the Yankees, Americas team.
Posted on 05/10/2007 6:09:27 AM PDT by presidio9
With his official interlocking “NY” cap, shiny team jacket and seats near home plate, Rudolph W. Giuliani has often looked as if he might just bleed pinstripes if his beloved Yankees lost a game.
Now, as he runs for president, Mr. Giuliani found himself yesterday denying that his affection for the Yankees had been returned by the team in the form of discount diamond World Series rings and free tickets.
“I paid precisely what anyone else would pay,” Mr. Giuliani said in response to a report in The Village Voice that explored how he came to possess four commemorative rings identical to those given to players and coaches on its most recent championship teams.
The article focused on whether the $16,000 that Mr. Giuliani paid for the diamond-encrusted rings from championship years 1996 through 2000 represented their real value as jewelry or as sports memorabilia.
The article quoted several people who raised the possibility that Mr. Giuliani may have gotten one of the rings as early as 1997, when he was still mayor, but had not paid for it until years later. In such an instance, under city rules, an official would be required to report the ring as a gift, something Mr. Giuliani did not do.
But Mr. Giuliani’s office and the candidate himself, during a campaign stop in Huntsville, Ala., denied those assertions. He said he did not get any of the rings until after leaving office. And Mr. Giuliani took exception to the suggestion that he should have paid what a collector might pay. “I own them and I don’t intend to sell them,”
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Non issue to me.
No kidding.
I am not supporting Rudy but articles like this are pretty bush league.
“I am not supporting Rudy but articles like this are pretty bush league.”
Same position here.
Not quite. A real "bush league" article would be:
"Guiliani causes cancer, kicks puppies, picks nose and eats it."
I am by no means a Rudy fan but who cares. If a team wants to give a Mayor or Senator or the President some tickets or memorabilia they should be allowed to.
Absolutely not. Can't these morons debate the real issues?
What a joke. Those rings are not for sale to the general public at Yankee Stadium kiosks.
This is the same publication that employs Maureen Dowd.
Even memorabilia worth $200K?
And to a mayor who helped get massive taxpayer support for a new Yankee Stadium?
Another reminder that Rudy is a dirty Yankee fan.
LOL!
That may be just about the only thing I like about the man.
Where do I go to buy a ring? Do I just write the Yankees and ask them, or do they have a web site somewhere to take orders?
The players don't buy rings. The owner doesn't buy a ring. In fact, virtually no club SELLS these rings. So the claim that you "paid what everybody would pay" is absurd -- there is no market price for something nobody sells.
Now that I've said that, it is also true that the rings have a manufacturing cost, and he probably paid for that manufacturing cost.
But to ignore the intrinsic value of having an item that nobody else is ALLOWED to buy is misleading and false. It doesn't matter if he intends to sell them or not, the value at the time he purchased should include the rarity of what he was buying.
If he had bought them at an auction, I'd agree he paid "fair market price", but he didn't, and to suggest he did is to lie to the American People.
Since he is also claiming he didn't buy them until he was a private citizen, then he should be MAN ENOUGH to just say "Yes, I bought the rings as a private citizen, I have a relationship with the team and they sold them to me at cost. I value that relationship, and make no apologies for wanting the rings.
The absurd thing is that he got to sit in a box with George Steinbrenner for most games. Again, he might have paid the "price" of a seat, but none of us could sit in those seats. Politicians always get special treatment, and it's perfectly legal, but then we pass stupid rules about certain inconsequential "conflicts of interest", ignoring the big fat conflict that comes from being given access to stuff nobody else has access to, like seats to the game and championship rings.
the Yankees, Americas team.
Juicers and druggies and mercenaries, oh my!
Too bad you guys can’t play the Rangers every day.
(The hockey team would put up more of a fight, than the baseball team.)
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.