Baseball Guru
06-21-2002, 05:36 PM
By Brad Reid
Once again Commissioner Bud Selig is slowly slipping on the black hood, and casually pulling out the recently sharpened axe. He's looking for fresh meat to lay on the chopping block.
The Minnesota Twins were granted a reprieve from their execution, and will exist in 2003 thanks to a lawsuit, filed by the commission that governs the Metrodome. But just because they narrowly avoided Bud's noose, doesn't mean there won't be a hanging.
Faithfully married to the concept of contraction, Commissioner Selig is now looking for a second team to join the Montreal Expos in oblivion next season. The most likely target is the Tampa Bay Devil Rays.
As a team which has done poorly both on the field and at the gate, all the Devil Rays have been lacking was a sign above their stadium flashing "Contract Me." But for some inexplicable reason, the powers that be decided that the Twins, a team that had won a World Championship in the '90s and is currently sitting in first place in the AL Central, was more deserving of the axe.
Maybe Jerry Reinsdorf, owner of the second place Chicago White Sox, was consulted a little too much in the original selection process.
While Tampa Bay clearly represents a better choice, one has to wonder just why Bud Selig is so committed to this idea. Instead of looking for new solutions to these teams' economic problems, the Owners' time is being spent on finding teams to fit the Commissioner's pre-determined answer. It's like deciding beforehand that the answer to a math question is four and then constantly changing the question until it fits into your arbitrary solution.
Contraction is not the answer.
On its surface it sounds great, but the truth of the matter is that it won't really improve anything. Will the soaring offense and mammoth home run rates suddenly drop now that 50 bench players have been shaved from the league? Not likely. If anything, the influx of international players like Ichiro Suzuki and Kazuhisa Ishii has deepened the talent pool in recent years.
There could be other reasons for contractions as well, such as leverage against the players in labor negotiations. Or simply to make it look like the current regime is hard at work fixing baseball's problems when actually no progress is being made.
What baseball really needs is revenue sharing, or a salary cap, or some other method of evening the economic playing field. Killing two teams is nothing more than a showy waste of time. And, when two new expansion teams are unveiled a few years from now by the Commissioner, a new reason will emerge - greed.
If Montreal were to move to Virginia and Tampa Bay likewise to a more lucrative market, then the Owners wouldn't even make a wooden nickel. But if some cash were to be spent now in destroying these two teams, then there'd be a huge payday, for the Owners, in expansion fees a few years down the road. And who wants to bet that one of those lucrative two new expansion towns would be in Virginia?
Contraction is nothing more than the glitzy part of a sleight of hand trick. While we're distracted by Bud tossing two cards into the trash with his right hand, we aren't noticing that he's stacking the deck with his left.
Once again Commissioner Bud Selig is slowly slipping on the black hood, and casually pulling out the recently sharpened axe. He's looking for fresh meat to lay on the chopping block.
The Minnesota Twins were granted a reprieve from their execution, and will exist in 2003 thanks to a lawsuit, filed by the commission that governs the Metrodome. But just because they narrowly avoided Bud's noose, doesn't mean there won't be a hanging.
Faithfully married to the concept of contraction, Commissioner Selig is now looking for a second team to join the Montreal Expos in oblivion next season. The most likely target is the Tampa Bay Devil Rays.
As a team which has done poorly both on the field and at the gate, all the Devil Rays have been lacking was a sign above their stadium flashing "Contract Me." But for some inexplicable reason, the powers that be decided that the Twins, a team that had won a World Championship in the '90s and is currently sitting in first place in the AL Central, was more deserving of the axe.
Maybe Jerry Reinsdorf, owner of the second place Chicago White Sox, was consulted a little too much in the original selection process.
While Tampa Bay clearly represents a better choice, one has to wonder just why Bud Selig is so committed to this idea. Instead of looking for new solutions to these teams' economic problems, the Owners' time is being spent on finding teams to fit the Commissioner's pre-determined answer. It's like deciding beforehand that the answer to a math question is four and then constantly changing the question until it fits into your arbitrary solution.
Contraction is not the answer.
On its surface it sounds great, but the truth of the matter is that it won't really improve anything. Will the soaring offense and mammoth home run rates suddenly drop now that 50 bench players have been shaved from the league? Not likely. If anything, the influx of international players like Ichiro Suzuki and Kazuhisa Ishii has deepened the talent pool in recent years.
There could be other reasons for contractions as well, such as leverage against the players in labor negotiations. Or simply to make it look like the current regime is hard at work fixing baseball's problems when actually no progress is being made.
What baseball really needs is revenue sharing, or a salary cap, or some other method of evening the economic playing field. Killing two teams is nothing more than a showy waste of time. And, when two new expansion teams are unveiled a few years from now by the Commissioner, a new reason will emerge - greed.
If Montreal were to move to Virginia and Tampa Bay likewise to a more lucrative market, then the Owners wouldn't even make a wooden nickel. But if some cash were to be spent now in destroying these two teams, then there'd be a huge payday, for the Owners, in expansion fees a few years down the road. And who wants to bet that one of those lucrative two new expansion towns would be in Virginia?
Contraction is nothing more than the glitzy part of a sleight of hand trick. While we're distracted by Bud tossing two cards into the trash with his right hand, we aren't noticing that he's stacking the deck with his left.