Frank Defordis a curmudgeonly old cuss. The 73-year-old sports writer and NPR commentator (who, incidentally is from Baltimore, MD) reached into his file of predigested, cliched yawners for an NPR commentary this morning that was just a pastiche of anti-Yankee, anti-big money, pro salary cap mumbo jumbo. In fact the whole piece was slight and half baked with barely a news peg –a two week old survey by an obscure British sports publication listing the Yankees as the global franchies which pays the most in athlete salaries (based on some opaque calculation of “average first team pay per year” that is not relevant towards baseball anyway).
Now I appreciate the columnists dilemma–Tom and I used to write columns weekly for various publications including The New York Times: sometimes a deadline looms and you’ve got nothing so you reach out for an easy one, perhaps based on ideas you’ve re-heated many times in the past. Certainly Deford’s piece this morning smacks of that kind of deadline desperation. And, in fact, I’m not even sure what his point is–the piece is hardly a teaching example of journalistic clarity.
Deford says:
Come on, let’s admit it. Baseball is the national pastime only if hedge funds are the national livelihood. If this had to be illustrated any more starkly, a British survey just revealed that the Yankees pay their players, on average, more than any other team in the world.
But, the survey Deford links to lists only a single baseball team in the top dozen salary payers (for the record there are three soccer teams, one cricket team, and seven NBA teams listed on the survey), revealing Deford’s slam against baseball as a whole for it’s big spending ways is really a slam exclusively against the Yankees. Based on this list, if any US sports league is said to be the league for money managers, its the NBA where the Mavericks, Lakers, Pistons, Cavaliers, Celtics, Knicks, and Suns are all top 12 paying franchises.
Deford continues making an oblique case for a salary cap in baseball with lines like “Baseball law really does allow the Yankees to be in a league of their own.” or “… we are only reminded again that for all baseball’s welter of statistics, it remains a sport without a salary cap — so, ultimately, the only numbers that matter are the ones that follow the dollar sign.” But he conveniently ignores the fact that the NBA–with it’s salary cap–is the league with the greatest number of teams on the survey he cites.
Like an infinite number of sports writers before him, Deford infuses his piece with a kind of soft-headed moralizing. “But don’t mess with the fat cats. When Tampa’s young homegrown players dared win the division two years ago, the Yankees immediately went out and signed the best hitter and the two best free agent pitchers, and thereby bought the 2009 pennant.” As if the Rays had a right to win and the Yankees’ motivation in signing free agents was not to win but to punish the poor Rays (who, btw, are being picked again by many to win the AL East or at least the wild card).
I’m a big boy, as a Yankee fan and a New Yorker I expect to suffer the slings and arrows of envy flung by fans of lesser franchises in smaller cities. But I’m sick to death of the woe-is-me moralizing about money, and free agency, and salary caps that old farts like Deford default to when they’re looking for something relevant to say about baseball. Does Deford pine for the days of the reserve clause when baseball players were illegally barred from selling their services in an unfettered market for their labor? (When, incidentally, the Yankees were even more dominant than the team has been in the free agent era!) Does he think the salary cap system of leagues like the NBA has improved the quality of pro basketball or made small market teams more competitive? (FYI, 40% of NBA championships won in the last 10 years were won by a single franchise which plays in the nation’s second largest metro area; 60% were won by teams in the from the top 11 metro markets. The 40% of NBA championships won by small market teams were won by a single team–the San Antonio Spurs–hardly a sign of robust competitive balance. And a high payroll has done nothing for my major market franchise–the New York Knicks–except made it harder for them to become more competitive.)
Does it help in baseball to be in a big market with greater revenue potential? Of course is does. Of the last 10 World Series Championships, 9 have been won by teams from top ten metro areas–Yanks, Red Sox, Diamondbacks, White Sox and Phillies. But small market teams are routinely competitive–Twins, Rockies, Cardinals, Rays–and access to big potential audiences hardly guarantees success (just ask the Mets, Cubs, Astros, Rangers and Nationals). Furthermore, I would argue that sports leagues are more interesting when there are great, dynastic teams and epic rivalries than when there is parity. Parity through salary caps and revenue sharing produces a drab, gray, Soviet-style uniformity in sports. Give me the Yanks, the Lakers, the Patriots, Tiger Woods–great teams and athletes that fans can either love or hate.
I know the Yankees will always inspire envy–becasue they’re rich, they’re famous, and they win. (As I mentioned they inspired this envy during the reserve clause era as well.) But please spare me the meek-shall-inherit-the-earth, beatification of poor, small market franchises; or the grand sweeping statements about how money is killing baseball when what you really hate is the Yankees because you’re an Orioles fan.
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