Think I'll buy me a football team...

Letters, we get letters...loyal longtime reader CJ from the Netherlands (HOLLAND?! Yeah, we global, booooeeey!) asks what impact the financial meltdown will have on the sports world. Well, we're seeing it already on a micro and macro level.

Locally, the sad economic news has forced both the Madison Mallards and Green Bay Packers to scale back proposed stadium improvements. (Full disclosure moment: This columnist is employed by the Northwoods League baseball club.)

The Mallards have had put the kibosh on big plans for a brand spanking new park. The original plan would have remodeled the Duck Pond at Warner Park, rotated the baseball field 180 degrees to help block the sun and gave the ballpark a $5.5-million facelift.

 Now, the plans have changed, however, and the project has been scaled back to halve the price, WISC-TV reported.

Instead of building new facilities, the plans will now renovate existing buildings.

The city will still authorize $800,000 for new bleachers, but will not provide the $1.2 million for other renovations.

Mallards General Manager Vern Stenman said the ballpark will still get its needed improvements.

 "A couple weeks ago, we came to the second option and said, 'Man, we can do a little bit scaled back project and accomplish 90-95 percent of what we were hoping to do and spend less than half the amount of money,'" said Stenman. "It just made a lot of sense."

Meanwhile, improvements to Lambeau Field have also been torpedoed by the economy.  The Green Bay Press-Gazette reports that even the Packers are pinching pennies these days.

In light of the uncertain economic landscape, the team decided to put off a $25 million expansion of the Lambeau Field Atrium. The plan calls for a plaza that would wrap around the atrium from the Oneida Nation gate on the east to the Miller Brewing Company gate on the north to allow for better movement for fans. It also called for underground parking for players.

Packers President and Chief Executive Officer Mark Murphy attributed the delay to the weakened economy, as well as the team’s desire to incorporate the idea into longer-term development plans.

“Given the size of the investment, we want to make sure it fits into our long-term master plan,” he said. “It made sense to put it on hold for a while. We don’t want to say in a year or two, ‘if only we’d known’ … so we decided the best thing to do is hold off.”

The Packers recently bought a number of properties west of Ridge Road along Lombardi Avenue with an eye on future development.

Plans for the atrium expansion are drawn, but no supplies or contracts were ordered or signed. It was expected to begin after the football season, and Murphy still expects it will go forward at some point. “It would have solved a lot of problems,” he acknowledged. “It’s a timing issue.”

“We’d like to see the project completed,” said Patrick Webb, executive director of the Green Bay-Brown County Professional Football Stadium District. “We think there are safety issues, both for people going to the game and for the players and parking. We’ve been suggesting it for several years.

“But we understand and support the team’s decision. One has to only look at the current financial situation to understand why the team doesn’t want to liquidate investments at this time for the project.”

Until the economy stabilizes, the Packers will remain cautious, Murphy said.

On the global front, ESPN's Outside The Lines on Sunday had a feature on the subject and their webpage has previously noted how many famous soccer teams have sponsors that have gone belly-up in the last month.

As Manchester United, possibly the world's most valuable sports franchise and arguably the most famous one worldwide, took to its hallowed pitch, its home red shirts (an appropriate color, as it turns out) were emblazoned across the chests with the logo of American International Group, previously the largest insurance company in the U.S. and now a ward of the state.

At the time of its collapse and public rescue, AIG was just midway through a four-year sponsorship deal with Man U that will pay the club upward of $100 million. Not that U.S. taxpayers' money is really going offshore, mind you, since Man U's owner is Malcolm Glazer, a Rochester-born businessman who also happens to own the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.

Hmm, so does that mean that -- as an American taxpayer -- I now own part of Man U?

And what about all those stadium and arena names that are also up for grabs?

