Now more than three decades later, at the start of a new baseball century, that sage view is still painfully true, requiring only the slightest amendment as a concession to modernity. Baseball is still sick, the owners are acutely aware of it-and today even the most lamebrained among them understands exactly why. Yet despite their heightened awareness, the plague persists unabated. And it is about to rear itself and lay waste to what threatens to be a season for the ages.
Before we mourn the bad news, lets first celebrate what might have been. As baseball readies for its midseason All-Star rituals, we can still marvel at the remarkable several months we fans have been privileged to enjoy. Try to imagine what the Vegas payoff would be come October on a C-note plunked down Opening Day on the parlay-let’s dub it “The Long-Sufferer’s Play”-of the Red Sox over the Yankees, the Cubs over the Cardinals, the Phillies over Atlanta and the born-again Twins over Cleveland? It would dwarf that $141 million lottery jackpot in California. Let me be the first to coin a sporting turn-of-phrase: Do you believe in miracles?
And that isn’t even the half of it. There’s Barry Bonds and Luis Gonzalez making like McGwire and Sosa. The best script of all is how Seattle lost Alex Rodriguez, outbid by division rival Texas to the tune of a tidy $25 million per, then KO’d the free-spending Rangers before the first month of the season was out. Who woulda thunk that Seattle could shed a superstar annually-first Randy Johnson, then Junior Griffey and, finally, A-Rod-and still be on pace this season to win more games than any team in history?
The Mariners’ success is a compendium of lessons about this marvelous, mesmerizing game. Here’s a three-pack sampler:
Baseball is a 25-man game (which is why guys like Jim Leyritz and Luis Sojo get to be World Series heroes);
Pitching and defense always trumps hitting (and anything trumps the Kingdome),
And, as it turns out, it is a small world after all. The best Japanese players turn out to be every bit as good as our homegrown-well, just a few nautical miles away-Dominican stars. There’s got to be a winning slogan in Sasaki and Suzuki that has the resonance of a “Tippecanoe and Tyler, too.” (For those of you who don’t recall either Tippecanoe or Tyler, they were a great 19th-century double-play combo.)
So what am I whining about? What is this plague of biblical proportions I lament? Well it’s “them.” And “they” are about to ruin it all. Come on, you know who “they” are-the fat-cat owners, who have stood blithely by as the imbalance in team revenues grows and reveals itself directly in the game’s competitive imbalance. Don’t confuse this season’s unpredictability with any vindication of the system. While the Mariners, Red Sox, Cubbies and Phillies may be sentimental choices and, in the case of the latter two, novelty acts at the top, none are a true small-market team. All have the revenues to compete with the big boys. Among the contenders at the break, only Minnesota, which is doing it with smoke and mirrors (and three young stud starters), is forever doomed to compete against teams with three and four times the payroll it can muster. Which is why, of course, the Twins are my odds-on candidate for odd-team out in what looks like a five-team race for four playoff spots in the American League.
That’s because as unfair as the imbalance may be heading into the seasons, it only gets worse now. Tis the season of the feeding frenzy. Add a strong arm or two to the Red Sox, the Indians and the Dodgers. How about one more big bat for the Braves? And, of course, the Yankees will add anything and everything that their brain trust deems missing from its current incarnation. Come the playoffs, the result figures to be, as a French cinematic cop once said, “Round up the usual suspects.”
Nobody plays the endgame better than George Steinbrenner, who is certainly the most competitive owner in the game and, finally it must be acknowledged, perhaps even the best. His is a season-long quest to bolster the Yankees. To George, the Opening Day roster is simply the deal in a game of five-card draw. He never gets a pat hand; the only question is how many cards he’ll draw. And I’d like my chances, too, if I could draw seven cards while everyone else is playing with five or fewer.
Last season the Yankees set a record by reaching the postseason with more midseason acquisitions than any team in history. They added three sluggers: David Justice, Glenallen Hill and Jose Canseco, the latter a preemptive addition acquired to sit on the bench simply so he wouldn’t swing for a Yankee rival. They added a pesky outfield bat in Luis Polonia and two reliable, journeyman infielders in Sojo and Jose Vizcaino, who proved critical when Chuck Knoblauch’s throwing woes persisted. And they added a solid veteran starter in Denny Neagle to complement the big three rotation of Clemens, Pettite and “El Duque.”
This season the Yankees are back at it. New York’s most obvious weakness was its inexperienced not-ready-for-prime-time bullpen. So the Yankees have already poached a couple reliable veteran arms, Jay Witasick and Mark Wohlers, off San Diego and Cincinnati, two smaller-market teams headed nowhere this season, and indeed most. Admittedly, New York gave up a terrific shortstop prospect to the Padres. But giving up young talent is not as punitive as it once was. By the time the kids have come of age, the rich teams are positioned to buy them back. New York has also bolstered its outfield and infield depth with acquisitions of “Ice” Williams (a budget cut from Tampa Bay) and Enrique Wilson (from once lordly, now lowly, Pittsburgh). And nobody expects the Yankees to stop there.
For any but the pinstriped devout, its a dispiriting enterprise. In the ’50s and ’60s, the great Yankee teams used the Kansas City Athletics (pre-Oakland days) as a virtual farm club, picking up key veterans from K.C. for the stretch run and Series. Now half the league services the world champs; it’s dynasty is a buy-nasty that exacts a wicked toll on the game. There’s an old sports adage about how you can recognize a great coach or manager. As the saying goes, “He’ll beat yours with his, then he’ll beat his with yours.” Baseball today puts a unique postmodern spin on that concept: If he can’t beat yours with his, he’ll take his and everyone else’s and only then will he really kick you.
