Swindled. Nothing personal word of the day is swindled. The definition of swindled means to use deception to deprive someone of money or

possession. Swindled. Today is Tuesday, May 25th, 2021. It's been a year. It's been a year since George Floyd got killed, by the way. It's hard to imagine. Has it been a year, has been 10 years, has it been 50 years, has it been a month, has everything changed, has nothing changed, has something changed. I think there's been change. I just can't believe what a year it's been. Swindled is not about George Floyd. It's not about the end of the year.

It's not about me. It's about what's going on in Tampa. And this is a topic meant for nothing personal. Here's the story. Have you ever heard of the Tampa Bay raise? There are baseball team. They play in St. Petersburg, which is like a sister city Minneapolis St. Paul Dallas for it worth Tampa St. Pete.

We play there. We stay in the Renaissance, Finoi down in downtown St. Petersburg. That's the hotel where there's ghosts. It's right in the water. And then you take a 15 minute bus ride to the

Tampa Bay. Drop used to be called the Thunder dome, where the Tampa Bay devil raise started playing when they when they were an expansion team, then they renamed themselves the Tampa Bay raise, but they still have devil raise woman in a tank.

They then called the tropic can of field because they got a sponsor Pepsi, which owns tropic can, by the way. So tropic can of field is a roofed facility where you can hear thunder. It's very bizarre. That's why they called the Thunder

It is absolutely horrific. And the original owner of the Tampa Bay raise was a guy named Vince Namoli. Vince Namoli sold the team to a group led by Stu Sturmberg, who's a Wall Street guy.

Stu Sturmberg brought in a bunch of partners, but kept on Vince Namoli as a little partner as part of the deal. Cause Vince Namoli didn't want to leave ownership. He wanted a little trailing piece, a little relevance. Then work out. He died.

But his family kept the piece.

Stuart Sturmberg has been a model owner in terms of meddling. He's the least metal some owner of the over 30 owners I've met in doubt with during my time.

He hired smart Wall Street guys and he lets them do their jobs. He hired smart baseball guys. He lets them do their jobs. You've heard me compliment Tampa nonstop. We were always compared to them. Always wanted to be them. The only thing we have they don't have is two world championships, of which I was a part of one.

So I'd rather be me than them. Stuart and I would spend owners meetings talking about these concepts. We were small revenue team hocks. We were often aligned, though not in the vote for the commissioner, but we were often aligned with the economics of baseball with how unfair things could be with the way that big revenue teams would take charge and get benefits that we wouldn't get.

But one thing that Stuart Sturmberg never understood that I did.

He said, why would you work so hard to get a ballpark in Miami when a you don't know whether it's going to work and be you're going to be despised.

You're just low hated. Your hands are going to get so dirty. You don't like dirty hands. Do you David? I said, no, I carry sanitizer. Of course, I don't like dirty hands, but I'm not going to pay someone to do what I can do.

Of course, it'd be great to move the team to New Jersey or move it to Vegas or move it to Washington back before the expo said move there. Of course, all that would be good.

But the best opportunity we have to increase the value of the team and to win ball games if we're good at what we do and choosing baseball players is to have a new ballpark.

You have to spend years. Stuart Sturmberg has spent years trying to get a new ballpark in Tampa or Saint Pete, except I would argue and I told him this directly.

So there's no gossip. There's no story here that he has not done what is necessary to get a ballpark because he is not willing to have anyone of his top lieutenants get their hands dirty.

They go to meetings. They send letters back and forth. Blah, blah, blah. Anyone can do that. You got a block attack. You got to be in the community going to every type of church synagogue, men's group, women's group, any school,

meet with commissioners individually. Go to Tallahassee, try to get state money, work with the local politicians to cut a deal. It takes years.

Stuart and I would laugh. He's taller than I am, but not the huge sky. And I would say, yeah, I was 64 when I started doing the stadium deal and I ended up five, five.

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