Big Money Baseball

Although I hear it was the best World Series ever, and although I am a baseball fan, I did not watch very much of this year's series. This was a personal boycott of a sport that is not so slowly killing itself with greed. I get no joy out of watching the big spending teams fight among each other for the championship, while the smaller market clubs get by with dregs.


Sure, there was the thrill of the smaller market teams that made it to the playoffs (e.g., the A's), but when all is said and done, the teams in the series end up being among the biggest spenders in baseball and that ain't fun for those of us who don't live in New York, or Phoenix.


I don't know whether baseball will ever solve this problem, but it is turning off some previously rabid fans completely from the game. I have a good friend who used to be a sports writer for a small metropolitan daily and covered the Cardinals and is still a Cardinal fan even though he lives elsewhere. He is going to fewer and fewer games every year.


I've had season tickets to the Pirates since the late 1980's (shared with a few others) and have enjoyed virtually every game I went to...with the exception of most of the games I went to this year. The brand-spanking-new PNC Park is a gem. The team that played in it was not. But it wasn't the play...the year before the team wasn't much better and it was playing in 3 Rivers and I enjoyed the game. This year I didn't and I think it was because I am finally reaching the point where I've had enough. (My group is renewing, and although I'm taking fewer games than ever before, if one of you is coming to Pittsburgh and wants to take in a game in seats right behind home plate let me know and I'll do my best for you.)


Prediction: if MLB doesn't solve this problem, the two leagues will evolve as follows: (In the example I've arbitrarily assigned names to the two leagues).


1. The AL will consist of all of the major market teams (however many that is) they will compete among each other for the best players and pay them the highest salaries. There will continue to be a World Series among the best of the two (or more) divisions in the AL.


2. The teams in the NL will become AAAA farm (minor league) teams affiliated with the AL teams and feeding them the best players as they come up through the minors. They won't be called minor league because of the prestige involved, but that is what they will become.


Actually this would be good. I find that I enjoy watching minor league games about 1000% more than I enjoy watching major league games.


Comments welcome.


Chuck

there are rumours of a decrease in franchises due to the economic disparity...has to be a way to share tv revenue, but the big money clubs will fight to defend their advantage...acually since the strike, i never got back into baseball as much...very rarely do i meet someone from the steel city that is not a very likeable person..jmho..gl

The brand-spanking-new PNC Park is a gem.


I am glad to hear this. I loved going to games at Forbes when I was at school in Pittsburgh, but hated Three Rivers with a passion.


I don't know if baseball can be saved. I've always loved the game, but haven't really followed it since the last player strike. It seems that if they shared all the TV revenue equally, they could eliminate much of the inequity.


Just out of curiousity, how much does a season ticket to the Bucs cost? I go to a lot of college and minor league games fairly inexpensively, and always enjoy the hell out of them. If I see a little league game in progress as I'm driving around I'll stop and sweat a few innings. But MLB? - it just doesn't hold my interest anymore.

You've got it all wrong. Baseball isn't any different that it has been. There is some correspondance between payroll and winning %. There always has been. However, where were the Red Sox, the Dodgers, and the Mets in the playoffs (#2,#3, #4 in payroll)? Cleveland is 5, and they were mediocre, the only reason they made the playoffs is because they play in the worst division in baseball.


The payroll winning % correspondence arguement can easily be countered by arguing the converse. Wouldn't it be logical that teams with good players have higher payrolls? Of course.


Are the small market teams at a disadvantatge? Yes. But Darwinism is a fact of existance, and if Montreal cannot get 8000 fans to come to a game, then do they deserve to have a winning team?


In 1998, the Padres made it to the World Series, and the year before that the Marlins won it. Both are in the bottom quartile of payroll. Did anyone watch the Padres/Yankees series? Not really. Who wants to see the Padres, right? So if people aren't going to watch these small market teams, then why should we worry about them. Applying socialism to the structure of MLB is a bad idea. It encourages the breakup of teams and forces big name players to constantly go from place to place (something a lot of the "old time" fans just hate).


In response to the "baseball has changed" arguement, if you look at the WS matchups from the 50s and 60s, you will find a NY team or 2 almost every year.


I am not a Yankee fan. They have consistantly been the best team in baseball, however. Yes, they have a big payroll, but so do the Rangers. Their management has been stellar. Who is the superstar in the Yankee lineup? Jeter maybe? There really isn't one. There is no one on that team that his 45 HR's and drives in 140. Their pitching is great, but so is the A's and the Braves'. They play as a team and that is why they win. Players stay on the team, not because of the money, but because they like to win.


People argue that baseball is different than it once was. It is. The parks are smaller, the ball is tigher, and the pitching leaves something to be desired. There is a class of player, though, that stands out as one of the toughest group of guys ever to play the game at once. How could you not love (or love to hate) any of the following people: Curt Schilling, Derek Jeter, Jason Giambi, Edgar Martinez, Ichiro, Roger Clemens, Greg Maddux, Sammy Sosa, Jeff Bagwell, Jim Edmonds, Randy Johnson, Larry Walker, Mark Grace, Mike Piazza, Al Leiter, John Franco, Billy Wagner, Ivan Rodriguez, etc...

These guys and many others play with their hearts on their sleeves and will treat you to some of the best games ever. When you see the tortise-like Robin Ventura lay down a bunt for a base hit in the 11th inning of a playoff game because there is no way they are ready for it do you think he is doing it to pad his salary?


When guys like Barry Bonds (who barely even talks to his teammates) get all the press it seems like baseball is done. But, if you take the time to watch the teams with character, (Yanks, Mets, A's, Cubs, DBacks, Seattle, etc...), the games are great. The teams with whiners like the Giants and the Red Sox will never win, regarless of how many millions they pay. The teams with poor management like the Indians will never win either.


