I Hear Digging But I Don't Hear Chopping

Two Sundays ago I was doing my usual Sunday morning ritual- go down to the Crescent Street Deli to buy some coffee (sugar and a little half and half), a two egg and cheese sandwich on a roll (salt and pepper, no ketchup), bring it all back upstairs, and watch the latest edition of Bill Moyers. On the show he had two lawyers, David Boies and Ted Olson. They'd previously been adversaries, most famously in Bush v. Gore, but were now teaming up to litigate the lawsuit against California's passing of Proposition 8. Both men are supremely talented and it's a real pleasure to see that real resources are going to be put into litigating the case. What's also very refreshing is seeing a conservative like Ted Olson make the conservative case for gay marriage. Olson, who has been revered in the conservative community for his win in Bush v. Gore, has been somewhat ostracized in man conservative circles because of his stance on this issue and I have nothing but respect for people who are willing to stand up and do the right thing at personal cost for themselves (although admittedly the personal cost is not that great for him.

There was one thing, though, that struck me as I was watching the program, something that, up until now, I hadn't given much consideration. During one segment, David Boies started talking about some of the advertisements that the Yes on Prop 8 groups ran. Fearmongering ads that played on stereotypes of gay people seducing young children, or how gay marriage would destroy the institution of marriage for heterosexuals. One of the videos showed a pastor talking about how gay marriage would lead to polygamy and other types of deviant behavior. After the videos stopped playing, both Boies and Olson were especially adamant in destroying any notion that gay marriage would lead to polygamy. And they're right of course; allowing gay people to marry will not lead to polygamy. Marriage as something between more than two people is something that will be even harder for our society to sanction, let alone come to grips with.

But the more I think about it, the more I have to come to terms with the fact that there's nothing inherently wrong with polygamy. This isn't like the horrendous bestiality comparisons (most notably by Rick Santorum) or the pedophilic ones that are implied by all of those school commercials. Both of those are despicable for many reasons- but the comparisons don't even make any sense because they do not involve parties that are able to consent. Is there actually a problem with, let's say, three consenting adults that love each other being able to profess that love in way that they see fit? It seems to me that, if you make the argument that bans on marriage between two consenting adults are unconstitutional, an argument that I buy, then it follows that banning a person from marrying because it involves more than one person is just as unconstitutional. Why should marriage be between only two people; if all of the adults are consenting there shouldn't be a problem. But of course it is, probably because it just seems primitive and animalistic to some people- polygamy just conjures up images of Ottoman harems and brainwashed Mormons and primitive Tanzanian tribes. And as long as they do there will never be a substantive debate on the issue.


Postscript:
From a practical standpoint, I guess it would be legally more complicated for things like next of kin or deciding whether to take someone off life support if we had a society where people could marry more than one person. But, I mean, we have second liens on mortgages and lines of succession for President, I'm sure it wouldn't be that hard to have an order of importance for your various wives/husbands if you chose to marry more than one.

Thoughts on the Health Care Summit

First I should probably talk about my overall thoughts on the health insurance debate, since I think it'll help to clarify my reaction to the entire forum. Overall, I am not too fond of either bill, mostly because I think that they won't do much to lower healthcare costs going forward. I think certain parts of the bill(s) are good, most notably the stuff on pre-existing conditions. My biggest gripe though is with the individual mandates without a public option. I'm always a bit queasy about mandates of any kind, but it would be far more palatable (and much easier to philosophically defend) if the mandate came with an option to buy publicly rather than being forced to buy from a private insurance company.
Personally, I would like to see a system with universal catastrophic coverage, vouchers for preventative care, and an increase in community health clinics that serve poor and working class people.
I also think that we need to be honest about what accounts for the majority of healthcare costs- end of life treatment and chronic conditions. Those are the two real problems, and they're the ones that are the hardest to do anything about. I would just as soon put chronic conditions in with the catastrophic coverage, with either a deductible or yearly cap, although admittedly each would have their own problems.

Overall, I don't think the health summit got much accomplished as each side stuck to their guns pretty hard. Talking to my brother about this earlier today he had a very good point- our system makes it so that no side can ever admit that they're wrong, not even for a moment. And that makes people dig in their heels, even in untenable positions, The calcification of our political process is probably the biggest impediment to solving any problems in our country and there's really no way to fix it.


