total sales tax revenue on a non-game day. What IS the non game-day drop?
If we knew that, at least we could get a rough sense of how many people from out of county drop money into the county because they come to see the Colts. (As an Indianapolis citizen, that would be a compelling argument, by the way).
The SAs also act like we couldn't come up with anything else to do with the money currently spent to manage CIB facilities. Is that the limit of our vision? If we had scrapped Conseco and built an amusement park downtown for the same cost, wouldn't anybody show up? Is professional basketball all their is to do in the United States? I'm being tongue-in-cheek, of course, but this goes to the dearth of what I call "alternative thinking" on this subject.
In fairness to the SAs though, I have to offer three countervailing thoughts.
First, there is a definite benefit to preserving a thriving downtown core because that IS where the convention business goes. It doesn't go to Clermont. If we let Indianapolis turn back into Nap-town, we lose conventioneers.
Second, there is an intangible benefit to having a pro sports team, in particularly, if the team does well. The civic pride that came with winning a Superbowl was major. Also, we don't know why sports stars are so adored, we just know they are, and can anybody tell me that Peyton Manning hasn't improved the city's profile more than the next 25 people of note in the city? If top-of-mind awareness means something, it has to be valuable, even if subconsciously, to have people hearing "Indianapolis" every Sunday on ESPN over and over again.
Finally, can we lie to ourselves and act like capitalism isn't about kowtowing to millionaires? When we are trying to recuit, say, a life sciences company here, do you know who is going to decide? The CEO and his board. Do you know what the CEO and his board are going to think about, all things being equal on the business deal part? Schools?!? Ha ha ha! Don't make me laugh. They'll send their kids to private schools. Crime?!?! Ha ha ha! They'll live in gated communities. No, they will think about (1) how cheap it is for the company; and (2) what THEY get to do. If I'm a CEO and my options are to go to Indianapolis where I can entertain clients in a suite at Lucas Oil and watch Peyton Manning or go to Columbus, Ohio where I can....um....yeah, I'm not real sure....where do you think I'll go? A fair rebuttal might be, "Show me a company who said it came here for football." I bet I could, and I would also bet that for every one I could find who would say it, there would be ten who would think it imprudent to publicly say so for fear of shareholder outrage.
Also, and perhaps most crucially, who would know best the "intangible" value of a pro sports franchise? Wouldn't it be the cities that have lost them? If so, why in the world would every city that played chicken with their franchise and lost pay MORE to get a team back after the fact? Seriously, cxcept for Brooklyn, I'm pretty sure there isn't a single city in America right now that once had a pro team that isn't trying to get a new one. Shouldn't that tell us that maybe we are overlooking something in the intangibles category? If we are not sold on the idea that losing a pro sports team hurts convention business (and I, for one, don't see any correlation), couldn't we just look at the convention business of a city that lost a team three years after departure to see if the city suffered any loss?
These are the very real considerations that seemingly nobody has articulated or analyzed in a meaningful (or certainly not in a persuasive) way. If we did our homework, we might realize that kissing the behinds of millionaires is just what you do because they are the engines of capitalism, and with monopolistic ventures, such as pro sports, the owners hold all the cards.
In the alternative, we might that the only difference between a brown-noser and a shithead is depth perception.
The Indianapolis Colts sent an e-mail to their fans yesterday. That statement makes a few legit points, but also, it says that the Colts never asked for a new stadium. Instead, Colts' owner Jim Irsay claims the City approached him about one.
Does Jim Irsay think we have NO memory? Irsay told Channel 6 back in 2003 that "sooner or later" the Colts would need a new stadium.
So here's what REALLY happened.
The City wanted the Colts to stay. The Colts were talking up how the "small market" finances were going to "regrettably, force us to leave." Irsay was complaining to anybody who would listen that the Colts didn't have enough corporate skyboxes to make money. So, the City rightfully thought if it got the guy bigger space, he could sell more skyboxes, add thousands more season ticket holders, and stay.
In other words, maybe the city DID bring the idea to Irsay, but it was the idea HE GAVE THEM as a way to placate HIM.
This is like having your wife leave pictures of the Coach handbag she wants for Christmas in every room of your house, then when you buy it and later complain about exceeding the Christmas budget, she tells you it wasn't her idea.
Sorry, Mr. Irsay, but you just KILLED your credibility. I find myself unable to "hear" anything else in that e-mail because you have been so incredibly disingenuous. This is particularly troubling from a man who wears his Christianity so publicly on his sleeve. Don't you know that creating a deliberate misimpression is a cousin to a lie, if not its brother?
Your effort to create goodwill through this e-mail will backfire mightily, and you should fire whoever put the paragraph about "who really wanted the dome" into the letter. If it's you, you might want to leave the PR to the experts in the future.
