What's funny is that they itemize a lot of the Yankees' charges, but never go on to mention any of the Mets'. After saying in the beginning of the article that the Mets charged the city almost 25% more.

The title of the article is "Yankee Lobbyists on Taxpayers' Tab". Not to excuse the shadiness of the financial dealing here, but doesn't this seem like a double standard to anyone else?

"The Village Voice owns 17% of the New York Metropolitans Baseball Club, NESPN, the Boston Red Sox & Bud Selig's used car lots, and is wholly owned by a subsidiary of the NY Times and Steve Phillips's 401(k)."

Because no matter what is going on with the Mets, the Yankees are absolutely, positively the flagship sports franchise of the city and therefore the nation.

This is what will bring the issue to head, not stories on Fred Wilpon, who 95% of America and half of New York City doesn't know or care about. EVERYONE knows Steinbrenner.

To think otherwise and then whine about the Mets is naive, in my opinion. Yes, the big business of the Mets also sucks HARD, point definitely made and accepted. Now that it's admitted, your point is what?

I apologize for my tone and being so pointed, but it DOES deflect from the larger issues, I think.

"Most of the $4.1 million that the Yankees charged to the city in 2004, records show, went for legitimate stadium expenses..."

And unless I missed it, while the Voice sought comment (and was declined) from the Parks Dept, Mayor's Office, et al., they never sought comment from the Yankees.

Hey, if these allegaions are true, (1) the Yanks should reimburse the city and (2) those municipal employees in charge of overseeing these expenses should be held accountable but the article is without any semblance of counterpoint.

Is there anyone here who doesn't think that $36 million could have been better spent on something worthwhile? What a crock of ____________.

And the new seating arrangement looks crappy anyway.

So I really don't see a big problem in trying to make deals with appropriate incentives to assure that marquee places like stadiums would get built so "the terrorists don't win", the a phrase used to tell people to go shopping and every other trivial way of maintaining normal life.

So I'm more disturbed by the booing of a-Rod than this story which was not really put in context.

New York politics is way to arcane to allow the public to do anything about it.

The Mets play in Shea, built in '64, in the middle of an mixed commercial neighborhood with lots of low value property available for development. Flushing Meadows/Corona Park is a massive open space for residents of Queens.

The situations are not interchangable.

And to those of you who are not consultants or have little business experience: "Consulting: If you're not part of the solution, there's good money to be made in prolonging the problem."

For technical reasons, it was easier to file a Freedom of Information Law request for the Yankees' documents, so we did that first; as noted in the article, a request for the Mets' documents is pending. So while it's possible the Mets did the same thing with their lobbying costs, we don't yet know - hence the Yankees-only headline.

And I did call the Yanks (and Mets) for comment on the story, along with various city agencies - neither returned my calls on the subject. I'd actually meant for the article to indicate that, but it must have gotten lost in either the editing process or the crappy cellphone connection I was using to give last-minute updates to my editor.

Anyway, I'll be doing followups, either in the dead-tree edition of the Voice or on its Power Plays blog, so rest assured this story isn't over. If it turns out Fred Wilpon was charging taxpayers for Mr. Met's laundry bill, I'll do my best to give it a banner headline.