Posted on 07/11/2002 5:24:47 AM PDT by Dog Gone
In the 1950s, there were sixteen major league baseball clubs, including weak teams like the Washington Senators, the St. Louis Browns and later Baltimore Orioles, and several National League punching bags. It was not impossible to be familiar with all the players in your team's league and you got to see each other team 22 times per year. The pennant winners played off in the World Series. Hockey had only 6 major league teams. Football and basketball had a lot fewer teams too.
When you expand the leagues, you get higher salaries with more owners competing for the ego trip of signing the big stars. You also get minor league cities exercising civic pride to an unjustified degree who walk away when they can't add championships to their civic pride.
For the chronic anti-Yankee whiners out there, reduce the number of teams, concentrate the talent on fewer teams. Each team will still have a limited major league roster. Your clubs, if they deserve to survive, will get better compared to the Yankees and be able to compete. The Yankees were a dominant club long before free agency but not always, and not always even under Steinbrenner. Their farm sysytem is one of the very best and probably the best. That is not a result of market. Can the socialism. Let the market work. Any conservative should be ashamed to be envious in the sense of demanding their "fair share" of championships.
Last year, the A's and not the Yankees would have been in the World Series but for an incredible play by Jeter that is not likely to be duplicated. That's baseball and the A's did not whine. The Yankees lost to the Diamondbacks in the Series in the very last inning of the very last game with Mariano Rivera, as close to the perfect closer as we will ever see, blowing the save. Yankees and their fans had no business whining.
Everyone pays attention to Jason Giambi leaving the A's to join the Yankees for $120 million or so over 7 years. A's fans should be more concerned about losing minor league director Frank Ricciardi to the Toronto Blue Jays as their new General Manager. In the long run, that will be more significant as a loss since he was probably the best farm director in baseball.
Savannah Sand Gnats? ;-)
Now THAT would be interesting!
It is not socialism for GM to ensure that (within it's divisions and plants) revenue is allocated "fairly" to ensure that those that produce good product for consumption within the GM system continue to survive. It would not be socialism for MLB to do some sort of revenue sharing to ensure that teams that don't have big bucks behind them can compete - it makes for a better product. The fact that they call it a "luxury tax" is irrelevant.
That said, if they strike, I will lose interest in baseball - I have been a Dodger fan since 1956, but now see former Dodger farm system talent on almost every team in baseball, while the Dodger team itself has only a handful of its own.
Exactly. The Phillies were one of the original NL teams, founded in 1883. They won their first World Series 97 years later, in 1980.
For the others:
1) Dump interleague play. Having separate leagues made baseball different. It also made the All Star game more interesting.
Unfortunately for baseball, interleague play is a huge success. Attendance for the interleague games is 16% higher than regular games.
2) Dump the wildcard stuff. Again this makes baseball less special.
While I agree, it's not going to happen because it makes money.
3) Tell umpires to either enforce the strike zone the way the rule book says or find another job.
Agree but the average fan likes the 12 HR games. I would rather see a 1-0 pitchers duel.
4) Shorten the regular season. Its too cold and rainy in April to play baseball anyway. And this would make individual games more meaningful.
I also like the 154 game schedule.
5) Bring back the lost art of pitching.
You could do that by decreasing the number of teams and getting rid of the crappy pitchers. Or you could raise the mound height back to the pre-1967 levels. Bob Gibson and his 1.12 ERA changed that.
6) Performance-based pay.
Agree here. They could also just enforce the existing contracts and not let them renegotiate.
FReegards.
The Falling Attendance.In a world dominated by cell phones,video games and a 'give it to me now' mentality,this certainly shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone.
If Selig is telling the truth, then the average MLB team has $109 million in total debt. I don't believe him for a second. Let Selig open the books and show the numbers, and have them examined. What's the deal with stadium debt, there are no teams in baseball that I know that have paid for the construction of their stadium. There could be teams behind in rent.
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