Like JEJ said in Field of Dreams:


"The one constant through all the years, Ray, has been baseball. America has rolled by like an army of steamrollers. It's been erased like a blackboard, rebuilt, and erased again. But baseball has marked the time. This field, this game, is a part of our past, Ray. It reminds us of all that once was good, and that could be again."


So don't give up on the sport just because the Pirates haven't won in a while...


-G-

The Pirates winning or losing have nothing to do with it. The arrogance of baseball does.


I guess we'll have to agree to disagree on this one.


Chuck

They came off a 100 loss season after having raised prices for premium seats from $14.00 (or was it $15.00) the final year at Three Rivers Stadium to $25.00 for similar seats at PNC Park (though one could argue that it is the $35.00 seats that are similar). So what do they do? They raise prices again this year

to $27.00 or $2187.00 for a season.


(Of course it didn't help my mood all year that they decided to not allow people to bring in their own soft drinks in plastic bottles because it would be too easy to bring in alcohol...even though the policy had been that you could bring in such drinks for the last umpteen years...there was even a Coke machine outside between the parking lot and the gate! And, of course, to add insult to injury they switched the soft drink franchise to that swill called Pepsi.)


Chuck

I hate that it seems like the guys that do get the big bucks, people like Bonds, Brown, Sheffield, are such jerks.

I just wanted to say that the game can still be good. I think the suburbanization of America has led to a much looser and less "pure" fan base, and thus tightly wound balls and frilly ballparks named after banks. They need bells and whistles or they will just stay home and watch Ally McBeal. I was just joking about the Pirates thing, if you have always been a Pirates fan I am sure you are used to droughts... I currently live in the worst commercial baseball city in America. Cleveland. They sell out all their games, and everyone is ready to talk about their new acquisition, but they know nothing of other teams or even the sport itself. In this sense, I prefer to go and watch an A-ball game where no one knows anything except that we are watching baseball. The Yankees, however, and every Yankee fan I know, are much more true to the game, so there is still hope, hopefully.

Yes, the game can still be good. Especially when the crowd is a baseball crowd and the teams are playing well (at least with respect to each other).


Three Rivers stadium was derided by a lot of locals, but I rather liked it. Of course my seats were 3 rows behind home plate. There were times when I really enjoyed being there. For instance a low scoring game with about 6,000-10,000 people in the stands who at least pay more attention to the game than their beers.


The games I used to hate were the sell outs. Usually it was a team we were in contention with for the playoffs. The Mets were one such team. The crowd would be a bunch of drunken louts who knew nothing about baseball...the kind you more often associate with a football game.


One time I was in the nosebleed seats behind home plate when Mickey Morandini (I think) made an unassisted triple play against the Pirates. I remember looking around at the crowd and it seemed that the whole crowd had turned to each other and was asking "what the hell happened." I knew what had happened, but I didn't know until much later that it was an extremely rare event in baseball.


By the way, I grew up in Chicago and have at various times been a White Sox and a Cubs fan. Never a Yankees fan!


Chuck

frank robinson..now that was baseball and a definition of competition...gl

How can you have been both a Cubs and White Sox fan? I ask this as someone who was the product of a mixed marriage. My father is a Cub fan and my mom is a White Sox fan. (at least until they fired LaRussa) They agreed that I would be raised a Cub fan. I think my father might still be upset that my first baseball game was a White Sox game, because we had to go so my mom could get Ted Williams's autograph. (He was managing the Senators at the time.) She got the autograph, but we never went to another game at Comiskey even though we lived nearby at the time. Converting from a Cubs fan, or even renouncing faith is a very serious step, and shouldn't be taken lightly and only after some time to ponder it and get counseling. :-)

As a child in the 50's we lived in the north suburbs. That should have made me a Cubs fan...but my dad was too busy playing golf to every take me to any day games...so the only team I know other than on TV was the Sox. Once a year we'd go to a club my dad belonged to for father-son night. We'd have a fried chicken dinner and then get on a bus with a police escort to old Comiskey for a night game. Also, in 1959 I believe, the Sox actually won the American League pennant. (I know because the fire commissioner of Chicago set off the air raid sirens!)


It wasn't until I was able to go to games on my own that I really discovered the Cubs. Once I did the switch was easy. For years, once I got to Pittsburgh, I remained a Cubs fan. It wasn't until the middle 1980's that the Pirates won me over.


Now I think I'll root for the Altoona Curves instead.


Chuck

Baseball has always been dominated by large markets and will continue to be forever. I will try to keep this short (I wrote my master's thesis on the baseball labor market). Before free agency the large market teams were able to buy the best players; the difference was that the owner of the team they came from received the money rather the player receiving it. I wasn't around back in the 50's, did people complain about the Yankees having all the best players and always being in the World Series. How a free market works is if the Pirates are willing (able) to pay a play 1 million and the Yankees are willing to pay the player 3 million the player will go to the Yankees. Now if we can consider the same player but he isn't a free agent. Say he is under contract for 500,000 (the amount doesn't matter). The Pirates value him at 1 million (so they get a 500,00 windfall if he plays for the Pirates). The Yankees value the player at 3 million (that is what they were willing to pay him if he were a free agent). The Yankees would receive a 2.5 million windfall if the player played for the Yankees. The Yankees can now pay the Pirates some amount between 500,000 (the Pirates windfall) and 2.5 million (the Yankees windfall) and both teams are improved. I guess before free agency people didn't resent this because the players weren't receiving the large salaries (the owners got to pocket the money).


Randy Refeld