Break Up the Yankees Part 1

My favorite sportswriter, Joe Posnanski, wrote a blog post about the tremendous financial advantage the Yankees have and how that financial advantage translates into a payroll that absolutely dwarfs every other team in the entire league (including the second place Red Sox). As a result, the Yankees are a team of all-stars that can, if not win the championship every year, at least dominate the regular season and always have a chance at the end of the year to play for the title. Even last year, when they missed the playoffs, the Yankees tied with the White Sox and Twins for the fourth best record, and most surely would have made the playoffs had they played in the AL Central. In the post, Joe doesn't come up with any solutions (which disappointed me a little), but just puts the question out there for discussion, after laying out how truly monumental the Yankees payroll is. The discussion that ensued was very vibrant, at times heated, but genuinely informative. I had a hard time arranging my thoughts so I didn't comment on it then. I'll try my best to do it now.

I remember back in 2000, the Yankees had just won their third straight championship and fourth in five years. I just kind of figured that the Yankees would go along winning championships for the rest of my adolescence. Cries for higher luxury taxes, salary caps, anything to stop the Yankee menace, were at a fever pitch, on sports pages and from the mouths of every non-Yankee baseball fan. Bud Selig was on top of his milk crate talking about how small market teams just could not compete in this environment, that some teams might even need to be contracted from the league.
At the time, I was in complete agreement with the proponents for a salary cap. A burdgeoning fan of a small market team (Milwaukee Brewers) I thought the competitiveness of my favorite team and the very survival of my favorite sport was at stake. The only way to fix it, it seemed, was to make sure that no team could spend more than a certain amount of money. I had a friend who was a big Yankees fan in high school, I use to always tell him his teams championships were tainted because they were bought rather than earned. I went into the 2001 postseason scared as ever that the Yankees would win yet another World Series.
Only something happened, something glorious to quiet all us small market fans, the Yankees stopped winning championships. They lost the World Series to the Diamondbacks in 2001 (Game 7 was one of the happiest moments of my life). Lost in the ALDS to the Angels in 2002, lost in the World Series in the Marlins to 2003, lost to Red Sox in the ALCS in 2004, lost to the Angels in the ALDS in 2005, lost to the Tigers in the ALDS in 2006, lost to Indians in the ALCS in 2007. Didn't even make the playoffs in 2008. The Yankees were spending more and more money, their payroll reaching ungodly levels, but since they weren't winning championships, not too many people cared. If anything, they became something of a punchline- the best team money could buy, only they couldn't win when it counted. Countless stories were written about how the free agents they signed for megabucks, men like Mike Mussina, Jason Giambi, and especially, Alex Rodriguez, weren't "true Yankees" and didn't have the heart to win a championship.

Of course it was all ridiculous, the Yankees were still winning tons of games, still scoring tons of runs, still dominating the regular season year in and year out like few teams ever have. Pretty much every Yankee team from 2001 to today has been better than the 2000 champions. But baseball on any given day is a crapshoot, much more so than the other major team sports, and that counts double for playoff baseball. The baseball season is long because it takes a much larger sample size to separate the good teams from the bad. Even the worst baseball teams win 40% of their games (equivalent to a 33 win basketball team or a 6 win football team), and even the best teams only win 60% (49 win basketball team or a 10 win football team). Give me a sample size of 16 games and I can make just about any team in baseball have the best record in the league, depending on the dates chosen. To think that we could determine what team from a best of 5 and two best of 7 series in a sport like baseball is ridiculous. But here are the Yankees, back on top of the "world" again, and the conversation turns to how to stop the team from leveraging its advantage to winning all of the championships. But the thing is, nothing's really changed. This conversation should have stayed front and center throughout the entire decade, because the Yankees were still the best in the area where the best teams are truly determined, the regular season. The only difference is that this time they weren't quite lucky enough to get through the playoffs unscathed.

