Baseball Journal 10-11-13

As more or less predicted, the Wildcard teams have been eliminated.  I’m thinking after about five years somebody’s going notice that Wildcard hasn’t made it to the World Series.  At that point, team owners and fans are going to start looking at a Wildcard slot as a playoff consolation prize and treating it as such.  What does MLB do then?

You may not know this, but the most profitable team in baseball is . . . wait for it . . . the Houston Astros.  Marginal attendance, a shaky TV deal, a very low payroll, and I’m guessing they’re getting “luxury tax” money from the Yankees and Dodgers, apparently makes you money in the MLB.  Imagine a scenario where only a handful of big market, high payroll teams can really compete for the championship, and they bid up the services of even slightly above average baseball players.  Imagine every other team, having been shut out of being able to put together a potential winner, simply content themselves with staffing their rosters with Triple-A players and making money off of the big teams’ charity. 

The big market teams are going to get sick quickly of losing money (no, championship teams aren’t big moneymakers) and paying to make loser teams profitable.  The small market teams are going to say they can’t afford (and their market can’t support) a higher payroll without going bankrupt.  Imagine a league of nothing but Yankees and Astros.  Think about it.

Okay stop thinking.  The playoffs continue.  I got to watch a little of the Dodger-Cardinal game at work on Friday night.  I stayed through the 10^th inning before finally leaving.  I hated to leave a tied playoff game, but it was late, and after Carlos Beltran threw out Mark Ellis at the plate, I felt satisfied.  More to the point, I also couldn’t take any more of TBS’ three-man booth.  National playoff coverage is bad enough without having a third person heaping additional criticism on every single play.  I was actually wondering if there was a button on the remote that would let me tune them out, but keep the crowd noise.  Less is sometimes more.  (Dick Stockton and Bob Brenly called a nice game for TBS earlier in the week, though Bob was a little disorganized, like they’d called him on the golf course in the morning and asked if he’d like to call the game that night.)

      

Flipping stations during the commercials was also pretty desolate.  The massively hyped Fox Sports 1 network was showing a high school football game.  (Hey, I wonder if our Mayfield-Cruces game could end up being shown nationally.  A few years ago, USA Today ranked it as one of the top ten high school rivalries in the country.)  ESPN was no better.  They were breaking down a Mexican national soccer team victory on Sportscenter.

I ended up being glad that I went home.  Not being able to get the game on radio, I settled for listening to Fox Sports Radio live talk shows.  The game continued into the Ben Maller Show.  Ben, a huge Dodger fan (if I got to hang out in the pressbox with Vin Scully, I’d be one too), was, of course, covering the game.  He was taking a call and had this exchange while play continued.

“Hey, Ben.  We got Kershaw going tomorrow.  So whatever happens here . . .”

“Don’t you say that!  Okay, the Cardinals have a runner in scoring position with Carlos Beltran at the plate.  But we’re not done yet.  This isn’t over.”

“Okay.  I know.  But I’m just saying . . .”

“Oh I hate you Carlos Beltran!  I hate you with every fiber of my being!  Beltran just drove in the winning run!  It was that stupid caller’s fault for jinxing the game!  I hate you Beltran!”

Coming back from commercial, Ben was more sedate, but no better.  “Oh, I’m so happy to be here working tonight.  This is just delightful.  You listeners are really going to get a great show.”  At the start of the next hour, he spent 15 minutes explaining how overrated Carlos Beltran is and how he’s never getting into the Hall of Fame.  Yeah, I gotta say, listening to an angry, bitter fan ranting was probably more entertaining than actually watching the game.