Time To Be A Left Inside Grouch

Let's do a little thought experiment, you and I.

Let's suppose we decide to create a sports league, say the N43MSA -- the National 43-Man Squamish Association. We're going to place franchises in all the major US markets plus a few stragglers like Charleston SC, Bridgeport CT and Niskayuna NY. Hey, it's our league.

Now let's suppose that we determine that the franchises will draft high school and college Frullipers, but that all post-graduate players will be free agents, on sale to the highest bidders. Some teams will draft and develop talent well and consequently win more matches than those that don't.

Let's further suppose that the franchise representing the largest city buys up the top player at each position. It can do this because of its market size, media attention, vast financial resources, the glamour of the city, plethora of Fortune 500 companies that will pay the highest amount for the most luxury boxes, and its tradition dating back to the greats like Draja Druvnik and Snookums Schnitzer Johansen.

This team has, in effect, the first pick among left inside grouches, right inside grouches, shallow brooders, wicket men, offensive niblings, quarter-frummerts, full-frummerts, overblats, underblats, back-up finks, and dummies. If the team happens to be a little soft at the deep brooder position, or the All-Star half-frummert is coming off a serious sternocleidamastoid injury, well, the team can always go out and buy another one.

Now, I'd like you to purchase a competing franchise in Baltimore or Toronto or Tampa. Or maybe you'd like one in Minneapolis or Kansas City, whattaya say, huh? Well then, how about just being a fan of one of those sides, attending the Flutney a couple of times a year for seven Ogres of exciting action -- or eight if it rains? If you can't commit to that, wouldn't you like to catch a few snivels on the tube and keep tabs on the N43MSA standings?

Don't tell me you're one of those sore losers, sniveling that the Mudville 43 haven't had to so much as utter a dirty limerick this season. Have you got your lily liver all knotted up because the underblat they wrested away from Charleston with cash broke the single-season Woomik record? Don't cry to me about competitive imbalance; they didn't even make the playoffs last year, or in '93 either.

Would you root for this team or would you wonder what the point is? Would their march into the playoffs and through to the championship strike you as drama or a virtual fait accompli? Wouldn't being a fan of this team be like pulling for North Carolina against Prarie View in the first round of the NCAA basketball tournament?

That's the end of our little thought experiment. Fortunately, this would never happen in the real world of professional sports.