The Bad Old Days

I have opined in the past that the so-called Golden Era of baseball, the 1950s, was actually the worst period in baseball history. One city monopolized the AL pennant and dominated the NL pennant and the World Series. If you were a fan of any AL squad other than the Yankees, who appeared in 14 of the 16 World Series in that period, you spent a decade and a half banging your head against the wall. Ditto for the NL, at half that rate.

Some of the advantages the Yankees had then, persist -- money, market size, glamour of NYC, tradition. It's natural that they exploit them in order to collect the best players and win championships. Good for them.

Bad for baseball.

Sports is a zero sum proposition. As long as one franchise uses its edge at every level to win all the time, other franchises must, by definition, stumble. Some of them will act on the premise that they can't compete and wallow in futility. That is bad for them, their fans and the league.

Two quick case studies: After 35 years as a fan of the Kansas City Royals, I switched allegiances a few years ago. It became obvious to me that the Royals' ownership had chosen profit over occasional competitiveness, and that there was no hope of my team succeeding on the field. I'm not a fair weather fan, but neither am I an idiot.

Last year, while the Tampa Bay Rays won 100 games, their attendance lagged. That's standard procedure after years of futility. In 2009, fans will flock to the Trop. That binge and purge mentality, and the attendance fluctuations that accompany it, can be avoided, as long as the team is generally competitive. That's not possible if one franchise, endowed beyond all others, attracts an All-Star squad roster and dashes everyone else's hopes.

All of which brings us to the current state of affairs. Let's face it: the Yankees have not dominated baseball the last four years; they didn't even make the playoffs in '08. The signings of CC Sabathia and AJ Burnett (can't they find anyone with a first name?) are not going to change that without other conditions also changing, like the emergence of Hughes, Kennedy or some other prospect, rebound seasons from Cabrera or Cano, or the signing of even more big impact free agents like Mark Teixeira.

What's troubling is that when other teams are facing recessionary restrictions, layoffs and renewed budget consciousness, the Yankees are accepting public money, raising ticket prices and pursuing almost all of the high-priced free agents simultaneously. If this means a new era of Yankee domination, Kansas City Royals fans are not going to meander to other teams (the Nationals in my case; maybe I am an idiot) but to other activities.

The effect on a team like Toronto is even worse. The Blue Jays could have fancied themselves a player in '09, given their strong performance in '08. But with three powerful in-division competitors, a weak Canadian dollar and the resources of the Yankees, it's understandable why they have become passive. It's now dubious whether a large monetary investment in players could yield much return. How can they compete with a rival that outbid the field by $40 million for Sabathia's services?

So you'll understand why I hope Sabathia's weight and workload start wearing him down and Burnett's inconsistency remains his one constant. You'll understand why I'm rooting for Teixeira to sign with one of his non-contending pursuers and why I want the jettisoned Bobby Abreu to have another season like his 1999-2002 stretch where he hit for power and average, walked like a mall rat, stole bases and excelled in the field, all for someone else.

It's why I hope the Yankees overpaid for so little that they're hamstrung financially in their efforts to offset their mistakes. The problem is, they never are. It's baseball fans who are hamstrung, and that's the shame of it.

Soldiers of Serendipity

What do CC Sabathia's one-hitter and instant replay have in common? They're both controversial because people don't understand how incredibly important luck is in sports.

Sabathia's mates are miffed that the official scorer in last night's Brewers' game credited Andy Laroche with a hit when the pitcher muffed his swinging bunt. It turned out to be the Pirates' only hit of the game, denying the big righthander a no-hitter. Milwaukee management actually appealed the hit call to the MLB front office.

At the same time, MLB has instituted instant replay to help umpires determine whether balls hit out actually leave the ballpark in fair territory. Newfangled stadiums, with their outfield nooks and crannies, apparently hamper umpire calls.

It's hard to argue that umpires and official scorers shouldn't get calls right as often as possible. But am I the only one who notices that we agonize over calls in sports that are determined by the most granular margins when twists of fate affect every play.

There's the gust of wind that catches a long fly ball and drops it into an outfielder mitt. There's the double-play grounder that hits the rubber, bounces into right field and scores two runs. There's the 0-2 slider that fools the batter into flailing desperately -- and blooping a two-out, two-run double into right field. There's the bad-hop grounder, the swinging bunt, the Texas Leaguer, the broken bat, the rain, the slick field, the shadows, the gnats and a hundred other soldiers of serendipity that turn a 2-1 win into a 9-4 loss. That doesn't even account for the freak injuries and other cosmic anomalies that transform whole seasons.

It's easy to parse one play out of a game and blame it for ruining a no-hitter, but every no-hitter is a lucky five-hitter. Unless they strike out 27 batters, pitchers don't pitch no-hitters so much as put themselves in position to do so and reap the rewards when luck shines on them. Likewise, every game is a stew of skill, execution and chance, and if an ump happens to call a home run foul when it was actually two feet inside the fair pole, well, it's not like the hitter planned to hit it that way. He was just two feet lucky in the first place.