President Obama- Came off as the smartest guy in the room as he usually does. He's really the ace for the Democratic party and is pretty much the only person in leadership that is able to easily and effectively explain the parties position. At times he got a bit agitated, sometimes even snapping at members of his own party (Biden, Waxman, and Rockefeller). Even with his agitation though, I do think he enjoys these kind of debates. In a way, descriptions of Thomas Jefferson come to mind. Jefferson was someone who enjoyed debate and enjoyed mashing out legislation in committee moreso than being President. Obama is probably a much better orator than Jefferson was (at least from contemporary accounts) but I often times think his natural role is Senator rather than President. Or if we had a parliamentary system he'd make a great prime minister. Back on topic though- he's generally a great salesman for his ideas even though I don't agree with all of them and I echo both the Atlantic and Salon that he should do more talking while the rest of the party leadership just shuts the hell up.

Harry Reid (D-Nevada) and Nancy Pelosi (D-California)- Doing them together since I only watched a bit of their opening and only Pelosi's closing. The biggest problem with both of them, and the Democratic leadership (besides Obama and Durbin) in general is that they don't actually talk much about their bills and instead just spout platitudes about expanding coverage and bending cost curves. Okay, that's fine, but why should we use this bill to do it? They have a hard time being able to defend their respective bills because it's convoluted. That being said, it's very easy to sell healthcare reform broadly and very hard to sell specific legislation of this magnitude and those two just don't have it in them

Lamar Alexander(R-Tennessee)- A bit frustrating but mostly harmless as the Republican standard bearer. Couldn't get much of the talking points and was outsmarted by Obama during their back and forth.

John Boehner-(R-Ohio) The tan-man was terrible, easily the worst speaker of the day. Had the gall to say that medical malpractice was the key driver of healthcare costs- Boehner's never met a fact he couldn't completely misconstrue . I think it was Moynihan that said that people are entitled to their opinions but not their own facts. He was talking about you Boehner.

Charles Boustany(R-Louisiana)- Good points in the beginning, boilerplate at the end. Mostly inconsequential though.

George Miller(D-California)- Also mostly boilerplate- although I faded in and out of his speech because he was kind of boring.

Jon Kyl (R-Arizona)- Just an all around jerk, went on rambling about costs control but government takeovers and really had new clue what he was talking about. Absolutely awful.

James Clyburn(D-South Carolina)- Liked his point about community health centers, which I'm glad he brought up because for a second I thought his speech was going nowhere.

John McCain(R-Arizona)- Came across as petty and petulant like he has ever since he lost the election and Obama rightly smacked him for it. Did have a point about Obama's promise though, and I would have loved to see the entire debate on C-Span from the get go.

Secretary Kathleen Sebelius- I've had the opportunity to hear her twice now, once for a conference call at work and now here. I find her unimpressive and although I know she knows her stuff, I had a hard time focusing when she spoke. Maybe I just needed a second cup of coffee.

Eric Cantor (R-Virginia)- My brother and I both did debate in high school and while talking to him on the phone during the intermission, my brother described Cantor perfectly. He's the rich conservative kid at the debate tournament who comes dressed in a nice blue blazer, has way too many files for the competition, is cavalier and snide to anyone who is not his intellectual equal (which to him is pretty much everyone), and is really just an all-around asshole. But the kid also really knows his stuff, practices everyday, is abreast on all political issues, is engaging and speaks with a confidence that at it's best is engrossing, and is always the most formidable opponent you'll face during the tournament. Man I hated that kid but always respected the effort. Cantor is like that and he played up to the role- not as intellectually rigorous nor as formidable as Paul Ryan, but amongst the best of the GOP. Which is pretty sad.

Vice President Joe Biden- Didn't get much of a chance to talk, but when he did was pretty good. When Obama is at his most arrogant, it's usually with regard to Biden- it seems like he just doesn't like the man and it shows up on camera. Maybe it's too many episodes of Biden sticking his foot in his mouth; but he's far from a liability and could have been utilized more effectively in the number two slot; he is much better than Reid or Pelosi. His best attribute is his ability to breakdown arguments to their essence; particularly on the issue of pre-existing conditions, which is really one of the fundamental agreements of the healthcare debate. Because really, once you agree that pre-existing conditions should not bar people from being able to buy into health insurance and that the amount they pay should be capped at a certain percentage above the normal rate, then you're suggesting that government get into healthcare all the way. I don't think that point was stressed enough.

Louise Slaughter (D-New York)- Pro- Very passionate. Con- A little crazy

Tom Harkin (D-Iowa)- Cornboys! Another example of someone who had trouble defending the bill on the table. Essentially, he made a case for single payer coverage, but then tried to tie it to the bill on the back-end. And I have no clue where he was going with that whole insurance/segregation thing.

