Parity: The Immaculate Deception

The New York Yankees announced the signing of Mark Teixeira to an eight-year, $180 million deal.  Teixeira joins pitchers C. C. Sabathia and A. J. Burnett under the tree as part of a Yankees holiday spending spree.

Most in the baseball press have projected the Yankees into the 2009 World Series and have decried that the Evil Empire is pricing out small-market clubs and is buying their way to their 27th championship.  Milwaukee Brewers owner Mark Attanasio is whimpering that baseball needs a salary cap, despite the fact that his team won one more game than the Yankees — and a wild-card playoff spot — with 40% of New York’s payroll.

What these same people conveniently fail to mention is that a) Mark Teixeira may not be all that and a bag of chips, and b) even if he were, that’s hardly the point since the Yankees had the highest payroll (and arguably most talent) in baseball last year (~$222 million) yet only managed to stagger home a mere three games above fourth place in their division.  Moreover, since some current contracts have expired (Jason Giambi, Mike Mussina, Carl Pavano), the Yankees total 2009 payroll will likely be less than what they spent last (successful?!) season.  Still the clamor for parity continues.

A few writers suggest that baseball has already achieved quite a bit of parity, as eight different teams have won the past nine World Series — and eight different teams have played in the last four World Series.

All this “salary cap” and “fairness” rhetoric obscures the real issue.  It is not whether there is parity in baseball, it is that people do not really want parity.

A lot of people hate the Yankees more with every dollar Steinbrenner spends…and isn’t that great?  We feel strongly about the Yankees — both for and against — because of their past successes of excess and their utter failures.

If it weren’t for teams like the Yankees, there wouldn’t be underdogs.  Who better to establish a dynasty…and to have their dynasty ended?  Who better for an underdog to beat?

Fans remember dynasties.  Baseball has its Big Red Machine and the Bash Brothers A’s.  Football has its ’70s Steelers and its ’80s 49ers.  Basketball has its ’60s Celtics.  Nobody remembers when there is a different champion each season.

The opposite is good for the game, too.  Is it not more fun to cheer for the Cubs precisely because they have not won the World Series since 1908?  Doesn’t baseball lose more than a little something when we can no longer harangue Red Sox fans with taunts of “NINE-teen FOUR-teen”?  “TWEN-ty SEV-en” doesn’t sting nearly as much.

Enough of this parity hogwash.  Our pussified society has degenerated into a we-don’t-keep-score, everybody-gets-a-trophy arena of .500 “competition.”  The last thing we should want to see is thirty mediocre teams slogging to 81-81 records.

Let us instead celebrate the glory of dominance, drink in the sweetness of the upset, and embrace the loveable losers waiting ’til next year.