Randy Levine outraged at Texas Rangers and Colorado Rockies spending, 12/12/2000

(NY Times, 12/12/2000)): "The owners of the Texas Rangers and Colorado Rockies have agreed to the two largest contracts in baseball history in the past week and, coincidentally, both were part of a committee formed to study the game's economic problems.

• The coincidence was not lost on the Yankees' president, Randy Levine, who had another name for it: hypocrisy.

Levine said that Rodriguez's Texas contract, $252 million for 10 years, and the $121 million Colorado is going to pay to Mike Hampton, represented the height of hypocrisy

• ''by two teams serving on the economic study committee preaching fiscal restraint and seeking to lessen their revenue obligations.''

''It represents a total lack of credibility, and

• never again should we hear any complaints about the actions of the Yankees,

• which have proven over the years to be responsible for the team and its fans,'' Levine said.

''Those two clubs, along with others, have been consistently

• arguing that they need more revenue-sharing relief, and that player spending is out of control.''

The Rangers owner Tom Hicks and the Rockies owner Jerry McMorris were part of the committee. A four-member panel that included

• the columnist George Will and the

• former United States Senator George J. Mitchell used information

provided by that committee and issued a report that called for

• additional revenue sharing, among other things."

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