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A Lack of Parity
Our national pastime is a thing of the past
by Tony Basilio
Warm days and nights inevitably signal that baseball is back! And thankfully, we Knoxvillians live in a place where we can enjoy the Major League version of the sport from afar. Come to think about it, thanks to former Mayor Victor Ashe and his cronies, we get to enjoy the minor league version from afar as well. But I digress, if only in hopes of drawing an irate letter to the editor from the departed Vic.
My larger point is that Major League Baseball sucks, and not just a little. It has devolved into something not only unwatchable, but also incomprehensible to the average fan.
A case in point: MLB is coming off a truly anomalous season, one in which the upstart Florida Marlins won the World Series over the New York Yankees despite a payroll deficit of $100 million. Hooray for parity, right? Wrong. The offshoot is that the Yankees went out and did something that makes it that much less likely anything like that rare season of 2003 will ever happen again.
By adding Alex Rodriguez, the Yankees ballooned their payroll to $186 million for this season. Now the farce that is baseball sees Tampa Bay, a team that allegedly competes in the American League with the Yankees, with a whopping $18 million payroll. To put it in perspective, the Yankees third baseman Rodriguez, who has seven years remaining on a 10-year, $252 million contract, will make more this season than the entire Tampa roster combined.
We were warned this might happen when the era of free agency began back in 1976. At that time, the average salary for ballplayers was $52,000 a season. Just 25 years later, the average salary has swollen to over $2.1 million per season—an increase of 40-fold!
In the meantime, the gap separating the top teams has exploded, and the fans are paying more money for a less watchable product. In 1991, when the game was still somewhat balanced and teams in markets like Cincinnati and Pittsburgh could actually compete with big-market clubs like New York, the average ticket price was only $8.64 league-wide. Today, the average ticket price is more than $20 per game.
Now clubs like the aforementioned Reds and Pirates serve as little more than minor league teams masquerading in major league uniforms. As soon as these teams produce quality talent, those players become millionaires in other places. Because of unencumbered free agency, bigger clubs simply devour smaller ones. And with each passing season, the gap continues to widen.
But runaway free agency and lack of parity aren’t the only reasons Major League Baseball sucks. Every aspect of the game is warped. MLB used to be a records game, a game where accomplishments from different eras could be compared in light of history. Now we have steroid-juiced freaks smashing not just records, but also baseball’s connection to its past. Barry Bonds’ accomplishments are chemically induced, as are the exploits of Sosa and maybe even McGwire. These guys feast off watered-down expansion-era pitching in smaller ballparks, and expect us to hold their records in the same hallowed light as those of Aaron, Ruth, and Maris. Welcome to Major League Baseball 2004!
I’m only too happy to be insulated from Major League Baseball here in East Tennessee. Give me the crack of the bat, the smell of the popcorn, and the 20-minute drive (thanks, Victor!) to our minor league Smokies Park any day of the week. To take a family of four, I don’t have to mortgage my home, and the baseball is both competitive and entertaining. Play ball!
Tune in and talk sports with “The Tony Basilio Show” each weekday from 3-6 p.m. on the network (670 WMTY-AM, 850 WKVL-AM, 1140 WLOD-AM, 1290 WATO-AM, or 1400 WGAP-AM)
April 8, 2004 • Vol. 14, No. 15
© 2004 Metro Pulse
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