I guess one other thing is different too, I've started to care less, or at the very least had a chance to see the situation from a more nuanced point of view. There are plenty of owners who are far richer than the Steinbrenners (including the owner of the Royals who happens to have a share of the Walton families riches), plenty of owners who take the luxury tax or shared revenue money and pocket it instead of spending it on player development and salaries. Many of the teams that say they can't compete don't even really try to and are perfectly content with putting a losing product on the field if only to make sure that their income statement looks pretty. I would rather see a salary minimum before a salary cap, see what will happen if teams had to put more effort in assembling a competitive roster. As a fan, I don't care too much about inherent advantages. I think it's logical that a team in New York, Los Angeles, or Chicago has an advantage over a team in Milwaukee. Flattening the advantages some is cool with me, but I also don't think we should do away with them. My expectations are that the ownership group will try its best to build a quality team with the resources that it has. I don't think I'm owed a playoff spot every year or even the hope of one. It comes with the territory of being a fan of a small market team, and I do think that there are ways in baseball to compete under the current system.

But that doesn't change the fact that many fans see this as a huge problem and in the case of entertainment that's all that matters. The fans see the Yankees buying their way into the playoffs every year and see the entire system as unfair. And as long as that is the perception then it's going to be a problem, something that MLB has to address.

Is there a solution to the problem? I think it truly depends on what is truly the primary concern. Is it having a number of different champions every year? Baseball already does a pretty good job of that, the crapshoot nature of the sport makes it so that a hot team has a good chance of winning a championship in any given year. To give even more teams a chance to win a championship, they could open the playoffs to more teams. Baseball opens its playoffs to a lower percentage of teams than any of the major sports, but I there would be plenty of people crying foul saying that the regular season would be even more diluted (people howled when the wild card was implemented).
Or they could shorten the regular season enough to where a fluke team can get in with greater frequency. If a larger sample size separates the good (i.e. high payroll) teams from the bad teams, then a smaller sample size would make there be less separation. But, itt would mess with all kinds of season and career records, and no one would want that.

Is the primary concern competing for a playoff spot? If that's the case, then I think the only real problem area is the AL East, where there are two teams (Boston and New York) that have a confluence of many advantages that make it hard for the other three teams in the division to compete (large media market, ownership groups willing to spend, populations with high incomes, rich history and tradition that stretches back over 100 years). I truly don't think that teams in divisions other than the AL East have a too much of an argument that they can't compete.*

Let's take the teams that haven't made the playoffs in a decade in the other divisions- Kansas City and Texas in the AL; Washington, Pittsburgh, and Cincinnati in the NL.

Texas: Up and coming team, and actually had a better record than either of their; they made the playoffs three straight years in the mid to late 90's. Their only problem is that Tom Hicks can't or won't pay his bills.

Kansas City: Hasn't made the playoffs since 1985, but they have a very wealthy owner. The only truly big market team they have to compete against is the White Sox, the second favorite team in a football town. Minnesota and Cleveland are able to compete with those teams just fine. Kansas City has no excuse but their own bumbling, cheapskate owner.

Washington: Special circumstances, didn't have an owner, moved from Canada. Give them a few more years to try and build a fanbase and team

Pittsburgh and Cincinnati: Call it the curse of Barry Bonds and the curse of Davey Johnson. All I know is, if Milwaukee can compete in that division, then any team can. It's a shame what terrible ownership has done to these once proud baseball towns.

Finally, is the primary concern simply think that no team should have a payroll so far in excess of the other teams, whether or not the Yankees won 13 consecutive championships with the highest payroll or spent the last decade losing 100 games a year with the highest payroll. I'm not convinced by the fairness argument (why care about fairness in something as trivial as sports), but I think that many people would put their Yankee opposition under this tent. The people who are most concerned about this are in favor of a salary cap. I'm not, or rather, I think that there's a way to get the features of a salary cap without having a salary cap, and I think, that, along with other solutions will help to flatten some of the advantages that big markets have without taking them away. But that's for my next post......

Fractional Earned Runs

So lately I've been doing a lot of reading about our monetary system, and specifically, criticism of fractional reserve banking and comparisons between fiat money and the gold standard. I'm certainly not a gold bug, I think that the transition back to the gold standard would cause so much harm that even if all of its supposed advantages were true it still would be a bad idea. But it's pretty fascinating to gather information on the subject, and some of their critiques have made me reconsider some of my positions.