Jay Rockefeller (D-West Virginia)- Such a flopper, one minute he's for the public option moral imperative, next he isn't. Rambled on and on to the point where Obama had to cut him off. Just not a very inspiring figure.

Marsha Blackburn (R-Tennessee)- Shame, I thought she'd bring a bit of Bachmann to the proceedings, instead it was just your standard government takeover rhetoric.

Paul Ryan (R-Wisconsin)- The star of the GOP right now; the man's got some chops. The only one who can stand up intellectually with Obama, at times he had him absolutely stumped. Last week I read over his long-term plan on entitlements, and while I do not agree with it, at the very least he's relatively honest in saying that benefits will have to be cut if taxes aren't raised. He's much stronger on the general deficit than he is on the However, he voted for Medicare Advantage and he needs to repudiate that as strong as he repudiates the current plan. One other note; one thing that I like about the Republican party is that they are a bit quicker in allowing young people to rise in the ranks of the party. Cantor is the whip, Ryan has become one of their top policy guys. I mean the cream usually rises to the top, so a man with the political talent of Obama can run for President, but if Obama had stayed in the Senate he'd be a back bencher for years before getting an opportunity to become a leader. Now, the actual leaders for both parties in the House and Senate are pretty weak (I'd rank them Pelosi, McConnell, Hoyer, Boehner, and Reid strictly on their leadership abilities), but I just think the Democrats would be better served if they had some of their young guns in more prominent roles.

Tom Coburn (R-Oklahoma)- And right back to the crazies. Coburn is another one of those big time entitlement champions, but never

Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa)- I can never figure him out. Sometimes he seems like he's part of the small intellectually honest Republican contingent and sometimes he's as demagogic and misleading as the worst of them. And sometimes he champions causes for some unknown reason (huge opposition to physician owned hospitals, opposition to tax-exemptions). One thing I do like about him is that he's genuinely intellectually curious; I smiled when he said he relished the opportunity to learn so much about our healthcare system. His speech was mostly a wash though.

Henry Waxman (D-California)- And another wasted opportunity for giving a coherent speech on the merits of the bill. Did the majority of the Democrats come unprepared? Now, that's different from saying that the Dems have better arguments than Republicans. But it just seems like they barely attempted to play any defense. Waxman was in-line with the rest of them, never getting into the meat of why this bill is a good thing.

Dick Durbin (D-Illinois)- Maybe it's the Chicago water or just the way they play politics there, but the two most impressive Democrats today were both from Illinois. I sincerely hope that Durbin beats Schumer for majority leader when Harry Reid finally gets ousted. He's strong and consistent and is very good at crafting narratives. Plus he's really one of the only top Dems that is a natural and charismatic speaker. Either him or Biden should have been the number 2, rather than Pelosi and Reid.

I faded out a bit after that, and only caught a little bit of the rest of the speeches and the closing. Overall my verdict is one of a slight Democratic win, which I guess is how it was supposed to end up in the first place. Insofar as the Democrats were trying to shame the Republicans in their recalcitrance they failed at that. And if the Republicans thought that they could slow the Democrats or force them away from going it alone I think they also failed. Insofar as it matters, the best Democrats (Obama, Durbin, Biden) were far better than the best Republicans (Ryan, Cantor, Grassley) and the worst Republicans were godawful(Boehner, Coburn, Alexander). It should be enough to give the Democrats cover for reconciliation, now the question is do they use it?

But that's the political calculus. From a policy perspective, the bills are better than the status quo and certainly better than the Republican package of ideas, but to me they're still logically incoherent and not going to be nearly enough in the long-term. You can't fully make the moral health care coverage argument because you're forcing people to buy coverage rather than creating a mechanism to provide it for them. The fiscal argument is their primary argument, but it feels logically convoluted and a bit like a sleight of hand (cutting Medicare to fund other entitlements). But we'll see what ends up happening and whether or not this political theater actually matters.

The Beautiful Games

Anyone who knows me knows that I am a HUGE HUGE sports fan. Baseball, basketball, football, hockey, soccer, if it's two sides competing in an athletic endeavor, I will definitely watch it and try my best to understand the nuances involved. I'll sit down and watch no matter the era, no matter the style of play- low-scoring, high-scoring, no-scoring, the thrill of the competition always excites me and keeps me coming back.

