Fred Bowen's "The Score" column,
December 8, 2000, Washington Post

Major League Baseball is Not Fair at All

It was the kind of picture in the morning sports section that could make Baltimore Orioles fans sick to their stomachs.

Mike Mussina--the Orioles' best pitcher by far--wearing the hat of the hated New York Yankees.

I can hear all you Orioles fans screaming, "What! Mike Mussina playing for the Yankees? It's not fair!"

You're right. It's not fair.

Major League Baseball is not fair at all.

These days the rules of baseball are stacked so that the teams with the most money buy up the best players and win all the championships.

And the team with the most money is the New York Yankees.

I sympathize with Orioles fans. I have been rooting for the Boston Red Sox my whole life. The Red Sox have been losing to the Yankees ever since the Sox sold home run slugger Babe Ruth to them just before the 1920 season. Following that major league mistake, the Sox made it to only four World Series and lost them all. The Yanks, on the other hand, have played in 37 World Series and have won 26.

Big difference.

Why do the Yankees have so much money? Simple, the Yankees make more money from the TV broadcasts of their games than any other team.

New York City is the biggest city in America. It has millions of baseball fans who love to watch their Yankees on TV. Advertisers love big audiences and pay big money to run ads during Yankees games. The TV stations share that money with the Yankees, but the Yankees don't share their TV money with any other teams--even though they need those teams to play the money-making games.

The Yankees claim they dominate because they have great fans, good people and a winning tradition. Yeah, right.

They dominate because they have the money to get the best players.

Let's say there was a kids' soccer league with six or eight teams. And at the end of each season one of the teams--I know it's not a soccer name, but let's call them the "Yankees"--got to pick any player that it wanted from one of the other teams. And that kid would play for the Yankees next season.

After a couple of seasons picking up the best players, who do you think is going to have a "winning tradition"?

That's right. The Yankees.

And that is exactly what the real baseball Yankees do every year. They open up their wallet and spend their TV money to pick up the best players.

Lots of cities and baseball teams have faithful fans, plenty of good people, and great baseball traditions. But no other team has the Yankees' money.

So the Yankees have the players. The Yankees have the championships.

And now, the Yankees have Mike Mussina.

© 2000 The Washington Post Company