"The Chargers are cheap and manipulative"

The headline on a FoxSports story by Dieter Kurtenbach, sent out yesterday (August 24), blares, "The Chargers are cheap and manipulative, and Joey Bosa is paying for it."

Bosa. a defensive end whom the Chargers picked number 3 in the draft, has not signed. Jock lovers and Chargers fans are weeping and grinding their teeth. "Bosa is owed $25 million. That's what No. 3 overall picks get paid," writes Kurtenbach. But the Chargers, for various reasons, aren't offering enough millions, the author argues.

The author names names. Eli Manning refused to talk with the Chargers because he "knew the Chargers' reputation for nickel-and-diming rookies." Stars like LaDainian Tomlinson, Quentin Jammer, Philip Rivers, Shawne Merriman and others held out for many days because of so-called cheap offers.

"And you wonder why that organization has found it so difficult to get a new stadium in San Diego," writes Kurtenbach.

But the U-T's Nick Canepa says the Bosa holdout has "nothing" to do with the downtown-stadium vote. "I don't care if the Chargers are 0-8 or 8-0 by election day. If, as expected, 66 percent of the vote is required to pass the initiative, they aren't winning. Bosa isn't deciding an election."

The Padres rented an excellent team for the 1998 ballpark vote: the team went to the World Series, the county went berserk and voted for the ballpark overwhelmingly. But that didn't sway the election in favor of the ballpark, insists Canepa.

I think the whole thing is obscene. Players in the major sports are paid far too much, and the owners are billionaires because they shift costs (like building a stadium) to taxpayers and then boost ticket and concessions prices. Are billionaire owners and millionaire players worth it in a city with a multibillion-dollar infrastructure deficit and inadequate police and fire forces?