Lately though, I've been thinking about sports, and particularly team sports, from an aesthetic perspective- sports divorced from the goal of winning, sports simply as a form of entertainment. I started thinking about this while reading about the current plight of the NBA. The NBA, for those who haven't been following, is in a bit of a slump- teams are having a hard time selling tickets to games, there's news of upcoming labor strife, and there's a perception, fair or unfair, that the professional game is too selfish, too boring, guys don't try until the last five minutes, and to thuggish. It's almost hard to believe, because growing up, it looked the NBA was on a path of permanent ascension, propelled by Michael Jordan to unimaginable heights that could only get higher. His popularity and the fanaticism that his celebrity generated lifted the entire league to the point where I thought it was only a matter of time before basketball became the most popular sport in the country. The effect was only magnified in the Black community where basketball was the absolute king and people thought I was weird because my favorite sport was baseball.

That all seems like such a long time ago now; even with the popularity of Lebron James and Kobe Bryant, there's just not enough interest in the league for it to sustain itself in its current form. Basketball's challenge to baseball as the second most popular sport in the country is pretty much over. Now I don't agree with people who find the current brand of basketball to be boring- those who stopped watching after Jordan retired have missed some really good basketball, particularly in the last 3 or 4 years. But in the world of entertainment, perception is reality and it got me thinking- from an entertainment perspective, what is the optimal style of play for the the five major North American sports?

Now, simplistically, I could just say that it's the style of play that is most conducive to entertainment is the style of play that is most conducive to scoring. In general offense, particularly for casual fans, is much easier to understand and higher scoring gives the spectator a greater sense of action. Defense is a bit more nuanced. However, I'm not sure it's necessarily as simple as high scoring equals fun. To give one example, suppose an NBA team averaged 120 points per game, but scored almost all of their points by isolating their best player at the top of the key and having the other four players stand around doing nothing. Is that truly the optimal style of play that maximizes the sport from an entertainment perspective? Or would fans be willing to sacrifice more scoring for an offense that got everyone involved and was full of cuts, screens, ball movement, as well as a few isolations?

For the next few days then, I'm going to write about what I think are the optimal styles of play, from an entertainment perspective, for baseball, basketball, football, hockey, and soccer. First up is the sport I know most about and the one that I've pondered this question for the longest baseball. Til then!

Schools and Snitches

Oh what am I going to do when Bill Moyers goes off the air? I cannot think of another journalist who has such a variety of guests and such creativity in topic choices. Hopefully, PBS has started to groom a replacement for him, or at least start to produce an analagous program that can capture the attention and imagination the way Moyers does. There isn't a better journalist to watch on Sunday morning with a cup of coffee than him.

Moyers' guest two Friday's ago was a man named George Mortenson, a humanitarian who, for the past 20 years, has worked to build schools in rural Afghanistan and Pakistan, primarily for the education of women. It was pretty fascinating learning about the success he's had in his endeavors, even with all of the setbacks, even with (or perhaps because of) the attention deficit disorder our country has when it comes to that region of the world. My roommate and I were up late last night talking about the merits of optimism when it comes to large scale, decades long projects and about having a collective sense of what is possible given the constraints people we describe as humanitarians operate under. Watching people like George Mortenson makes that sense of optimism I'm always trying to harbor a worthwhile endeavor.

I've been thinking alot lately about Afghanistan, because I was anxious to see what kind of strategy President Obama would persue in the country, to see whether or not he'd deploy troops in great numbers and whether he'd fear being painted as soft on national security, something Democrats are always scared of (Moyers piece on the deliberation of President Lyndon Johnson as being analagous to President Obama's is a must see by the way). Initially, I was very much against an increase in troop deployment, which is why President Obama's ultimate decision was very disappointing. However, after listening to Mortenson and thinking about the various alternatives, deployment of troops, if, and only if they understand that they are there for protection, and not for a true military victory, which isn't really possible anyway. Instead, our primary mechanisms for combating terrorism and making sure the country is not a safe harbor should be a two-pronged strategy I'd like to title "Operation SNS," or Operation Schools and Snitches.

John Kerry was blasted during the 2004 election because he said that the "War on Terrorism" should be fought primarily through police action rather than military action, but I think he was on to something. The Taliban should be treated primarily like organized crime rather than a true military. The best way to combat organized crime then, is to get in good with the populace, train police officers who are part of the population. People know a lot more than they let on and citizens on some level must be willing to talk to the people who are charged with their protection. We tend to make fun of people who talk to the police, what with "Stop Snitchin," and depictions of police as pigs, and we certainly have problems with the police today (that's for another discussion though) but a functioning civil society needs a relatively trustworthy force capable of both respecting rights and imposing some knid of order. Of course, because of the weaponry that the Taliban possesses, there will always have to be a military component to our efforts in Afghanistan, but it's just so much easier for a police officer to blend in than a vested up, semi-automatic rifle touting soldier and it's easier to talk to them also.
As for the second prong, it's a bit more self-explanatory. Education is the cornerstone of a vibrant civic life and although it takes a lot of time in order for it to bear fruit, it tends to build a foundation that lasts. The closer Afghanistan can get to universal education, the better that foundation will be and less tolerance people will have for a group that cannot deliver on anything real.
One final point. Mortenson said that although he would have preferred no new troop deployments over anything else, he was glad that the ultimate decision was not pulling out troops with more targeted bombings, which would only exacerbate the problem. With heightened casualties though, there's a lot of political pressure to garrison our troops instead of having them out in the populace. That may also make things worse, just some food for thought.

