Josh Johnson At Coral Square Mall

[MVETOY]

Josh Johnson will be at Coral square mall in Coral Springs for a meet and greet saturday july 24th 11.30 to 1pm, autographs are $29 per item

[MiamiLifer247]

Josh Johnson will be at Coral square mall in Coral Springs for a meet and greet saturday july 24th 11.30 to 1pm, autographs are $29 per item

 

 

 

Thanks for the post... How did you hear about it? where in Coral Square Mall? Again, thanks!!!! I'll be there, going to Cody signing later on today...

[miamimarlinswin]

Seems like the Marlins are responding to the Miami Heat already. Two autograph signings this close after the Heat dazzles one and all. Good for us. Maybe this Heat thing was a kick in the behind the Marlins management needed to start the drive towards wowing us as the stadium opening nears. I wonder if they will do one in Miami-Dade County soon, as that will soon be the Marlins home.

 

(are the corporate offices in Miami-Dade or Broward right now ?)

[Hammerhead]

I hate paying for autographs but I may have to go to this.

[MiamiLifer247]

I hate paying for autographs but I may have to go to this.

 

 

By charging a fee it keeps most dealers/resellers away... I don't mind paying as long as it keeps away the wrong crowd... JJ has Cy young potential, I wouldn't mind paying $29 for that...

[dim]

Glad I already got a signed JJ ball for free two years ago.

[heat84]

Maybe I'll go if I'm not working. I'm 2 miles away. Not for the autographs though. I'm not into that.

[HawkFan]

Josh Johnson will be at Coral square mall in Coral Springs for a meet and greet saturday july 24th 11.30 to 1pm, autographs are $29 per item

 

 

 

Thanks for the post... How did you hear about it? where in Coral Square Mall? Again, thanks!!!! I'll be there, going to Cody signing later on today...

 

 

 

It's been on signingshotline.com for 2 months now...

[FutureGM]

Johnson's a really good in-person signer considering all of his accomplishments. Still, $29 is really cheap for a guy like him.

[FutureGM]

I hate paying for autographs but I may have to go to this.

 

If you can make it to Spring Training he signs just about every game from what I've seen.

[HawkFan]

I hate paying for autographs but I may have to go to this.

 

If you can make it to Spring Training he signs just about every game from what I've seen.

 

I second that. He also signs after pre-game bullpen sessions during the regular season if you can get into the stadium when it's still going on.

[HawkFan]

Johnson's a really good in-person signer considering all of his accomplishments. Still, $29 is really cheap for a guy like him.

 

 

I agree, $29 today for a Cy Young candidate is pretty good compared to what comparable players charge, however, I still have a problem paying that much for an autograph of a current player. While I understand inflation is involved, consider I paid $30 for Hank Aaron's signature back in '93 at the former Bell's Factory Outlet mall off of I-Drive. While it's almost 20 years later, I just can't justify paying that much for a current player when I used to get HOF's for that much (or less).

 

As I said in my Cody Ross posting, it's really sad to see autographs become big business. The dealers jsut want to make more money, the players want a bigger cut of the pie than they used to and those of us that do this just for a hobby and collecting are the ones that lose out. I refuse to play that game; I honestly don't remember the last time I paid for an auto.

[Hammerhead]

I hate paying for autographs but I may have to go to this.

 

If you can make it to Spring Training he signs just about every game from what I've seen.

 

I second that. He also signs after pre-game bullpen sessions during the regular season if you can get into the stadium when it's still going on.

Problem for us in South Florida now is that now that the Orioles are gone, getting up to ST often has become a bit of a burden. Would probably spend the $29 in gas to go up to Jupiter and back, anyways.

[louiecastillo1]

Maybe I'll go if I'm not working. I'm 2 miles away. Not for the autographs though. I'm not into that.

 

 

You gonna try to get his number or something? lol

[...]

While it's almost 20 years later, I just can't justify paying that much for a current player when I used to get HOF's for that much (or less).

 

 

 

it's really sad to see autographs become big business. The dealers just want to make more money, the players want a bigger cut of the pie than they used to and those of us that do this just for a hobby and collecting are the ones that lose out.

 

I agree that you have a point, but please allow me to pick it apart a little while hopefully explaining what has been going on, lo these many years and what may be the real cause of your distress.

 

Dealers only exist because there are willing buyers and sellers. If they aren't profitable, they'll go out of business. Take them as a given unless demand evaporates. Probably not gonna happen.

 

Players want some cut, to which they are certainly entitled. Baseball is a business, autographs included.