All of this focus on fractional reserve got me thinking as I was watching the end of the Angels-Red Sox game. Jonathan Papelbon came into the game and the two commentators were going on and on about how Papelbon has never given up an earned run in his postseason career. And that's true- under baseball's rulebook, Jonathan Papelbon, up until that game, had never given up a postseason run. But without discounting Papelbon's dominance, that has just as much to do with one of baseball's archaic rulebook. The rules stats that once a runner reaches base he is the responsibility of the pitcher he reached against, regardless of whether or not another pitcher is the one that allows him to score. And I find that grossly unfair.

If a pitcher allows a leadoff single and gets lifted for a relief pitcher and the relief pitcher allows a home run, why should the first pitcher bear the full weight of the runner on first. He didn't allow him to score, he allowed him to get a single, the relief pitcher allowed him to get the other three bases. Many people have commented on this before, but why not have a fractional run system, with each base counting 1/4 of a run. Under a fractional run scenario, the first pitcher would get charged 1/4 of a run for allowing the first hitter to get a single and the relief pitcher would be charged 1 3/4 runs for allowing the base runner to advance three additional bases and for the four bases he gave up to the batter. It makes so much sense, sharing the responsibility between pitchers, and it's not like the math is hard or anything. All it does is make starting pitchers look worse and relief pitchers look better. But alas, in the end, Papelbon finally gave up a postseason run and the Red Sox will be watching the rest of the playoffs like me (only with nicer tv's I suppose).

3 Days in Zion

The counter woman and waitress brings me my tray, on top of which sits a greasy mushroom swiss burger, a smattering of onion rings, and a cup of Sprite. Just the sight of it makes my stomach churn, and thoughts of late night heartburn rushes dance inside my head. But hunger will make a man do crazy things, make him decide to get a burger at a rundown Dairy Queen with exactly zero customers, make his head not notice the Applebee's across the street with the special on cheesburger sliders. I bite into the burger, the swiss cheese is a bit old, the bun is a bit hard, and the mushrooms are a bit slimy. The onion rings aren't much better, cooked in finely aged oil no doubt; at least that explains how they could be both crispy and soggy all at once. And for the trifecta, the Spire tasted terrible, but I couldn't figure out whether it was because there was syrup stuck to the spigot or the bittersweet taste was from earlier in the delivery process. And as I hurriedly scarfed down my subpar fast food, all I could think was about how much I loved my job.

Just a few days ago I was sitting at my desk inputting some data into a spreadsheet, or researching some kind of hospital company. And here I was today, eating some crappy food in some small town in Illinois, with sreets named Ezekiel, and Jeremiah, and Isaiah, knocking on peoples doors, getting to have conversations with people who do healthcare work for a change. I don't really think any other job I could have can match this one for pure variation. Go to Illinois and meet with hospital executives, go to Wisconsin and work on a historic election campaign, have a sit down with a guy running for state treasurer, go to Florida and meet with hospital workers, monitor finance authorities. And as I finished my burger and walked out towards my blue PT Cruiser, 7 more hours of door knocking ahead of me, I couldn't help but think about how much I'd miss it when I was done.

