The Political Spectrum

The constant lament about major league baseball is that big-market teams have an unfair advantage over all the rest, and so few teams have a real shot at winning the pennant. Most of the scorn is focused upon the New York Yankees (a vile organization, to be sure), who dominated the game in the late 90's with four world championships in five years. Never mind the fact that during the time frame in which the Yanks were winning World Series their payroll was not significantly larger than the other high-priced teams, or that the core of their team consisted of home-grown talent and not big-named free agents. Oh no, the Yanks were the root of all evil in the world, and the rules of the game had to be changed.

And so were they were - to a degree. Major League Baseball instituted a form of revenue sharing that placed a luxery tax on teams who spent over a certain amount of money, with the tax being spread around to the poorer teams, which, by the way, were not actually required to turn around and spend said money on players in an effort to improve the team. As anyone with any bit of common sense recognized, the Yankees would simply ignore the tax and keep spending, while the tax was felt by the next level of big spenders - the Red Sox, Dodgers, Mets, etc.

And so parity seems to be creeping into major league baseball. Oh joy. How exciting to see 25 teams all with the same relative record battle it out. Two weeks into the season and there are entire divisions where every team is .500 or a game below or above .500. Currently, the only team breaking away from the pack are the Los Angeles Dodgers, who sport a 10-2 record. This is unfortunate for the Rockies, the team with the worst record in the majors at a lofty 2-10, as they are already a whopping 8 games out and we're still in mid-April. But there is no such spread in the rest of the big leagues.

Does this render the game any better? Are we better off with a bunch of above-average teams with no real dominant teams? The Dodgers are off to a great start, but I doubt they will maintain that level of play throughout the season as Kent, Itzuris and other fast starters come down to earth. But there are no dominant teams, especially the Yankees.

But the Yankees are struggling not because of the rules, but despite them. As everyone predicted, Steinbrenner feels not the least bit restricted by the luxery tax and has ballooned the Yankee payroll to over $200 million. But what we are seeing is a return to the Yankees of the mid 80's: spending a ton on overpriced and elderly free agents while letting the farm system go to pot. The Yankees returned to dominance when Steinbrenner was suspended and they were allowed to develop future stars like Derek Jeter, Bernie Williams, Andy Pettite, Jorge Posada and Mariano Rivera. In addition to those stars, the Yankees made fair trades to acquire the likes of Paul O'Neill and Tino Martinez. Now that the Yankees have returned to old form and are playing to the stereotype portrayed by the Yankee bashers, they have become a good but not dominant team.

Meanwhile, we are supposed to reward pathetic franchises like the Milwaukee Brewers (sorry Jen) and Pittsburgh Pirates through revenue sharing. Last night the Brewers and Pirates played home games against, respectively, the Dodgers and Cardinals, and drew a little over 11,000 people. In other words, these two teams, neither of which is particulatly awful (and fairly decent in the case of Milwaukee), playing in beautiful new ballparks with beautiful weather outside, going up against the best team in baseball and the defending National League Champions, couldn't even get 1/3 capacity. To put that in perspective, the atrocious Rockies, playing the barely-above atrocious Diamondbacks, drew nearly 30,000 fans.

I'm not trying to single out Pittsburgh and Milwaukee, but they serve as shining examples of why revenue sharing is a crock of shit. Why should the Dodgers, Yankees and Red Sox be penalized for having fans who actually care and show up to the park? The Yankees are a little bit different because they also own and operate their own cable network which is a huge alternate source of revenue, but there is simply no excuse for this ridiculous plan which rewards bad team management and apathetic fan bases.

So far Major League baseball has not descended into complete madness a la the NFL with lackluster teams such as the Baltimore Ravens and Tampa Bay Bucs winning championships, and .500 teams reaching the playoffs. But that is the goal of the schmucks in charge and also of a disconcerting share of the fanbase. Great. Watch what happens when we get the most boring possible games because the talent is spread too thin around the league.

People will respond to me by saying that the NFL has demonstrated the success of parity through its tremendous ratings (hmmm, wonder why ABC gave up Monday Night Football then) and increasing revenue. Two things. First of all, the NFL is successful not because of parity - indeed it has surpassed MLB long before the current system was established - but because of the nature of the game. Football is played once a week, lends itself well to gambling, and has other attractions that draw fans. In fact rating have declined ever so slightly since the mid 90's, or at the very least have flattened. Second, so what? Are we to judge the merits of something strictly based on popularity? So I guess Britney Spears is more talented than Radiohead by that rationale.

Whatever. It's a lost cause. Enjoy baseball for now.