 

However, in the 45 years since 1965, minimum ballplayer salaries have gone from 6K to 400K, the highest salaries from about 100K to about 30 million, both up by a factor of 30 or more.

 

Meanwhile, average weekly earnings of production and nonsupervisory employees (as in your average non-ballplaying, working schlub) on private nonfarm payrolls went from 101.52 to 629.59, or up by a factor of 6.2, less than a quarter as much.

 

ftp://ftp.bls.gov/pu...ftp://ftp.bls.gov/pub/suppl/empsit.ceseeb2.txt

 

Consumer inflation, CPI-U (urban) over the same period went from 31.2 to 218, or up by a factor of 7, again less than a quarter as much.

 

ftp://ftp.bls.gov/pu...ftp://ftp.bls.gov/pub/special.requests/cpi/cpiai.txt

 

Seeing a pattern here?

 

On whom or what can we blame the fact that ballplayer salaries increased more than 4 times as much than did the average salary in the U.S. economy?

 

Why, on none other than the MLBPA, the player's union.

 

Just as in every other industry they touch, unions eventually bring either ruin or severe havoc via extortion. See GM, Chrysler, many airlines, many textile firms, Bethlehem Steel and many other steel-makers, etc., etc. for the cases where they have already succeeded in driving their employers into bankruptcy. There's a reason union membership as a percentage of private employees has declined from over 35% to under 7% over the last 60 years.

 

Problem is, they're still hard at work in the public sector. And in baseball and other sports.

 

The unarguable fact is that the MLBPA has extorted about four times as much money from owners as the free market would otherwise have voluntarily and routinely paid them, at their fair market value.

 

It took 45 years to get here, but that's the end result. Sort of the same thing that went on in the Detroit segment of the auto industry over the same period of time. Unskilled line workers were being paid over $80/hour (including benefits) when they were worth maybe $20/hour. Think about Barden and Lamb being paid $400K each when they were worth maybe $100K, well, wait, make that about $20K.

 

In any case, owners have to get all of this unjustified money from somewhere, and that would be their patrons, the fans. Namely, you.

 

Which is why you have to pay $30 for a signed ball instead of $5 or $7 and why you have to pay $50 for a seat instead of $10 or $12 and why you have to pay $5 for a hot-dog instead of a buck.

 

It's the same old deal it always was. A few people benefit at the expense of everyone else because the "everyone else" component of the population doesn't get excited by the fact that they're getting nickeled and dimed to death.

 

To digress just a bit, it's exactly the same thing that happens with another favorite stupidity of unions, namely import tariffs. If everyone has to pay just a little bit more to protect some domestic industry that should sell less product because they're not very competitive, the tiny number of employee beneficiaries (usually unionized) gain greatly by remaining employed while the great mass of people buying the product pay only a few extra cents for the products they want. Which has no possibility of getting them sufficiently upset to object. So they continue to be had without even knowing it.

 

This is why people are vaguely upset by stadium ticket prices or jersey prices or hot-dog prices or beer prices or ball-signing prices, but can't quite put their finger on why.

 

Anything associated with MLB has slowly climbed in price at an average rate at least four times as high as average incomes have increased, but did it imperceptibly over the last almost 5 decades. That accommodated the extortion of the player's union which represents exactly 750 MLB ballplayers on 25-man rosters. MLB attendance last year was 73 million.

 

750 guys (with some turnover each year) have very quietly extorted their excess incomes (above the very high amounts they would have been paid by the free market) from literally millions of fans, all of whom pay just a little bit more each and every year, but never enough more in any given year to get a majority of them upset.

 

And so it goes, until 50% of them figure this whole deal out and decide that patronizing a non-union league would be a whole lot less expensive.

[heat84]

On whom or what can we blame the fact that ballplayer salaries increased more than 4 times as much than did the average salary in the U.S. economy?

 

Why, on none other than the MLBPA, the player's union.

 

Really? Not agents? (Especially Scott Boras) I don't think players even had agents until the '70's. Its just a coincidence that salaries have sky rocketed since then? i don't think most players have the balls that agents do. I don't know if I can picture A-ROD walking into Steinbrenner's or Cashman's office and demanding 500 million over 5 years or whatever his salary is. Even less players that may have the balls would understand the contractual lingo. So agents definitely have some part in the blame. And I mean in all the major sports leagues, not just baseball. And what about Kurt Flood? He has some effect on it too.

[dom2613]

I was in the place he'll be signing about a week or so ago, they had a little sign out in front of the store saying hed be there. It's a pretty cool place all sorts of memorabilia not just sports stuff. Coral square is right down the street from me so maybe Ill go but I really don't care for autos and sure wont be paying 29 bucks for one.