I'm sitting at Denny's early the next morning, hungry because I didn't eat dinner. Ordered a denver omelette with all the good sides, heavy on the coffee, halfway through my second cup already. Directly in front of me are two old men, chatting about some kind of good old days, a slight hint of a stereotypical Italian-American accent from one of them, a strong Mid-Western accent from the other.
"And I tell ya, there ain't too much of us left. The stories I got, me and Rico," said the one with the Italian accent.
The Midwest guy nodded, "Yeah I know, they should get somebody to write all this stuff down,"
"I'm tellin ya, there's nothin like the good old days. Man, we use to do so many deals."
And he proceeded to tell stories, stories about shady real estate deals in Chicago, ins he had with the mayors office. Tales about how some of his buddies ran the numbers rackets, use to fence stolen goods, how he had to make a million dollar cash run for this guy who hid his money in the floor boards. His buddy Rico would steal anything not nailed to the floor and half of the things that were. I guess those were the days. I just listened closely and drank my coffee, my head halfway down, less they think I was an informant or something. I wanted to get up and tell them that I'd write their story, call it "Those Were the Days: Looting, Shooting, and Wholesale Corruption in Daley's Chicago." And I'd price it at 19.99, and we'd sell the damn things like Snuggies, and we'd be instant millionaires. But I wouldn't dare get up. Instead, they finished up their coffee, paid their tab and walked out. I did the same shortly afterward; then I went to Target to buy some socks.
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I never really noticed, but damn there are a LOT of small towns in the US. Places with 10,000, 5,000, 2,000 people. Places where the highlight is a Monday night ride to the skeet shotting range, where the roads are still sand and gravel, and the airports have Cessna's instead of 737's. Rode past this one community plopped down in the middle of a cornfield, like it had taken a ride on Dorothy's tornado and fallen out of the sky. I tend to forget sometimes that these places exist, to me they're random exits on the side of the freeway. It's good that I get a chance to visit for work sometimes, because I wouldn't otherwise.

Freelancer

And so begins my last week in New York for three whole months, with a plate of Puerto Rican food and a pint of some bittersweet Black Sheep Ale watching the late afternoon football games and monitoring the progress of my fantasy football team (go Union Thugs! 2-0 baby). Starting September 28th through December 31st (at least) I'll be in the Bay Area for work. Luckily, I'll be staying in an apartment instead of in and out of hotels, at least after the first week.

There was this computer game I wanted when I was like 16, Freelancer, where you play a cargo runner/soldier of fortune of sorts, who takes on various missions in order to amass a fortune, upgrade your ship, and achieve a certain level of status and reputation throughout the galaxy. I was big into gaming, then or now, so I didn't know that it was a very highly anticipated game, all I knew was that the concept was attractive to me, and for more than just entertainment. That air of independence, even if it truly is a facade, is so appealing. At its core, it's not necessarily a world devoid of attachments, but it does mean being attached to people and institutions almost completely on your own terms. At it's worst it's completely insular and more than a little bit immature, particularly when it's applied to relationships to people rather than relationships to institutions. What's more it clashes with any kind of sense of loyalty, a sense of community, and it's impractical if you want to establish any kind of relationship long-term.

So I guess the best thing to do is to get it in the small of doses that you can, which is why I'm always so game to go when my job wants me to travel. Maybe it's my Navy brat upbringing, but I start to get the shakes whenever I stay in one place too long. Although I'm firmly attached to my job, for a little while I can feel or pretend that I'm doing something for myself. And when those days come where I got that lawn and the mortgage I can tell my kids about my days sweltering in a Miami hotel getting stood up in a Coral Gables hospital or running down the streets of west Chicago or three months living on the eastside of the San Francisco Bay. Just my small bit of the independent life before I did what was good for me.

Socrates Reprised

It was one of those hot nights, air was like sticky and sweet, the kind that puts beads of sweat on your forehead, the kind that makes you want to get out of the house before you slowly melt. Don't know if it was a coincidence, but it just so happened that I wanted to see this one Italian film, "Gomorrah," at Socrates, a sculpture park about ten blocks west of me on the border of the East River. It's funny because about year ago today something similar happened. I'd just moved to New York, a bit lonely, bored out of my mind, and the apartment I was living in felt like And Socrates was playing 8 1/2 by Federico Fellini. And since I had no one to go with, I went by myself. I guess it was some kind of theme night, because they had a stand serving meatballs and eggplant, pasta, and cannolis for desert, and some of the best coffee I've ever had. In front of the screen they had some band playing some Nino Rota lite, soothing enough to drink some coffee to. But mostly I remember when the film started sitting on the grass in my shorts because I forgot to bring a blanket, looking around at the people with their companions and dogs, wine bottles and glasses, french bread, fruit, and cheese. Throughout the crowd I saw only one other person by themselves, a Black lady in her late 20's with a red and yellow scarf wrapped around dreads that went down to her shoulders, looking even lonelier than I felt. But at least she'd brought a blanket to sit on. I started to get cold as the wind blew off the river, but there's nothing like sipping coffee to warm you up while watching a film in a language you can't understand.