Injury Report: Entire Colt's Defense Out Two Week with Hurt Feelings

For the past month and a half, I've been living in a hotel way out in California for work. And one of the perks of living in this particular hotel (besides free breakfast seven days a week, free dinner four days a week, racking up Hilton points and people making my bed and giving me fresh towels) is that I get the USA Today delivered at my doorstep. I don't read the paper much anymore, I get most of the things I need online, and the USA Today is to news as McDonalds is to meals, but it's just nice to have something delivered every morning on your doorstep, as if I was living in a true home or something.

Or at least it was. I got up early this morning because I'd fallen asleep before I could do my laundry. I'm walking out with my bag of clothes and look down to see the USA Today at the foot of my door, like it always is. The headline is something about tainted cafeteria lunches in our schools, alarmist no doubt, but something I might look at later. On the top left corner there's a small headline about Sunday nights, Colts-Patriots games that made me do a double-take- "Colt's D Felt Disrespected By Play-Call!" What!!!

If you're not a sports fan, what they're refering to is the Patriots going for it on 4th and 2 with 2 minutes left deep in their own territory. Punting the ball is conventional wisdom in that scenario and it's pretty much what every team would do. Only the Patriots didn't, thinking that getting the first down on 4th and 2 would ice the game. Only they failed (controversially) and the Colts went on to score the game winning touchdown. Belicheck was destroyed in the press and on TV for his decision, for everything from being too arrogant to showing no faith in his defense.

I personally do not think it was a bad call. The numbers are actually with Belicheck in the situation, about 60% of 4th and 2's are successfully converted, and I think it's always good to challenge your offense in those situations. I like aggressive play-calling, and I think in the long haul it helps to win games. But conventional wisdom is hard to break, especially in athletics, which is steeped in tradition and has long been a bastion of conservatism, both on and off the field. So I understand why people took Belicheck to task even though I don't agree with it.

But the Colts D saying they felt disrespected! That is beyond stupid; it's almost like an Onion headline. In fact, it's pretty similar to this headline from last week. They felt disrespected because the Patriots wanted to go for the win in that situation, because they went for it on 4th down? Isn't that what teams are supposed to do? Offenses try to get yards, defenses try and stop them, that's it. There's not respect or disrespect in that. Did the defensive line feel disrespected everytime the Patriots ran a running play? "Oh, they don't think we can stop a draw play, we'll show them!" I bet Bob Sanders feels disrespected everytime they throw in his direction, because you know, that's saying he can't defend a pass. In fact, the Patriots even stepping on the field is disrespect to the Colt's defense, since the Patriots offense is explicitly saying that they believe that they can score on them. Think about this Colts D- maybe Belicheck wasn't disrespecting you, maybe he was respecting your Hall of Fame quarterback, not wanting to put the ball in his hands with the game on the line. Or even better, maybe he was RESPECTING his Hall of Fame quarterback, the one that convinced him to go for it, the one that shredded up your defense pretty good for most of the night, the one that he's been to four super bowls with and won three championships. Either the Colts defensive players are the most sensitive group of people in the Western Hemisphere, or the whole "disrespect" thing that athletes always shout about, has gone way way too far, to the point where its as much a cliche as "taking it one game at a time" or "no one believed in us."
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On another note, I want to emphasize one thing, timing aside, 4th down is JUST ANOTHER DOWN. Yeah, in many situations you punt because you're worried about giving up the ball in prime territory, but you don't have to punt and in many situations it's probably best not to. You make your decisions based on whether or not you think it will win you a game. I will say this: in football, the most important posession you have are your four downs (like in baseball your most important posession is outs). Conventional wisdom in football, because of the natural risk-aversion of coaches, is that you almost always give one of those downs away. But that means giving away your most prized posession freely; it's not that teams should ALWAYS go for it, but that the decision, particularly in the "maroon zone" shouldn't be as automatic as people suggest.

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).