 

Benched, it really does suck the O's left. I loved going to the ST games there espcially when they played the Marlins. I read they gave the complex to some soccer group.

[...]

Really? Not agents? (Especially Scott Boras) I don't think players even had agents until the '70's. Its just a coincidence that salaries have sky rocketed since then? i don't think most players have the balls that agents do. I don't know if I can picture A-ROD walking into Steinbrenner's or Cashman's office and demanding 500 million over 5 years or whatever his salary is. Even less players that may have the balls would understand the contractual lingo. So agents definitely have some part in the blame. And I mean in all the major sports leagues, not just baseball. And what about Kurt Flood? He has some effect on it too.

 

Really. No MLBPA, no minimum salaries. No MLBPA, no arbitration system. No MLBPA, no agents.

 

Plus endless other little things that drive up costs in their 125 page agreement. Want a player present during a meeting to negotiate? No problem, just pay his round-trip 1st class airfare and 1st class hotel room. But, you can only require his presence once.

 

I think every team runs their own chartered aircraft, but what if a team had to use a commercial flight and the poor babies had to fly in coach because there were no 1st class seats available? Well, you get to buy 3 seats for every 2 players.

 

Think that a bunch of guys, none of whom makes less than $400K/year could afford to pay for their own meals while away from home? Of course not, you get to pay them a meal and tip allowance of about $100 per day. Think it would be reasonable to put two players in each 1st class hotel room the team is paying for? Nope, every one of them gets their own room.

 

Think it might be reasonable that a player who is traded or assigned should have to pay some part of his own moving expenses? Nope, the team must pay 100% of the tab. Think one full-time trainer would be enough for 25 guys? Nope, gotta pay for 2. I could go on...

 

Certainly the advent of free agency had a big effect, but it was the MLBPA that greatly magnified that effect and blew costs beyond all reason as a result. And every dime of it is paid for by fans.

[Rabbethan]

Really? Not agents? (Especially Scott Boras) I don't think players even had agents until the '70's. Its just a coincidence that salaries have sky rocketed since then? i don't think most players have the balls that agents do. I don't know if I can picture A-ROD walking into Steinbrenner's or Cashman's office and demanding 500 million over 5 years or whatever his salary is. Even less players that may have the balls would understand the contractual lingo. So agents definitely have some part in the blame. And I mean in all the major sports leagues, not just baseball. And what about Kurt Flood? He has some effect on it too.

 

Really. No MLBPA, no minimum salaries. No MLBPA, no arbitration system. No MLBPA, no agents.

 

Plus endless other little things that drive up costs in their 125 page agreement. Want a player present during a meeting to negotiate? No problem, just pay his round-trip 1st class airfare and 1st class hotel room. But, you can only require his presence once.

 

I think every team runs their own chartered aircraft, but what if a team had to use a commercial flight and the poor babies had to fly in coach because there were no 1st class seats available? Well, you get to buy 3 seats for every 2 players.

 

Think that a bunch of guys, none of whom makes less than $400K/year could afford to pay for their own meals while away from home? Of course not, you get to pay them a meal and tip allowance of about $100 per day. Think it would be reasonable to put two players in each 1st class hotel room the team is paying for? Nope, every one of them gets their own room.

 

Think it might be reasonable that a player who is traded or assigned should have to pay some part of his own moving expenses? Nope, the team must pay 100% of the tab. Think one full-time trainer would be enough for 25 guys? Nope, gotta pay for 2. I could go on...

 

Certainly the advent of free agency had a big effect, but it was the MLBPA that greatly magnified that effect and blew costs beyond all reason as a result. And every dime of it is paid for by fans.

No MLBPA, no free agency. No MLBPA, no problem with collusion.

 

And in general, it's easy to blame unions for driving up wages. The problem is that, historically, without unions business owners, especially large business owners, can't as much as give a f***, which is why sweatshops existed in the US and still exist outside the states.

[mystikol87]

But no one forces anybody to work, in the sweatshops or otherwise.

 

Clearly the owners have found it profitable to be in this business despite the union making salaries soar. The public demand is there, so they can get away with it.

 

There are so few elite baseball players in the world that they are able to demand extremely high salaries anyway. And the barriers to entry are significant enough to deter other leagues from forming and creating a "competitive market". The MLBPA doesn't seem to me to be a shocking result at all, and I think the players realize they are valuable enough that they may not have to do away with the union for a very long time.