Round 2, and this time I went alone again. Walked down that same streets, past the same guys playing soccer on artificial turf, past the same oily taxi repair shops. Past the blue and metal paneled diner that I loved to eat at but always made my stomach cramp. Except this time, I had a bag with me, this time I remembered to bring some food and a blanket. Turkey sandwich with swiss cheese and mustard and two beers, Brooklyn Lager and Brooklyn East India Pale Ale, not cabernet sauvignon and brie exactly, but more filling, and I needed something to differentiate myself from everyone else. When I walked in I saw all the same things that I had last time. There was a line for meatbalss and cannolis, the same band playing the theme from the Godfather, the same people with their dogs and wine. And I took my place, pretty close to where I was last year, the same awkward spot where the ground starts to slope backwards and the grass is mostly dirt. I've kind of had that feeling for a while now though, feeling of sameness, stagnation. Maybe next time I could bring somebody or something, spice it up a bit (getting people to come out to Queens though?)

The movie itself was pretty boring, more concerned with the filming technique than with story development (and it was shot very well, capturing the grit of Italy, a country that in many parts sits on the brink of third world status). The tryptophan and beer did it's job though and I fell asleep for most of the last quarter of the movie, and at least I had a blanket to sleep on.

Chili Dawgs Still Bark at Midnight

I don't know if it was the howling mutts wrapped in hot dog buns or the bewildered look on Lewis Grizzard's face as he stares up at that smiling moon, his eyes guarded by those unimaginably dorky glasses band across the top of the frames (my father had a pair), but I was completely fascinated by this dusty pocket-sized paperback my dad had near his military duffel bag. Don't really know why, but I knew that I had to read it- in my eyes it was absolutely adult, without being too academic like the books they forced me to read in school. I took it from my father's room and read the whole damn thing in one sitting.

Looking back, I can only vaguely remember reading it. Only a few of the stories really stood out, one about televangelist and one about Kentucky Fried Chicken, but a the time, it was something special, a foray into a world that I'd known very little about. Grizzard was a southerner through and through, at a time when I was Even without remembering most of the stories, I do remember that I enjoyed his irreverence and his varied sense of humor.

The strange thing is that I'm quite certain that if Grizzard was alive and writing today, I would absolutely despise him. To me, he represents everything that is wrong with old-time sportswriters and conservative southerners, namely, their stubborness and dogmatism, their inability to empathize with anyone, and mostly their hypocrisy. Grizzard was married three times, and yet he was a purported traditionalist when it came to values. He wasn't a religious man per se, instead he was just someone who was incredibly sure that the society he grew up in was right- or if not that, then at least good enough to survive an assault from a more modern world.

I've talked before about cities that represent a specific time and place in America's history. For the 60's, or at very least the late 60's, that city was Haight-Ashbury/Summer of Love San Francisco. The late 70's to early 80's was the Son of Sam's New York. It's a bit tougher to choose for the 1980's, but I think that Lewis Grizzard's Atlanta would be as good a city as any to choose. Atlanta started to flex its muscles in the 1980's- it was still a defiantly Southern town, with Southern sensibilities, but with success comes changes and transplants, and a confrotation between the values of the people who And it was that disappearnce of that old South that Grizard was decrying. A South that didn't take itself too seriously when dealing with each other, but one that also became hyper defensive when their problems were pointed out. A place of purported family values that nonetheless winked, nodded, or turned a blind eye towards the inclination that much of their population had towards the seven deadly sins.

