The Ol' Ballfield

2006 CBA Update; Dolphins Stadium = Deathtrap

With the current collective bargaining agreement between Major League Baseball and the MLBPA set to expire in December, it started to worry me that we had heard nothing about pending negotiations. I sent an e-mail to Maury Brown over at The Biz of Baseball, who responded with the following comforting, albeit not exciting information:

Meetings have been happening regularly for the past couple of months. The key area has been talks around revenue sharing. There has also been rumors of draft pick compensation being removed, but that was simply a rumor.

All in all, the sides have been very quiet. That said, the one thing we're hearing repeatedly is that negotiations have gone well and that there is little concern of a work stoppage.

Sounds good to me. MLB will likely set a new attendance record this year, and the majority of Bud Selig's new wrinkles this offseason will probably come more from stadium and relocation issues (read: MARLINSMARLINSMARLINS) than from labor.

Speaking of relocation issues, the Marlins may be moving north, although not very far north. The South-Florida Sun-Sentinel is reporting that the Marlins are in discussions with Pompano Beach in Broward County to build a stadium at the Pompano Park Harness Track. Nothing close to a finalized deal has been presented, however. This comes on the heels of a story that a woman attending the last game of the season at Dolphins Stadium was hit by falling concrete in the fourth inning. The Miami Herald reports:

George Torres, director of corporate communications for the stadium speculated the accident may have been caused by some rebar that had rusted, causing a piece of concrete to give way and fall approximately 20 feet into the seating area. Torres said the piece of concrete weighed less than a pound, though it was described by other fans in the stands as being "the size of a football."

Of course, if this were to happen at the new stadium, it wouldn't be more unusual than any other normal, local events.

And could someone please tell Kyle Farnsworth about this?!

posted by Carnival @ 10/04/2006