More Baseball!

I figure it's only polite to let the people who hate the baseball stuff know they can skip this one.

Reveling as I am in the Blue Jays' status as a first place team, I thought I'd try to address some of the responses to the absurdly long diatribe I posted yesterday about salary caps.

Larry-a Boston fan, but I'll forgive him-raises the entirely reasonable question of whether competitive balance exists at levels below winning the World Series. The answer, I would say, is "kinda." Since the wild card was adopted in 1995 (actually 1994, but...things happened) 22 teams have made the playoffs at least once, which would suggest that they can all compete, at least in spurts, under the current disposition. Of the other 8, two (the Phillies and Jays) played in the last World Series before the wild card, and both have competed to make the playoffs since, though Toronto, to my chagrin, less frequently than the Phils. I'd let them out. Montreal was the best team in baseball in 1994 and competitive in 1996 and 2002, despite being deliberately hamstrung by idiot owners. They came out of the gate hot in Washington, and while I think Jim Bowden is an idiot I really don't think any problems they might have competing will be attributable to their market. Milwaukee sucked for a long, long time, but they look very good right now, and will, I think contend in the next year or two. Detroit looks less good than the Brewers, but they too look like a team on the rise, and they could very easily make some noise in the Central. Tampa Bay has only been around for eight years and has been, bar none, the most incompetently run franchise around, but even they look like they're going to be ferocious in a couple of years. I honestly think they're going to be better than my Jays in two years, and I think that might be the case for a while.

Which leaves us with the two franchises that really are sad sacks: Pittsburgh and Kansas City. Both play in legitimately small markets, both were run into the ground by idiot general managers, and both-KC especially-have whined about the unfairness of the system rather than trying to find ways to win. Can they compete ever again?

The answer, I think, is yes, but it's going to take a while.It takes ballplayers a while to mature, as fans of Moscow Rats ace Roy Halladay know, and it's completely impossible, I think, to turn a team around quickly on the cheap. It's going to take good drafting and development, and it's not a surefire thing. But it's the only thing that works over the long term-and as I say, I think that's as true for the Yankees as it is for the Royals.

Part of the problem, I think, is that we forget as fans that "only one team goes home happy," as they say. The idea, that Bud Selig continually used to promote, that every team should enter every season with hopes of winning a championship is nuts. I don't think the Jays are going to win the Series this year. That's not to say that I don't hope it will happen, or that I have no hope of ever seeing them win again, but they're not a top-flight contender this year. Six or seven years ago, neither were the Angels. In the early nineties, the Yankees were a joke. The game is cyclical, and it's never been easier for a team to ride that cycle than it is now.

Ultimately, you have to ask yourself if a game where teams win, on average, every thirty years is what you want to see. Some people might think that sounds great, I think it sounds like boring mediocrity. Also, I remember reading (no link, because I don't remember where) about how the hyping of the World Series has led to a corresponding cheapening of League and Division titles; given that only one team can win the World Series, this means that more fans wind up disappointed. Look, for example, at how people talk about the Atlanta Braves. What Bobby Cox and co. have achieved is incredible: 11 straight division titles (1994 happened, damn it, and they didn't win) and three more in the four years prior is a display of dominance that ranks among the greatest in baseball history. But all of that is completely overshadowed by their postseason failures. I'm not saying that their many flops shouldn't be part of the conversation, but the Braves are amazing in spite of them, and their fans shouldn't feel as though it's all been for nothing when they choke in the playoffs. As they will do again this year.

Basically, I think we'd be a lot better off if we stopped demanding no-hitters every time we went to the ballpark; the joy of baseball really is in the story the whole season tells, and we should appreciate it for what it is, rather than straining forward for the fireworks at the end.