“Hope springs eternal” as the old saying goes. The 2010 baseball season is upon us and depending where the fan lives, the conversation could range from much to brag about or wondering if baseball will surely self destruct. After considering all the problems of the game today from the plight of small market teams to overcoming the taint of the steroid era, looking at major league baseball in its third century, after just a little digging and reflection, so what’s new?
Surely, back around 1920, let’s say, hot after the “Black Sox” debacle might some have thought baseball was in a free-fall toward self destruction. How about in 1927, could one not think the Yankees are buying up everybody and everything in their posh new Yankees Stadium an edifice that would make almost everything else look shamefully modest by comparison?
The second decade of baseball’s third century will largely feature the same contenders as last year with a few little wrinkles thrown in. There are a handful of truly elite teams, lots of teams in the middle, and some pathetic bottom feeders. Baseball is an amazing sport. Even in the 19th century, there were all kinds of weird schemes and scandals that could have ruined the sport. It was such a madhouse at the turn of the century, it probably was time an upstart league would truly succeed and thus the American League was born. Not long after that a World Series between the new league and the National League. But by the end of the 2nd decade, SCANDAL, the infamous “Black Sox” scandal where members of the Chicago White Sox threw the World Series in 1919 ruining the careers of many players including “Shoeless” Joe Jackson. The 1920’s saw baseball establish a familiar pattern, the Yankees fed off the fortunes of playing in the nation’s largest city and gobbled up everything in sight. Fans still talk of the 1927 Yankees as one of the great teams of all time.
Baseball and even Yankees dominance as a big deal in the 1930’s as it pointed to something still could go right in America despite the great depression. Baseball became even more of the good guys in the 1940’s when a young black second baseman, Jackie Robinson, took the field for the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1947.
The Yankees continued to rule and no one seemed to mind what a bunch of naughty boys some of their stars were. The middle of the 20th century was all-in-all a good time for baseball, but by the late 60’s, the unraveling and madness had just begun. Could we look at the decision to put an ill-funded team in Seattle in 1969 when baseball added four teams, two in each league to total 24 teams? Baseball went international adding a team in Montreal. It would take 35 years to undo that mistake.
Baseball was always a simple game with consistent rules, but around 1970 was a time of tinkering. Pitchers were getting too dominant with Denny McClain winning 31 games in 1968 and Bob Gibson was a big mean outs machine. In response, the pitcher’s mound was lowered to start the 1969 season. Apparently, no one got the message in Baltimore where a starting rotation including Dave McNally, Mike Cuellar, and Jim Palmer would chalk up 20 win seasons almost effortlessly. In 1971 enter Pat Dobson, and the Orioles had four twenty game winners. In response, the American League added the “Designated Hitter” or DH in 1973. The National League retains the old rules. The DH/no DH controversy continues to this day to create weird situations for the great national pastime.
Maybe baseball was just reflecting the chaos of chaotic times. Lots of other institutions were turned upside down during that era too, but the eve of today’s era of baseball was beginning to blast off and soon the contract status of two players their teams were attempting to trade, Dave McNally from the Baltimore Orioles and Andy Messersmith from the Atlanta Braves. Not wanting to be relocated, the players along with the Major League Players Association challenged the “reserve clause” which effectively blocked players from moving from team to team as they pleased. A 1975 court ruling effectively wiped out the reserve clause and the era of free agency was upon us.
All the while, the infamous Yankees had been pretty quiet since the early 60’s, now with George Steinbrenner in place, the Yankees could buy a pennant. Having made the World Series for the first time since 1964, they lost in four games to the Cincinnati Reds in 1976. The following year, they spent big bucks (for that time) booking Reggie Jackson and the rest is history.
Baseball/Labor relations unraveled with each passing year leading to a devastating strike in 1981. 38% of the season was cancelled leading to a bizarre first half winners versus second half winner’s playoff format which settled down to the Dodgers beating the Yankees anyway. Through the 80’s and 90’s one scandal after another, drugs, drinking, and all kinds of misbehavior grabbed headlines.
Could it get any worse than in 1994 when the players walked out on August 12th and would not agree to return to play until the following April 2nd. The World Series was cancelled and a hasty spring training was rushed together so as not to impact the 1995 season any more than possible.
