Scranton sells the team to a private version of itself

Or something like that.

Thus, the Traveling Wilkes Barres -- a/k/a the Empire State Buildings -- will remain in the Anthracite Capital of the World for eons to come, or at least until the parent club gets a better offer from some other rustbelt city whose political base makes its main decisions on putting greens.

Pardon the cynicism. Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe this time, Jimmy Stewart is in charge, the lawyers are honest, and Moosic is no longer perched on a hydrofracked sponge. Haven't read the contract. Wouldn't understand it anyway. But we all know the deal: The relationship between cities and baseball teams is the relationship between johns and prostitutes: One puts up all the money to watch the other put on the stirrups.

It's always a taxpayer fiasco, and it's always orchestrated by the lions of fiscal conservatism, the bankers with glass tubes in their crotches and their sons, the Industrial Development toadies, who preach against government while ignoring the fact that their shell game salaries come from it.

The deal in Scranton means the Electric City can now launch a $40 million renovation of its stadium, which was renovated only a few years ago to put in real grass for the Yankees, after it was built a few years earlier to offer the corporate luxury boxes that - at least in Syracuse - nobody can afford to luxuriate in anymore.

Well, Kei Igawa's legacy is safe. But it's too bad he's gone. That limo would have looked cool going up and down the New York State Thruway.