Some not-so-good news.

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Remember back when Ned Colletti told us that, essentially, the 2010 player payroll budget was dependent on season ticket renewals? Well, that's not going so well. According to Dodgers President Dennis Mannion, only 20,700 season tickets have been sold thus far, compared to 23,900 last season. And Mannion has an interesting way of addressing the issue:

My concern is the number of unpaid accounts that haven't canceled.

Some tortured words, there, huh? Presumably, the simple failure to renew a season ticket would be a de facto cancellation, right? So, according to Mannion, the problem isn't that people have been canceling.* No, the problem is that many, many peole have thus fair declined to renew the tickets.

*I do not, for one, think that the problem was that the band was down. I think that the problem may have been, that there was a Stonehenge monument on the stage that was in danger of being crushed by a dwarf.

Am I missing something here? Isn't that the exact same thing? I mean, sure, it'd be awfully nice of folks to let the ticket office know they weren't renewing. But I'm not sure that, one day before the renewal deadline, it's accurate to imply that this is a problem of non-payment on accounts which are pending renewal. I strongly believe that a great percentage of accounts that had not been renewed as of this morning will not be renewed by tomorrow afternoon.

So where does that leave us? Well, if Colletti's December statement is to be taken at face value, I'd feel even less optimistic about a Pineiro signing today than I did yesterday. But hey, at least Bud Selig isn't pressing the panic button just yet. Speaking at the Owners' Meetings, Selig assured us all:

I don't have any concern until I feel I have something to be concerned about.

Thanks to Bill Shaikin of the Times for the reporting today.

It's clearly Twisted Logic Day at Dodger Divorce. Selig won't be concerned until he is concerned. Super. Thanks for clearing that up, Bud. And what's more...isn't the prudent course of action to be concerned about things before you actually have a situation that could impact you negatively? I'm not going to jump into the steroids morass at this juncture, but...well, to throw another Tap quote out there:

Ian Faith: I really think you're just making much too big a thing of it.

Derek Smalls: Making a big thing out of it would have been a good idea.

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What an odd day. I think I saw Don Mattingly near my uncle's house in the South Bay. And, gosh, it's great to be back home for a little bit. I'll donate some dimpled orbs of plastic to the local golf course tomorrow morning, and then off duck hunting for the weekend.
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