There were some good stories and some that once all was known maybe weren’t so good. Fans couldn’t be more cynical than when play resumed in 1995, but the home town hero in Baltimore Maryland was on the verge of a great accomplishment, breaking Lou Gehrig’s famous consecutive games streak. As the season progressed and that record came closer to being reached, eyes were on the kid from the Maryland countryside just outside Baltimore, cheered in every town he played. Cal Ripken’s method was so antithetical to what was going on in baseball – behave yourself, show up for work every day, don’t make excuses, and do your job. The following year the Orioles would make it to the post season for the first time since 1983 in part because outfielder/lead off hitter Brady Anderson hit 50 home runs. How could Brady Anderson hit 50 home runs?
For cynics not brought back to baseball by Ripken, in 1998, Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa were engaged in a homerun hitting chase to be the first player to beat Roger Maris’s 61 home run mark. Not only did both of them accomplish the feat, but McGwire would hit 70 homers. How did they do that? Just three years later, Barry Bonds would break that record. He hit 73 home runs in 2001. How’d he do that? STEROIDS!!!!
It’s not certain when the Steroid Era began, perhaps 2004 can be seen as the beginning of the end. Perhaps today, it’s really over.
Still, more craziness of the times also blossomed in the 1990’s. With teams failing miserably baseball added two teams bringing the National League up to 14 teams matching the AL since its expansion in 1977. Miami, Florida and Denver, Colorado were now part of the club. Baseball expanded once again, adding one team, Tampa to the American League and Phoenix, Arizona to the National league but having jus put Interleague play in the year before, another MLB experiment they’ve botched horribly, the Milwaukee Brewers, the team the “commish,” Bud Selig, had owned, moved to the National League thus there would be a 16 team National League and 14 team American League.
Baltimore started a pattern that at first seemed to assure success. Build a lovely “retro” ball field. The fans will flock to the way baseball was meant to be played, no domes, no artificial turf, smaller foul territory, and some easy homerun sectors. It worked for awhile as Cleveland suddenly became very successful, but by decade’s end, a fancy new stadium was no longer a sure ticket to success and teams in the fancy new joints had to win to keep drawing them in. With a new stadium opening in Minnesota this spring, only ten teams play in facilities older than Orioles Park at Camden Yards. Of those ten, three have been seriously renovated to bring them close to Orioles Park standards the Angels, Royals, and White Sox. One of them, the Rogers Center (Skydome) opened in 1989 was seen as the future of sports venues. Oh really? Dodgers Stadium, Wrigley Field, and Fenway Park are old stadiums that serve as almost historical landmarks though there are grumbles about what to do with Dodgers Stadium. Though Tampa Bay started play after the Orioles field opened, construction began on Tropicana Field in 1986 with the hopes of landing a team. They almost snared the Chicago White Sox before the deal for the new Comiskey Park (United Cellular Field) was sealed. The Florida Marlins are building a new baseball only field on the grounds of the old Orange Bowl. That leaves only Oakland without the prospects of a new, renovated, or historically significant field. Whatever charm it had been destroyed in 1995 when it was converted into a lousy NFL stadium hardly the kind of field today’s NFL teams are accustomed to either.
While no one seemed to be noticing, labor agreements and other precedents restructured where the money goes in baseball to where what started to become overpowering in the 1990’s has now gotten completely out of control where the rich teams seem to have it all. Neither Luxury tax or draft pick compensation have done anything to arrest the clout the New York Yankees and Boston Red Sox have to buy all the players they seem to want. Meanwhile, both the New York Mets, both LA and Chicago teams can be mighty heavy rollers. Some Yankee players’ contracts net worth is greater than the whole payroll of some lesser teams.
Some teams have chosen just to protect their team as an investment and not even attempt to complete as in look at the Pittsburgh Pirates. Money ball has ramification that ripples throughout the sport that who wins the World Series might not always show the whole reality.
It is against this history and backdrop we try to make sense of baseball entering the second decade of the 21st century. Look at the picks to win this year versus market size and bank roll and draw conclusions.
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