Wednesday, April 02, 2008

Parity, Schmarity

Enough with the "we're the same as they are" talk. We're not! Take a look at the numbers. The Evil Ones will spend almost $210 million dollars on their stable of also-rans—with three guys making more than the entire Florida Marlins roster. Granted, we are still in the upper echelons of splurgiosity (I just invented that, and, frankly, I kinda like it). But, we are fourth in total spending at $133.4 million. That's right, in addition to the "We haven't won anything yet this century " squad from E 161st St & River Ave, the Tigers ($138.7 million) and Metropolitans ($138.3 million) are also ahead of us in profligacy (I don't like that one so much, plus I didn't make it up).

So, why are we joined at the figurative hip with the Bronx Embalmers? Apparently the national media have this notion that we have entered into a conspiratorial price-fixing cabal with the Steinbrenners to dominate the sport by spending equally outrageous gobs of cash on players. But, as the numbers clearly show, we aren't even in the same Oliver Stone movie. For crying out loud, we're closer to the Brewers payroll ($52.5 million gap) than the second-place pin stripers ($75.7 million gap).

The reason we have two World Championships in this century is that we spend our dough more wisely. Even with the extravagant outlay for Dice-K, we still don't have any Carl Pavanos sucking us dry. So, please, no more comparisons with They Who Shall Not Be Named. We do it better and cheaper.

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