Though many sports fans may not realize it, there is an exclusive club in the pantheon of sports fan-dom. Like Skull and Bones, being born into a family associated with the club all but guarantees entrance into it. It has no prohibition on race, creed or color. There is no stigma attached to income in this fraternity, no dues, no positions, and it has a grand old house in which it meets. However, no one in their right mind would ever apply to be in the club.

Residents of Boston, MA and the surrounding area will know instantly that I am speaking of the illustrious Fellowship of the Miserable. We are Red Sox fans. Like the democrats of the eighties, we stand high on principle and the plight of the working man against ballooning salaries for people playing a child's game. Also like those democrats, we haven't won the big prize in a long time and continue to lose to people who are, more than anything else, just better financed.

A lot of fans have a bristling, unbridled hatred for the New York Yankees and their 26 (I think, though I've lost count) World Chamionships. George Steinbrenner is our Darth Vader, Napoleon and Stalin all in one. He is ruthless towards his subordinates, has an incalculable ego and seeks to starve out all competitors. We come into every season and dutifully pay the highest ticket price in all of baseball, sit in a broken down relic of a park from 1912, and there hasn't been a championship for almost 100 years.

Having been a card carrying, shout from the rooftops, member of the Fellowship most of my life, I recently had a break and have for a while considered myself a New Miserable. Still a member of the Fellowship, but one more realistic about the world and how it works. I now cheer for the Red Sox on a game by game basis, I am happy for their wins and miffed at their losses. Pedro Martinez is the most brilliant thing ever put on the mound, an athlete of a kind that will not be seen again for a generation. Being miffed at their losses, however, covers only the regular season. I am only happy, if and when the Sox make the playoffs and believe it would be a genuine miracle if they ever won the whole thing. Upon their inevitable exit from the race, I am indifferent. Not a true fan you say? It is a retort that I only respond to other members of the Fellowship, for if you aren't a member, you couldn't possibly understand.

The crux of the issue lies in one simple statement. Baseball, as currently constituted, is not a fair game. It is rigged from the beginning, and its owners refuse to do anything about it. Many people marvel at the fact that the Yankees win the Championship every year. I don't, they should. If they don't, they've done something horribly wrong. I don't begrudge them this either. They can, do and should exploit every advantage they are given. The rules need to be changed. Until they are this will be, and has been, the result of every off-season big name free-agent signing.

Beyond simply free agency, the Yanks wield the ultimate trump card of money during the season. They can absorb every contract on waivers without a thought. Witness this year, when they were far from the best team in baseball for the first 2/3 of the season. During the season, they picked up Denny Neagle, Glen-Allen Hill, David Justice, Doc Gooden, Luis Sojo and Jose Canseco. Justice was the one responsible for putting the team into the playoffs, and World Series. Sojo was the one who hit the game winning double against the Mets. If the owners of the other teams truly gave a shit, they would change the rules so that buying the championship mid-season is no longer possible. I've written long enough here, so I won't go into further reasons why this needs to be done.

The bottom line, however, is that the owners don't want to change the rules. They're happy with the playing field hopelessly slanted towards the Bronx. Fine then. I'll be happy when the Sox win, I'll marvel at the brilliance of Pedro on the mound and Nomar at the plate, but I won't shed a single tear when they inevitably lose. It's supposed to be that way, and the proprieters of the game just don't care enough to fix it. Baseball has become the only game in which the regular season is the only part that matters since the outcome of the playoffs is already known.
- posted by levinson @ 11/28/2000 10:15:00 AM