White Southerners have a lot more in common with Black people then they think. Most of their history has been spent feeling or being inferior, at least by the common social and economic metrics we use to measure such things. Sooner or later though, a culture begins to develop around that feeling of inferiority, and while I think it is certainly generalizing, I think white southern culture reveled a bit in its informality, its more overt displays of masculinity and femininity, and its emphasis on a principled value system (no matter how many times those principles were violated). Yeah you Northerners may have more money and better education, but we sure know how to have a good time. A professor of mine in college, during a lecture on the antebellum South, talked about how important the culture of honor was, and I think that it's importance, while not as strong, still lingers to this day. I also think you can see remnants of this in the modern Republican party, both envigorated and imprisoned by its value system. And that's what Grizzard's book, admittedly in hindsight, represents for me. It's probably very hard for people to think of a Lewis Grizzard book as an example of the frustration, anxiety, hatred, and humor with which Southern white people dealt with the makings of the "New South," but for me it definitely is.

New Gotham

Thank God for indigestion- the hamburger crowned America's best burger by "Good Morning America" did not agree with me falling asleep too long and my stomach did all types of somersaults at 3am. Reminds me of that Lewis Grizzard book I found in my dad's room when I was 11; I guess burgers wait a little bit longer before they start to bark (I want to write about that book sometime). But I was fortunate really that I'd woken up when I did. In my pursuit to meet a college classmate for a fine slice of Kobe beef, I'd completely forgotten to pick up some deodarant and a pair of black socks that I needed for the meeting tomorrow. (In my defense, the burger, which was good but far from America's best, was topped with a healthy chunk of brie. The taste of brie and burger is interesting enough to fool someone into thinking that the burger is America's best).

After finding out where the nearest Walgreen's was, I stumbled out of my downtown Chicago hotel onto the quiet streets. A comforting quiet really, not an eery quiet, interrupted by idling municipal trucks parked next to a manhole, men in their white jumpsuits suspended by rope lowered deep into the dark sewer. I love the look of Chicago, I think it does a better job of blending old and new than any other city in the country. Chicago, at least in my mind, doesn't try to escape from its gritty past, in many ways it still looks like a souped-up 1920's gangster film. To this day, Al Capone would not look out of place crossing the river at La Salle. It's probably why Christopher Nolan decided to shoot "The Dark Knight" there rather than in New York. Obviously I wasn't here for New York during it's downtrodden heyday, but from the looks of things, it's far too glamorous, far too safe to be anyone's Gotham. It's commendable that the Dinkins and Giuliani and Bloomberg administrations did such a good job in cleaning up the city, cracking down on crime, destroying the Son of Sam and New Jack City, New York. But a good city for business and families and quality of life makes for a pretty lousy Gotham.

The sounds changed after I crossed the river. More cars, more lights, even the wind picks up its pace slightly. A Black lady walking on my side of the street but in the other direction hugged herself close. Her fingers nervously rubbed the side of her pink tank top. Her legs were long enough to last the whole summer and every nervous and wobbly step they took reminded me of a baby gazelle the moment before it's taken down by a pride of lions. She looked like she'd be tough enough, on her best days, to stand toe-to-toe with any motherfucker that dare cross her path, tonight tears framed the middle of her face. Past her, the unmistakable smell of urine and body odor and alcohol was strong enough to make my eyes water. I found the source when I got to the corner, a man in a dirty white shirt shuffled his way down Ontario, propped up only by the buildings on his left and the occasional wayward trash can on his right. I imagined that the first alley he found was where he'd call it a night.

One Power Vitamin Water, three pairs of black socks, a stick of Mitchum deodarant, six pencils, and two pens later I was on my way back home. On the other street corner, next to a two-story McDonald's I saw a group of maybe eight or nine people having a good time. I went over to get a closer look, maybe McDonald's at damn near 4am was the happenin spot downtown. Turned out to be two crazy guys talking to bronze statues of little kids. I decided to take a different way back, one that was just a little bit darker, to revel in the quiet just a little bit more. No cars at all this time, just the gentle wind, the subtle river, and the sound of my own footsteps. I love Chicago, but there's just no comparison between it and New York. The only way downtown would ever be this quiet, this lazy, was if a nuclear bomb went off on Canal Street. In the city at least, I could never imagine passing no one, on any street, at any time. Don't know if that's a good thing or not. I made it back to my hotel close to 5am, enough time for one hour of sleep and morning full of a whole bunch of coffee.