Now it has followed up those successes by producing what, to date, has been the most surprising season in recent memory. With the ‘04 season approaching the halfway mark, who would have believed that at least 20 teams (and even a couple more in the eyes of the optimists) remain in contention for the playoffs? Who could have predicted that the contenders would include such recently beleaguered teams as the Milwaukee Brewers, the Texas Rangers, the San Diego Padres and, in that spirit of optimism, even the Detroit Tigers? Who would have guessed that five division races would be within two games–and the sole exception would be the New York Yankees’ scant 4.5-game lead over the Boston Red Sox in the Richie Rich Division? Who could have possibly imagined that the hottest team of the moment would be the eternally woeful Tampa Bay Devil Rays, a team that just ripped off 12 in a row to flirt with .500 for the first time in franchise history.
But all of us true baseball fans can believe, predict, guess and imagine exactly what will come next. They are going to ruin it for us fans. They–baseball’s unenlightened and uninspired leadership–will ruin it by following the same dictums and ill-advised philosophy that have failed the sport repeatedly throughout recent decades: the rich will get richer and the poor will have to wait until … well, certainly not until next year. Maybe till the next millennium or, more likely, until they find some field of dreams.
Baseball’s annual fire sale has begun, and if you mute your TV for a moment, you can hear the sounds of George Steinbrenner salivating. The two biggest prizes on the market are Seattle Mariners pitcher Freddy Garcia and Kansas City Royals outfielder Carlos Beltran, the former being a remedy for the leaguewide epidemic of starting-pitching woes and the latter the remedy for everything else that ails a team. And nobody would be the least bit surprised if both wind up in pinstripes, Garcia because the Yankees rotation is old, potentially infirm and has some holes, and Beltran because otherwise he might wind up with the rival Red Sox.
The Red Sox actually seem the better fit as a trading partner for Kansas City. The Royals are supposed to be looking for a young third baseman and a young catcher ready to play in the majors next year, and the Yankees have already traded away their ready-for-prime-time youngsters to build the $180 million juggernaut that rules the roost. The Red Sox, though, happen to have mature prospects at both third and catcher.
But for the Red Sox, such a deal would be something of an abandonment of the “Moneyball” principles that its front office has vowed to follow. The two key prospects, Kevin Youkilis and Kelly Shoppach, would be low-priced replacements for its current third baseman, Bill Mueller, and catcher, Jason Varitek, who will be free agents next year. They would provide substantial salary relief to the roster, enabling Boston to compete for the cream-of-the-crop free agents, including Beltran, in the coming off-season.
It would seem to be a lot of talent and payroll flexibility to squander for a rent-a-ballplayer who may only be with the team for three months, though, the BoSox bosses would certainly hope, for that fourth critical month of October as well. However, Boston plunged into this baseball campaign with a “this is the year” mentality–the best chance, at least on paper, to end the team’s 86-year-championship drought. With Mueller, Varitek, Nomar Garciaparra, Pedro Martinez and Derek Lowe all possibly departing after this season, the Red Sox brass may view one more superstar departee as the painful price of realizing their dream.
None of my regular readers will be surprised to learn of the horror I feel at the prospect of Beltran or any of the other prized talent now on the market following A-Rod to the Bronx. The payroll inequities among teams make competitive balance almost impossible to achieve, and when we fans are lucky enough, against all odds, to get a taste of it, the owners squash it by making the chasm between the haves and the have-nots even greater. A Yankee shopping spree before the July 31 deadline would likely push its payroll over the $200 million mark, while only a few other teams even top $100 million.
But if my anti-Yankee rant isn’t remotely a shock, the corollary may be: this Boston-born, lifelong Red Sox diehard doesn’t want to see Beltran dealt to my hometown team either. The rich teams like the Yankees, the Red Sox and the Dodgers already have such an advantage in their playoff runs that whatever little of the baseball purist still resides in me can’t stand to see any of them, even my own guys, get another boost. With this season off to such a compelling start, I’d like to see baseball–preposterous as it may sound and as futile as the hope may be–just go out and play it as it lays.
I happen to engage in that mindless pursuit called fantasy baseball, a proud member of the oldest such league in existence. (Our American Dream League was actually the second league to ever play this obsessive game, but the legendary Rotisserie League dissolved long ago.) For many seasons we would have close “pennant” races and be enjoying the prospect of a sizzling September when the last-place team would mess it all up. They would dangle their biggest star, a Roger Clemens or a Ricky Henderson, to the highest bidder and ruin what had been a perfectly good pennant race.
After years of frustration, we came up with a solution: through a mechanism, the details of which I will spare you, we effectively banned these “sellout” trades. Sure, in real life it would be restraint of trade and most probably illegal, but such concerns have never stopped baseball ownership before. Of course, how could I hope that those charged with the good of the real game would demonstrate as much vision as a group of middle-aged hacks in a pretend mode? So sure as Steinbrenner is “The Boss,” the Royals and a few other of 2004’s big losers will screw up this lovely season. That’s the Major League baseball way.
A Bad Draft Blowing In
Another league that will squander momentum this very week is the NBA. Just a week after the demise of the Lakers in a feel-good NBA finals, the league will hold its annual draft. Back in the early ’80s, when I was a just a rabid fan and not yet a rabid sportswriter and ESPN was a neophyte notion, the draft wasn’t even televised. So I’d always show up at Madison Square Garden with the other NBA loonies. We cheered, hissed and mostly dreamed as the familiar collegiate basketball stars–Isiah Thomas, Michael Jordan, Buck Williams, Darrell Griffith, Patrick Ewing, Ralph Sampson–paraded in front of us before being distributed as potential saviors to our teams around the league.
Nobody doubted how much was at stake. The right rookie in the right place could transform a team virtually overnight. Magic Johnson had joined the Los Angeles Lakers in ‘79 and turned a mere contender into an NBA champion his very first season. Larry Bird arrived that same season with Boston at its nadir. In his rookie season, the Celtics leapt from 29-53 to 61-21 and one season later he, like Magic, would capture a championship ring.
Tonight ESPN will give the NBA draft a glitzy, prime-time showcase, but it is no longer a prime-time affair. Parading before us will be a bunch of big, goofy high-school kids and other unfamiliar faces from around the world who will bring their unpolished games to a league, where maybe, if they are coddled just right, they will emerge four or five years hence as legitimate stars. Today’s NBA draft resembles, not the NFL draft, which looms for fans as a beacon of hope, but the NHL draft that will be held this weekend. You haven’t heard much about the players, and they won’t be making much of an immediate impact. At least in hockey, those draft choices get stashed away in the minor leagues for several seasons until they are ready to contribute. In the NBA they are conspicuous on the bench (or even worse, in their futility on the floor), a constant reminder of how hard it is for sick teams to get well.
After all, LeBron James proved to be the rarest of commodities–the real deal–and he still couldn’t propel the Cleveland Cavaliers into the playoffs this past season. And the LeBrons are few and far between. Most first-round draft picks contribute almost nothing. In my sports-mad hometown, the Celtics actually have three first-round picks tonight and that barely stirs up a conversation. The NBA prognosticators say the Celts will pick two high-school kids and one foreign lad and then hope and pray that in a few seasons something will jell. The team’s new basketball boss, Danny Ainge, told The Boston Globe he’s looking for guys who can “play through adversity.” That may be the right approach for the team, but it sure isn’t any prescription for its fans.
