@Tigers3232
Leave it to you to draw ridiculous conclusions from sensible statements of fact.
Rather than draw reasonable conclusions about economic disparities among franchises in MLB, you run off on an absurd tangent having nothing to do with my argument.
It’s called the “liberals’ curse,” for good reason, where our side jumps to the worst assumptions about people when there’s no basis for it.
For you see, I believe it’s the owners’ responsibility, not the players, to fix the competitive imbalances in the game. Until owners completely distribute all revenues generated by the sport evenly across all participating franchises, the players should not concede anything that would compromise their earnings. My only gripe with the MLBPA is that they are beholden to the star players and their big-time agents, none of whom do enough to leaven compensation among all its members in a way that is more in accordance with each player’s contributions to winning.
But the chances of the MLBPA flattening salaries properly is about as likely as owners sharing revenue for the good of the game. Big market owners and big-time agents control the game for their narrow benefit.
As for Cleveland’s owners, I abhor their politics, but that has ZERO to do with their ownership of the local baseball team, which despite the league inequities, has been run with distinction and excellence. For folks like you to impugn their achievements with snotty references to their spending only tells me you have fallen for the BIG LIE peddled by the affluent franchises.
And it goes something like this: because we big markets spend on Jack Flaherty and Gleyber Torres, and waste millions on Javier Baez and Eduardo Rodgriguez and Kenta Maeda and Alex Cobb, we are VIRTUOUS, and because you, you greedy little markets, you are profiteers, pocketing money left and right while we are foregoing yachts by giving money to these poor ballplayers who need it to feed their families.
Okay, so I used the Tigers as the example, but substitute the Yankees and Red Sox and Dodgers and Blue Jays and Cubs, teams that pull down revenues FAR in excess of Cleveland, and when THEY pocket profits–both in real and % terms far greater than Cleveland’s owners can even dream of–nobody vilifies THEM, do they? Why is that? Only the Clevelands of the world get the ire. And that’s EXACTLY the nonsense the big markets peddle to shield fans from the real truth: THEY are the ones making the big money. They don’t pocket profits, they haul it off in dump trucks to their banks.
You see, you’ve fallen for the BIG LIE, the same one as those who like to point to penne ante welfare cheats as “the problem” when it’s really the white collar criminals and fraudsters who rip off society FAR in excess of what the downtrodden can even conceive, much less pull off.
I’m a lefty, pal, yet you’re the one subscribing to the nonsense. Don’t EVER come around here and tell me that the Cleveland baseball club is an example of what’s wrong with the game. Far from it, by demonstrating ingenuity, fostering a culture of excellence, and finding a way to make do with less, we should be holding the franchise up as an example of pure achievement. And conversely how pathetic it is that we lionize franchises and GM’s in big markets for doing far less despite having a great deal more.
By the way, Minneapolis-St. Paul is big enough and wealthy enough, with a large regional draw, to have all four major league sports franchises. It’s a significantly larger market than Cleveland in every respect.
Cleveland is by far the smallest metropolitan area to possess MLB, NFL, and NBA franchises, and its baseball market is compromised by poor economic status of the region and the close proximity of the Tigers to the west (Toledo is a Tigers town), the Reds to the south (Columbus is split) and the Pirates to the east (Youngstown has historically wavered back and forth according to how the winds blow…right now it’s a Steeler town).
Were MLB created today, with no stadiums in place, it’s safe to say Cleveland would not even be awarded a franchise, that’s how poor a baseball market it is. And yet, the team succeeds in spite of all that. And in spite of potshots from the ignorant.
