Carl Crawford just signed a mega 7 year, $142 million dollar contract with the Boston Red Sox. In a few days or weeks you will hear that Cliff Lee signs a similar deal with the nationally beloved Yankees. Because I mean, if you can’t beat him…buy him.
After just watching ESPN’s Sportcenter for a good half hour, it would appear to any alien momo not familiar with sports that this thing called the MLB consists of only two teams.
“How did Boston land this deal?”…”What is the Yank’s strategy moving forward?”…”Is Boston now the favorite over New York?”…”The Yankees must concentrate on the Cliff Lee deal”. Just some of the dialogue in what amounted to a big market circle jerk.
Wait what about the Mets? What contracts are they looking into? OK, OK! That was a joke. Im not even sure the Mets are fielding a team this year.
I digress. The MLB sucks because it, more than any other sporting league, caters and enables the big market teams to monopolize contract talks and free agency. Why is this? Well, because as we know, the MLB has no salary cap. Instead they implement a “luxury tax”. This allows teams to go over the salary cap whenever they wish, with a tax rate applied on any amount over 178 Million (2011). But the rich don’t mind paying taxes on athletes. It’s only a problem when they are asked to up the ante on income tax to stimulate the economy.
I digress again. Consider this, since 2000 only four teams have payed a luxury tax. Detroit, Los Angeles…and you guessed it, New York and Boston. New York has won the World Series once in that period, Boston twice, Detroit made a World Series appearance in 2006, and Los Angeles was division champions three straight seasons. This isn’t bitterness. And other teams have and will win.
The Giants won this year. Texas made a cinderella run.
But look what’s about to happen. Texas will most likely lose their ace in the hole of the 2010 season as Lee is a probable future Yankee. Carl Crawford, stud of the underdog Rays is now headed to the other rich bitch of the Northeast. Why? Because these smaller market teams simply cannot compete with the contracts
that these big market teams offer. They cant give 7 year, 100 + million dollar offers. If they did, that player would be the only one on the field.
Teams like the Yankees, Red Sox, and Angeles have secured over double the amount of playoff berths in the last decade than that of the likes of the Pirates, Rangers, and Tampa Bay. There’s simply too much disparity.
In the NFL we have underdogs, cinderellas, hot teams, shitty teams winning. We have stories like the New Orleans Saints lifting the spirits of a battered city. Teams in these leagues have a fighting chance against New York, New England, and Dallas.
In the MLB, we may have a cinderella story, but then the clock hits 12 and the Yankees buy a nicer pair of slippers.
What a Day! 