Show me the Money!

The main reason that I chose to get my Master's degree in Sport Management was so I could become a baseball agent.  Jerry Maguire was going to have nothin' on me - I was going to be scouting and signing players, going to all kinds of baseball games for free, and meeting all sorts of famous people while traveling all over the country.  Life ended up taking me in a different direction, and I'm actually glad that my sports-agent dreams did not come to fruition.  The money-side of baseball is very complex, and baseball players make way more money than they need to while sometimes being treated like cattle.

While current events in baseball's off-season are headlined by player trades and team acquisitions, record-breaking contract signings have been the talk of the "Hot Stove Season" (Albert Pujols and Prince Fielder come to mind, with Fielder just committing yesterday to a 9-year, $214-million deal with the Detroit Tigers, where his father, Cecil Fielder played back in the 80s).  But did you know that baseball executives also have to renew their contracts during the off-season?  Major League Baseball Commissioner, Bud Selig, was not spared the joy of signing a new contract recently, with a hefty new pay raise attached to it.

When I heard that Mr. Selig signed a new contract, first I was disappointed (it should come as no surprise to my blog readers that I am not a fan of Mr. Selig).  Then when I found out how much money he was and will be making, I almost fell over in disbelief.  Each baseball team had been paying Bud $600,000, which multiplied by 30 teams means that he was making $18 million a year!  Who knew?  I thought maybe he made a million or so, but eighteen???  Well now that he has a new contract, that 18 million has gone up, and now Mr. Selig will be making $22 million a year!  That is just unheard of!  The only good thing about that is that maybe now he can buy himself a personality!

There have only been nine Commissioners in Major League Baseball so far (though it seems like Bud has had the job forever!), and I guess they've all been paid a hefty salary (Judge Kenesaw Mountain Landis, MLB's first Commissioner, was paid $42,500 back in the 1920s).  But you just don't typically think of these guys making a lot of money - they don't wear a uniform, they don't appear on cereal boxes, and they don't hit home runs.  But they do help keep the game of baseball going, and they have implemented policies and procedures that have preserved the integrity of the game (like Selig's harsh ban on performance-enhancing drugs - you get caught with some of those in your system and you're out for 50 games).  Don't get me wrong; Commissioners have come up with some pretty dumb ideas too, like inter-league play and the lifetime ban of Pete Rose (he shouldn't be in the Hall of Fame, but he would make a pretty good hitting coach!).  But overall, Commissioners have brought us baseball fans a lot of pretty good things, like the Wild Card playoffs, the home-field advantage for the World Series to the League that wins the All-Star Game, and the realignment that brought the Atlanta Braves back to the National League East.  Of course, I could do a way better job than Mr. Selig for way less money, but I don't think the opportunity will ever come up.

Oh, and speaking of money and contracts, did you see that pitcher Tim Lincecum and the San Francisco Giants agreed to a two-year, $40.5 million deal?  Perhaps Tim can now afford to cut his hair!

Why Can't we Just Leave Well Enough Alone?

One difference between baseball and football (and there are many, just ask George Carlin.  Oh wait, he's dead, never mind!) is that football has one game to determine the team that will be the champion for a particular season - the Super Bowl.  Baseball has the World Series, which is a best-of-seven series as opposed to just one game.  If the World Series was reduced to one game only, not only would it make the Series more exciting (actually it wouldn't be a "series" anymore so you'd have to change the name), but more people would watch, more advertisements would be sold at ridiculous prices, and more chips and beer would be sold all over the country.  But I don't generally like change (and it would bring up the dilemma of who would be your starting pitcher for that one game), so Wild Card games (best of 5) and two League Championship Series (best of 7) are OK with me.  Well, apparently Major League Baseball owners don't agree with me, because they have decided to expand the playoffs starting possibly next year (because no one sees anything wrong with baseball being played until Thanksgiving).  Wait, actually it's only one game, which seemed easier to fit into the schedule than a best-of-three first-round series, so there WON'T be baseball played until Thanksgiving.   OK, I get it.

This long-talked-about expansion of Major League Baseball's playoffs could be incorporated as soon as this coming season.  The new format will expand the Wild Card to a pair of additional teams, one each in the American and National Leagues. The two Wild Card teams will meet in a one-game playoff prior to the three-tiered postseason, which will remain the same.  Are you following me?  Good!  The only good thing about this is that the Washington Nationals have a better chance of making it to the playoffs now, but it also means that 10 of the 30 teams will be in the playoffs.  It kind of makes it not-so-special anymore if 1/3 of the teams can make it to the postseason.

