Wow. Well, looking on the bright side of things:
- maybe some level of parity is returning to baseball. I'll take a closer look at this at the end of the season.
- tickets may be easier to come by. Obviously, I'm never going to root for the Sox to fail, but another season like this and the bandwagon will be so empty I'll be able to go to Fenway again, without giving some guy from Quincy $120 for a bleacher seat. (Does that make me a "foul weather fan"?)
Earl, I agree with you. First, you don't get any special prizes for finishing in second (non wild card), so it doesn't matter. The Sox have been mailing it in for over a month now.
ReplyDeleteI can't wait for the Sox tickets to become somewhat available again. For those who may argue...In Nomar's 3-home run game in 99(?), you see the last home run hit and the stadium was fairly empty. This is not a new era, but I don't think the Sox will tear it up next year either which would make seats available for under 1MM dollars.
As for parity (and this might be obvious to some) but parity in football, hockey, and basketball is easier to achieve...Why? Well, salary caps are an obvious answer, but another reason is less obvious (yet fairly obvious)...Listen up "Big Show" because I know one of you will be using this on the air...The two leagues play under different rules. Therefore, teams can't build under the same guidelines. NL teams can't stack their lineups and hope for "decent" pitching. AL teams CAN stack their lineups, but that also means that teams must spend a lot on top pitchers to try to shut down other offensive juggernauts. In any case, both leagues must build their teams differently.
No other sport has this. Therefore, parity can't really work "league wide". Can it work within one league like the AL? Well, I think that is where the salaries come into play. Not sustained, prolonged parity. Sure, the Marlins can make a run one year, the Twins, etc...You could even predict a Royals crazy run (they actually had a little one only 2 or 3 years ago at the start of the season). But the money will win out in the end.
IF the Sox hadn't suffered many injuries, they most certainly would have been in second place. Not that it matters. Predominantly, the teams that spent a lot this year did well. The Twins and A's are the exceptions this year.
By the way...isn't Radke the man? He is going to pitch until his arm falls off because this is his last year. I am really pulling for Minnesota.