Chris Flannery

if you remember form my past post… i was hoping the Scranton-Wilkes Barre Red Barons would get picked up as a Orioles affiliate… not only has that not happened, but the worst has:

Closer to home
Yankees’ top minor league team to move to Scranton
Posted: Thursday September 21, 2006 10:33AM; Updated: Thursday September 21, 2006 1:12PM

SCRANTON, Pa. (AP) — The New York Yankees reached an agreement Thursday to make the Scranton/Wilkes-Barre Red Barons their Triple-A affiliate, after ending their relationship with the Columbus Clippers earlier this year.

The Red Barons, who play in the International League, were previously the top minor league affiliate of the Philadelphia Phillies.

The agreement will make the Yankees’ top farm team much closer to the home club. Moosic, where the team plays, is about 120 miles from New York City.

“I would say that about 50 percent of the baseball fans in our area are Yankee fans,” said Lackawanna County commissioner Robert C. Cordaro, who announced the deal Thursday. “So there’s widespread jubilation.”

Cordaro also announced that California’s Mandalay Baseball Properties will manage the franchise, which will likely be renamed. Mandalay agreed to replace the artificial surface at Lackawanna County Stadium with natural turf and will have the option of purchasing the team for $16.4 million.

The arrangements with the Yankees and Mandalay will solve the financial woes of the franchise, which is owned by the county through a stadium authority. Cordaro said the franchise has lost about $10 million over the last six years.

“We’ve been trying to reverse that and this gets it done in one fell swoop,” Cordaro said.

The New York Mets also expressed an interest in having an affiliate in Scranton, but the Yankees were the sentimental favorite among local residents.

“Guaranteed income, professional management and the New York Yankees,” Cordaro said. “It doesn’t get much better.”

The Phillies previously announced plans to move their top minor league team to a new stadium in Allentown in 2008. The club will play in Ottawa in 2007. The Phillies had been affiliated with the Red Barons since the minor league club’s inception 18 years ago.

Copyright 2006 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

[tags]scranton, wilkes-barre, yankees, red barons, new york, baseball, AAA[/tags]

the whole photoset

i can’t remember the last time i went down a firehouse pole.

i wonder whether i’d hurt myself trying to do it now.

Find your own pose!

City of Philadelphia City Council
Chief Clerk’s Office
402 City Hall
Philadelphia, PA 19107

BILL NO. 050063
Introduced February 3, 2005

Councilmembers Nutter, Reynolds-Brown, Goode, Council President Verna, Councilmembers Rizzo, Tasco, Miller, Cohen and O’Neill

Referred to the Committee on Public Health and Human Services

AN ORDINANCE

Amending Chapter 10-600 of The Philadelphia Code, entitled “Public Places — Prohibited Conduct,” by prohibiting smoking in public places and in the workplace, and providing for penalties, all under certain terms and conditions.

WHEREAS, Beginning in the 1940s, the City of Philadelphia has enacted prohibitions on smoking in various public facilities in order to protect the public health and welfare; and

WHEREAS, Smoking on public transit vehicles has been prohibited in the City since 1943 and was declared at that time to be a “nuisance prejudicial to the welfare and safety” of the riding public; and

WHEREAS, Smoking in certain retail stores has been prohibited since 1947, and smoking in places of public assembly with a capacity of more than 100 persons has been prohibited since 1948; and

WHEREAS, Pursuant to the City’s Fire Code, smoking is prohibited in various facilities such as warehouses, stores, industrial plants, institutions and schools; and

WHEREAS, Since 1993, an Executive Order has prohibited smoking in all City-owned and City-occupied space to which the public has access; and

WHEREAS, Several measures have been enacted which seek to curb access to cigarettes and tobacco products by minors, including Bill No. 732 (approved December 28, 1995) which required purchasers of tobacco products to present a photo I.D. and required warning signs about sales to minors on vending machines; and, Bill No. 960367-A (approved June 23, 1998) which required “lock-out devices” on cigarette vending machines; and

WHEREAS, Many studies have found that tobacco smoke is a major contributor to indoor air pollution and that exposure to secondhand smoke is a cause of many serious health diseases in adult non-smokers and children; and

WHEREAS, This Ordinance is enacted to further protect the public’s health and welfare from the dangerous, unnecessary and involuntary health risks associated with exposure to secondhand smoke; now, therefore,

THE COUNCIL OF THE CITY OF PHILADELPHIA HEREBY ORDAINS:

SECTION 1. Legislative Findings. The Council finds that:

(a) Tobacco smoke, also referred to as secondhand smoke, contains more than 4,000 known chemical compounds that are released into the air as particles and gases.

(b) According to a 2001 report issued by the National Cancer Institute, there are sixty-nine known or probable carcinogens in tobacco smoke.

(c) In 1986, the U.S. Surgeon General concluded that exposure to secondhand smoke can cause lung cancer in healthy nonsmokers.

(d) In 1992, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) concluded that exposure to secondhand smoke is responsible for approximately 3,000 lung cancer deaths annually in U.S. nonsmokers, and that secondhand smoke has a statistically significant effect on the respiratory health of non-smoking adults.

(e) For children, the 1992 EPA report concluded that exposure to secondhand smoke is casually associated with increased risk of lower respiratory tract infections, such as bronchitis and pneumonia; increased prevalence of fluid in the middle ear; and, increased symptoms of upper respiratory tract irritation. Moreover, the EPA found that exposure to tobacco smoke increases the number of episodes and the severity of symptoms in asthmatic children, and causes thousands of non-asthmatic children to develop this condition each year.

(f) A 2004 study appearing in the Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine, found that while three-fourths of white collar workers are covered by smoke-free workplace policies, fewer than 13% of bartenders and 28% of wait staff have the benefit of a smoke-free workplace. In 2002, food service workers accounted for the fourth highest number of employees in the workforce; and, 20% were teenagers; 55.8 % were female; approximately 12% were African-American; and, nearly 20% were Hispanic.

(g) Ventilation devices are very expensive to retrofit into existing buildings and there is no scientific evidence which demonstrates that ventilation technology can eliminate the health risks associated with exposure to secondhand smoke. The Occupational Safety and Health Administration has concluded that ventilation is not an acceptable engineering control measure for controlling occupational exposure to secondhand smoke.

(h) Based on 2002 health survey data, nearly 75% of Pennsylvanians do not smoke.

(i) Many citizens of Philadelphia are exposed to tobacco smoke due to its widespread presence in public places and in the workplace. Exposure to secondhand smoke presents a substantial health risk to adult nonsmokers and children.

(j) In order to protect and promote the public’s health, safety and welfare, further restrictions on smoking in public places and in the workplace should be enacted.

< read the whole thing PDF>

[tags]philly, smoking, ban, philadelphia[/tags]

10 Stigwood Avenue Brooklyn, NY

it doesnt really exist.

Tim Watley on Seinfield owned a duck decoy. See the Jon Voight/Thanksgiving Day Parade episode.

Jimmy Neutron’s (The Boy Genius) father has a pretty big collection throughout the house. Can be seen in many epsiodes.

i dont think my father would be offended by criticizing his photography skills as we have family albums where its hard to decipher whether thats my little sister or our dog crawling under the christmas tree.

good cameras can take good photographs and my father has a Nikon D70.

sometimes you’re gonna feel like shackleton