 

The expanded playoffs are linked to the sale of the Houston Astros to some rich guy named Jim Crane and their move from the NL to the AL, effective for the 2013 season.  The Commissioner's Office and the MLB Players Association collaborated on those developments during some collective bargaining negotiations, and I must say, I don't really care in which league Houston plays.  If Texas fans want both their teams in the scaredy-cat league where the pitchers are too sensitive to bat for themselves, then that's their problem.  This does mean that the Astros' shift from the NL Central to the AL West will give each league 15 teams, with five clubs in all six divisions.  That actually makes sense now that I think about it, because in the past few years, the AL West only had four teams and the NL Central had 6, while the other divisions each had five.  So now every division will have 5 teams and it will look much nicer and more even in the newspaper and on the Internet when we look at the standings.
 
Adding another Wild Card addresses a common point that baseball players like to bring up, which is that teams dominating over 162 games should be rewarded more and teams clinching a berth at season's end should have a greater obstacle.  Sorry, I'm not buying that.  If your team wins 100 games in a season but is not first in its division, then too bad.  I bet you it was the owners of the Red Sox who came up with that idea, since they would have been in the playoffs this year if they had instituted this expanded Wild Card thing.  Those Red Sox fans just can't settle for 2 World Series championships in the past 7 years, can they?
 
So there you have it (if I haven't lost you already).  15 teams in each league, 5 teams in each division, one 1-game Wild Card for the loser teams, best-of-five Wild Card games for the good teams, one League Championship Series per league and one World Series.  If you're still lost and just can't wrap your head around it, just keep reading my blog and come October I will tell you for which team to root.  In the meantime, keep reading the newspapers along with me while we play "Where in the world is Albert Pujols going to end up?".

"Play Ball!"

Today is February 28, and the Washington Nationals will be visiting the New York Mets at their Port St. Lucie facility for the first baseball game of Spring Training.  It has been four months since the San Francisco Giants won the World Series, and this avid baseball fan has been starving for some good old ball to watch on TV.  We also recently bought our tickets for our first visit to Nationals Park this year - a Sunday afternoon game against the Atlanta Braves in April.  Why do I love baseball so much?  It is an easy game to follow - you throw the ball, you hit the ball, you catch the ball.  The fact that it's much slower than, say, football or basketball allows you to see the emotion on the players' faces; you can see when they're deep in thought, when they're upset over an error, when they're pleased with a good at-bat.  You anticipate every pitch, and you react to every swing of the bat, as well as to every missed opportunity.  You celebrate with the winners, and sometimes feel bad for the losers.  Baseball is a microcosm of life; you work hard, you try to get along with your coworkers so you can work together toward a common goal, you do your best, sometimes you win and sometimes you lose, and in the end, you hope that you left a lasting impression and are remembered for your dedication and for the quality of your work (unless you're Barry Bonds or Pete Rose, but I won't go there on my first blog!).

So...why blog about baseball?  Because my kids get tired of me talking about it, and as supportive as my wonderful husband is, I don't want to bore him with my constant baseball-related observations and useless statistics ALL the time!  I have to share my latest instance of baseball nerdiness with you; it happened yesterday.  So a good friend is talking to my husband and me after church, and he tells us that his son's baseball jersey number is #32.  "Can you guess why he picked that number?", asks my friend.  Knowing that his son is a big Derek Jeter fan, I immediately answer "Well, the 3 is for Babe Ruth, and the 2 is for Derek Jeter."  He looks at me in a stunned silence.  I had to follow it with an eye-roll and a "DUH!", just to prove that I am truly a baseball nerd.  His son, too, was impressed.

It's moments like yesterday's Babe-Jeter reference that make me proud of not only being a big baseball fan, but being a FEMALE baseball fan.  Yes, I check out the players' physiques and make a note of who looks best in baseball pants.  But I also know that Nolan Ryan pitched seven no-hitters, I know that the Designated Hitter was adpoted into the American League in 1973, and I can explain the Sherman Antitrust Act and how it relates to baseball.  I can rattle off the starting lineup of the 1988 New York Mets, and I can do so while wearing stillettos and helping my kids with their homework.  I love being a wife, a mom, and a baseball fan.