You Gotta Pay To Play

Last Father's Day my brother and I took our father to the ballgame, to see the last-place Tampa Bay Devil Rays play the first-place St. Louis Cardinals. It was an honor for us to take Dad to the game. He had turned 84 the day before, and was looking forward to a relaxing afternoon in the stands.

Dad took us to lots of ballgames in Chicago when we were growing up. We saw both the Cubs and the Sox (we figured it would be prudent to spread our allegiances across two teams, since both were perennial losers--until this year!). That was when "baseball was baseball," the "real" players could hit home runs without the benefits of chemistry, players were more generalists than specialists, and salaries were down to earth.

Of course, that has changed...for most teams.

As it turns out, the Devil Rays have the lowest salary amount in the major leagues, and their yearly dive into last place reflects this. Their lack of talent is evident in their won-loss record.
Today, in order to be competitive, the owners' checkbook must be thick and backed by wads of cash. The big-name players earn more millions of dollars in one year than most of us together will earn in our entire lifetime. They could call the Devil Rays the Bad News Bears, and it would fit.

A few days before leaving for Florida I told some friends I was going to a ballgame in Tampa. I told them it was "the Devil Rays versus whoever-is-going-to-win-the-game." And I was right: they lost 8-5, but not before putting up a valiant effort to give away more runs to the Cardinals.

What is true in baseball is also true in other professional sports, from hockey to basketball and even professional bike racing (sorry, I had to get that in there...but check to see how much Lance made riding for his Discovery Channel Team...he's not cheap!).

George Steinbrenner is the exact opposite of D-Rays management in that his checkbook is seemingly always open, and the ink is flowing. His New York Yankees boast a roster that is the envy of major league baseball.

The sad reality is that even money cannot always buy a ticket to the World Series, for this year's Yankees are languishing in third place. It's kind of like having Bill Gates and Donald Trump in the same company, but they forget to show up for work.

Still, if you don't get in line with the big spenders, you're almost guaranteed to buy a bunch of losers or has beens. This is not a charity operation. The goal is to win big, and in order to do that, you've got to ante up some money.

I think I liked baseball better when I was a kid. The Cubs' infield of Santo-Kessinger-Beckert-Banks was incredible, and there were no egos to trip over between the bases. They earned a living, not made a killing, and we all enjoyed it.

On Father's Day the game lingered for over 3 hours. Sheesh...paint dries faster than that.

And I don't have to pay some guy $14 million to do the job, either.

Dr "Let's Play Two!" Gerlich