Right now, for example, they're trying to figure out what to do with the name of the 76ers' and Flyers' crib, the Arena Formerly Known As Wachovia Center. Do the naming rights Wachovia purchased go to Wells Fargo, which stepped in to try to take over the failing bank late this week, or to Citigroup, which thought it had a deal earlier in the week and so is contesting the Wells Fargo transaction? The same goes for Wachovia's piece of the Charlotte Bobcats. For now, presumably, nothing has changed. And if you committed to memory every last sentimental moment you witnessed at the last game at Yankee Stadium a couple of weeks back, you might recall a straight-faced sign beyond the outfield that reads in retrospect like some fan's idea of a topical joke written on a bedsheet:

 AIG: THE STRENGTH TO BE THERE

That's just stuff in plain sight. Never mind the loans out to leagues, franchises and owners, or the books that aren't opened to the media but might contain records the FBI could stumble upon in its search for evidence of criminal activity in New York's financial district.

Whether the House of Representatives signed off on the bailout of Wall Street (it did, early Friday afternoon), whether the Dow Jones Index stabilizes or crashes right down to the Mendoza line, whether the $1.2 trillion in investors' losses in Monday's trading at the NYSE are recovered in whole or in part or will only be compounded, something will change, almost certainly many things.

It won't be business as usual anywhere, sports included.

There is a glimmer of good news among the bad tidings as Tiger Stadium preservationists raised the needed funds by last Friday's deadline to prevent immediate demolition of the rest of the stadium.

The Detroit Free Press' Zachary Gorchow reports that stadium advocates turned over $69,000 to the city for security and maintenance at the stadium and put $150,000 into an escrow account to defray the costs of delaying demolition.

"It's an exciting day," said Thomas Linn, vice president of the Old Tiger Stadium Conservancy. "It's only a small step, and there's a lot more to do."

There sure is.

Friday's success is merely the first in a long series of deadlines preservationists must meet to prevent the ballpark -- which the Tigers called home from 1912 to 1999 -- from complete demolition.

The Old Tiger Stadium Conservancy promised the Detroit Economic Growth Corp. that by Dec. 1 it would supply conceptual design plans and cost estimates, preliminary 5-year operational and construction budgets, a fund-raising proposal and an economic feasibility evaluation, among other requirements.

If the city approves, then the conservancy will pay an additional $150,000 into an escrow account on Dec. 11.

The current concept for the iconic stadium is to convert the lower deck into a restaurant and bar, banquet facilities, a welcome center for the Corktown neighborhood and an exhibition area for yet-to-be-determined sports memorabilia.

The Detroit City Council was poised to vote Tuesday to authorize the razing of the rest of the stadium if preservationists failed to raise the money. The outfield stands already have been leveled.

Preservationists have until March 1 to raise $15 million for the project itself and would have to begin construction by July 1 with completion of the work in 18 months.

Still, another longtime reader CP in Florida suggests that beer might make the best investment in the long and short term. He writes that if you had purchased $1,000 of shares in Delta Airlines one year ago, you will have $49.00 today.                     
 
If you had purchased $1,000 of shares in AIG one year ago, you will have $33.00 today.
 
If you had purchased $1,000 of shares in Lehman Brothers one year ago, you will have $0.00 today.
 
But, if you had purchased $1,000 worth of beer one year ago, drank all the beer, then turned in the aluminum cans for recycling refund, you will have received  $214.00 back on your investment.
 
Based on the above, CP suggests that the best current investment plan is to drink heavily & recycle. He calls his strategy,  the 401-Keg.

Speaking of saving, did the Packers save their season with a win in Seattle on Sunday? The Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel's roundtable of Packers "experts" debates the issue along with providing some post-game quotes. If you asked any Packer in particular, it was HUGE!

Greg Jennings says. It's huge.  I think we came out and started fast.  The enthusiasm was there.  We played four quarters, finally.  Obviously you're not going to have success all the time, every play, but we had success more than we had negative plays.  I think that's the key to winning ball games.  We were able to move the ball.  Obviously we kept the ball away from their offense, kept our defense fresh and gave ourselves a chance to win. 

