It serves me right… trying to escape the humiliations of last week by temporarily embracing the only sport that is even more stacked against the underdogs than college football: major league baseball. I mean, several of the college football powers of 1970 are still powers today (e.g., Ohio State, Michigan, Texas, Oklahoma, and USC). However, a few schools who were hardly college football powers in 1970 have joined the top echelon since then (e.g., Miami and Florida State). Some schools have moved in and out of the top echelon since 1970 (e.g., Pitt and Florida), and even some non-BCS schools are threatening to crash the party today (NIU).
However, the New York Yankees are forever, and the only reason why is money. In the beginning, there was only the Yankees and the boatload of cash that they brought in merely because they were lucky enough to be located in the nation’s largest media market. The Yankees then built and maintained their tradition of dominance through especially (1) shrewd management, (2) perceptive scouting, (3) effective talent development, and (4) signing practically every major free agent they even halfway desired. However, all four of these things cost money. And the Yankees have more money to put towards these ends than anybody else. That is why they’ve won so many more World Series’s than anybody else.
Sure, other teams have had almost as much money, but little success (hey, a little luck might have been involved in the Yankees’s rise too, and like I said, shrewd management was key). And sure, every now and then a small market team like the Pirates can put together a few strong seasons (e.g., 1979, 1990-1992) or even have the best player ever to play the game (face it, Pittsburgh, it’s Bonds). But no small market team can stay at that level for long. It just takes too much money.
So every year, I root against the Yankees like an idiot. And every year they either win or just bounce right back while the previous year’s tormentors (e.g., Angels, Diamondbacks) slowly fall by the wayside. But not this year. I’m going to try not watching major league baseball at all anymore (including the Pirates) until an effective revenue-sharing system is worked out that gives everybody — not just the big market teams or the Yankees — an equal chance of winning (It’ll admittedly be hard not watching the Series).
Incidentally, I’m well aware that the Red Sox’s collapse last night had less to do with money than with Grady Little’s decision to leave Pedro Martinez in there a little too long. However, I might note that more money might have bought a better manager… as well as a little better bullpen. Besides, Boston is hardly a small market.
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Now on to a real sport where the underdogs can win it all (see Ohio State in the greatest college football game ever last January). I always read the Sporting News/Fox Sports’s Fearless Predictions (apparently somebody else has copyrighted “Fearless Forecasts?”) every Friday morning during the season, because they tend to be fairly solid (although I can’t help but notice that they don’t publish their overall prediction record against the spread like I do… typical Fox… hide the facts).
In any case, the Sporting News/Fox Sports disagree with three of my picks (Missouri +26, Temple +31, and most interesting of all, Iowa +3.5) and don’t even mention the other two (Rutgers +15.5 and Syracuse +3.5). I can let Missouri and Temple slide because they’re obviously sucker bets. But Iowa? OK… We’ll see… But were you guys watching that Michigan game?
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I’ve always wanted to see Pitt play at Rutgers… something about all those swamps and foul-mouthed, miserable people. And for several years, one member of our little group actually lived nearby. But we never went out to visit him and see Pitt at the same time. I regret that.
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Hail to Major League Baseball’s Continuing Slow Slide Into Irrelevance as Football, Basketball, and Heck Even Soccer Grow in Popularity
