Losers should look in the mirror
PITTSBURGH – What do you have when the New York Yankees win every year? Competitive imbalance, Commissioner Bud Selig says.
Funny, because the last time the Yankees dominated, a lot of people called it a golden age for baseball.
From 1949 to 1964, the Yankees won the American League pennant in 14 of the 16 years. The Cleveland Indians won in 1954 and the Chicago White Sox broke the Yankees’ streak in 1959.
Ted Williams, Mickey Mantle, Willie Mays, Yogi Berra, Hank Aaron, Warren Spahn, Stan Musial, Eddie Mathews, Robin Roberts and Whitey Ford were among the Hall of Famers enjoying some of their best years in that span.
For those too young to remember, there were no divisions, playoffs or wild cards back then. The League champion went to the World Series.
It must have been tough being a fan of an American League team, knowing the Yankees’ berth was almost automatic. Most years they won fairly comfortably.
It was especially difficult to be a fan of the Athletics, who were in Philadelphia for the start of that stretch and moved to Kansas City in 1955.
During the Yankees’ run, the Athletics were 442 games under .500. They had two winning seasons in 16 years and lost more than 100 games four times.
They weren’t pitied as a small-market franchise that just couldn’t compete. Rather, they were dismissed as poorly-run organization that didn’t develop enough talent and consistently made bad trades.
Which brings us to today’s baseball crisis. Selig says it’s a problem that so many teams go to spring training knowing they have no chance to compete.
Leonard Koppett, writing in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, says Selig is off-base. Since baseball expanded to three divisions and added wild card teams, 21 of 30 teams have reached the postseason. The Minnesota Twins should become the 22nd team this season.
Two of the teams that haven’t made it can’t be characterized as small markets – Philadelphia and Toronto.
That leaves a group that includes the Pirates and Selig’s Milwaukee Brewers, both of which have new cash-cow ballparks built on someone else’s tab.
They have something else in common, too – a pattern of wasteful spending and woeful personnel decisions. The Pirates are headed for a 10th straight losing season because they’ve been incompetent, not because they’ve been in Pittsburgh
Two building campaigns have failed. The third one is underway and be thankful that General Manager Dave Littlefield seems to have an idea of how to tackle the job.
The Seattle Mariners continue to compete even though they’ve had to part with Randy Johnson, Ken Griffey Jr. and Alex Rodriguez. The Athletics have stayed viable without Mark McGwire, Jason Giambi and Johnny Damon.
The Pirates? They signed Derek Bell and made a $10 million a year commitment to a catcher who hits singles.
The system makes it tougher for a small market team to compete. It doesn’t make it impossible.
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There’s some irony in the Pittsburgh Penguins’ decision to bring back their skating bird jersey logo.
Back in the bad old days, it used to be a regular complaint that the Penguins would never win because their logo and name weren’t intimidating enough.
Even though his eyebrow is slanted downward, the bird isn’t really scary. He seems mean only in the sense of a dyspeptic gym teacher or one of those old-school newsstand owners who would shout, “This ain’t no li-berry” if the new issue of Mad magazine was held open for more than five seconds.
The timing of the bird’s return is interesting, too.
Because once again the issue isn’t what’s on the uniforms as much as who’s in them.
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If you get one of the new jerseys with Marty Straka’s name and number on it, don’t come around crying when a piano falls on you.
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ESPN celebrates its 25,000th “Sportscenter.”
Somewhere around 18,562, it morphed into what looks like a “Saturday Night Live” parody of a sports news show with hopelessly self-absorbed, attitude-spewing anchors.
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When Steelers coach Bill Cowher has the beard and wears his training camp straw hat, doesn’t he look like a guy who should be shaking the maracas in Jimmy Buffett’s band?