Nick Barnett says, It was huge.  Not being able to play we wanted to play for the last couple of weeks, we finally got back to playing Packer defense.  We had some energy out there.  The front seven did good, the DBs played good, we had some good turnovers.  We've just got to continue to keep this train moving.

Aaron Kampman found another word to describe it, adding, It's tremendous. It really is. We'll enjoy this one for a little bit.  Hopefully we'll get on a roll now.

To paraphrase Yogi Berra, is the Badger football season over before it's over? It's a valid question after Wisconsin was pasted by Penn State, 48-7 Saturday night. Also from the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel's sports blog page, Dave Heller asks aloud, can we just say this one was ugly?

You can listen to some of the explanations and other emotions in our post-game interviews. Bielema talks about the short field, missed assignments (Jay Valai is called out for one play), the reason he switched free safeties, why he didn't pull Allan Evridge at the start of the second half and much more.

 Bielema didn't name a starting quarterback, but it sure sounded like Dustin Sherer would start. Both Evridge and Sherer talk about the game as well in our interviews.

DeAndre Levy said Wisconsin got "stomped" while Jonathan Casillas said the Badgers deserved to be booed. If you're looking for something uplifting, then listen to Mike Newkirk's comments. He might have been trying to just say the right things, but man did he put a positive spin on things (at least from his vantagepoint).

Heller also adds that Camp Randall had its 36th consecutive sellout, although most of those fans were gone by the end of the game. It was the least-crowded walk to the post-game interview session ever.

Moreover, what teams left on the Badgers' schedule can be considered probable wins? You'd like to think that lowly Cal Poly -- the late season cupcake found after breaking the contract with Virginia Tech -- is a definite do-able.

Still, what about road trips to Iowa and Michigan State along with home tilts against improving Illinois and Minnesota? Even the Indiana game looks iffy, so how does Wisconsin garner three more wins to make themselves bowl-eligible?

In any event, it seems likely that their fans won't have to gripe about yet another New Year's Day game in Florida.

While visiting the Sunshine State, Sarah Silverman asks, if you could change the world by visiting your grandparents, wouldn't you? The Great Schlep aims to have Jewish grandchildren visit their grandparents in Florida, educate them about Obama, and therefore swing the crucial Florida vote in his favor.

And like that famous 60's commercial for rye bread, you don't have to Jewish to take part. You can still become a schlepper and make change happen in 2008, simply by talking to your relatives about Obama.

Finally, speaking of family, there are some in the sports world who have a problem with Philadelphia Phillies' manager Charlie Manuel's way of grieving.

Manuel broke his silence Sunday, two days after his mother passed away at 87. Most of the questions revolved around his loss coming at a high-profile time and the balancing of work with personal tragedy.

"We've got some work to do, and I know my mother would definitely want me in the dugout, because she used to manage a lot for me anyway," Manuel told MLB.com's Ken Mandel. "I feel very comfortable. My mom and I were very close. I know that she would definitely want me to finish the season, if possible."

Manuel will manage the Phillies through Game 5 on Wednesday, then return to Buena Vista, the small Virginia town where he grew up and where June Manuel lived in the same house for the past 43 years. He'll attend a viewing and funeral and return to Philadelphia for a possible Game 6 on Friday.

Still, many are complaining about Manuel's choice as a poor choice of priorities, and why sports' impact is so perverted, yadda yadda yadda. Even ESPN's Mike and Mike In The Morning discussed the topic, though they didn't appear to judge the man or his reasoning.

And yet, neither Mr. Greenberg nor Mr. Golic -- along with millions of people who have chimed in -- have much in the way of credentials to talk as they still have yet to lose a parent themselves.

In 1991, I was in college -- winning my first Roto baseball championship and cheering on the "worst to first" Atlanta Braves in the World Series -- when I lost my mother and I left classes to attend her funeral. After My father joined her in 1997, I wrote a column that day on how he probably was a deciding factor in my becoming a sportswriter.

What's my point here? If you haven't lost a parent, shut up about Charlie Manuel. You have no critical leg to stand on.

And we all have the right to grieve in our special way.