TDA Bullpen - Our Writers' Blog

Saturday, April 09, 2005

Dis-Parity

The Commissioner told a gathering of business folk the other day that there's parity in baseball. The rather funny part is that this gathering was in Detroit, and he held the Tigers up as an example of the current system working. He claimed more teams now have 'hope and faith' than ever before.

Far be it for me to dispute the Commish's economic pronouncements. I pick up the paper this morning and see that 12 of 14 teams in the AL have a 2-2 record, with the White Sox at 3-1 and the Rangers at 1-3. Perhaps we should declare baseball's economics fixed based on this sample size, and maybe just end the season here while we're ahead.

What I find fascinating about Mr. Selig's comments is the indifference to the historical record. I'm vaguely reminded of some of the recent "evidence" presented about items like job and economic growth, etc. For instance, the President, in stumping for social security reform and private social security accounts, touts figures on the historical growth patterns of the stock market showing a very nice little rate of return in the stock market compared to the "return" on social security. Looking a bit closer at the figures, it turns out the returns on the stock market were taken from a period starting in November 1987 -- just after the mini-crash of the market in October of that year -- and concluding in January 2000 -- just before the next market mini-crash. So based on the sample of April 3rd-April 9th 2005 in the AL, I've got to agree with MLB that parity has arrived in baseball.

Actually, for the first set of series, it's interesting to note that MLB's schedulers have been a bit clever. Did you notice that all the opening series featured teams that were more or less contiguous in the standings last year? Boston plays New York, Milwaukee plays Pittsburgh, Detroit plays Kansas City. (The teams that play on artificial surfaces in domes also faced off: Toronto and Tampa Bay, Seattle and Minnesota.) The thought occurs again that a more imbalanced schedule, with such teams playing against one another much more frequently, will definitely produce "parity". But I can't deny that having a close series between bottom-dwellers might stoke the fires of "hope and faith" as the Commish puts it, and that's a good thing, despite what the reality of the next 158 games might produce.

So, this indifference to the historical record to which I referred...in the ten-year period of 1949-1958, with 20 post-season qualification berths, as it were, a grand total of 3 teams outside of New York qualified. Since their last great team in 1931, the Athletics went 41 years without appearing in the post-season. The Phillies managed a stretch of 49 years without a post-season appearance, followed by another 26-year dry stretch. The St. Louis Browns-Baltimore Orioles managed one appearance in the post-season between 1901 and 1966. The Washington Senators-Minnesota Twins had a 32-year dry spell. Pity the poor Cleveland fan of 1951-1956: 570 wins, an average of 95 a year, back when it was only a 154-game schedule, and they had but one World Series appearance to show for it. They had to win 111 games that year to beat the Yankees, who finished first every other year.

All this to say: the golden era of baseball parity is indeed, right now. Or rather, the era dating back to the advent of free agency, and in particular the 1980s and 1990s. Whether or not the strike, or the new labor deal, or revenue sharing, or new ballparks, or the price of milk, have anything to do with that is debatable.

posted by The Crank 9:22 AM