Baseball’s Second Problem

So, if I were some hotshot writer for a big name newspaper, full of entertaining opinionated rants that hundreds of thousands of people might read on a daily basis, then I would probably think twice about throwing together a piece about how I’m sick and tired of hearing about the Red Sox and Yankees rivalry. If I knew that the population of a small country was going to turn to me, a professional source of journalism, in order to see what was going on in sports that day and ended up finding a two page rip job on one of the most beloved rivalries in sports, I would definitely reconsider my choice of topic. But, I’m not some hotshot, I don’t even have a subscription to a big name newspaper, and I’m definitely not a professional journalist. So here goes nothing.

First, it’s the New York Yankees. It seems like from the mid 1990’s to today and probably for many years to come, the Steinbrenners will be willing to throw as much money as it takes to convince the most lucrative player that it’s his dream to wear pinstripes. Just look at some of the names that have passed through Yankee Stadium; Roger Clemens, Alex Rodriguez, Gary Sheffield, and Jason Giambi, just to name a few. The idea of developing a farm system with players that had a future was thrown out the window just as quickly as the wad of cash that ol’ George was throwing at any player he fell in love with.

We all know how the story went; the Yanks were hated throughout the league by any fan of any other team. And because they were always in contention for a championship, it could be considered a national holiday whenever they were tossed from the playoffs. Baseball fans from California to Florida loved to spit on the Yankees name because, well, who likes a team that buys its talent and deprives smaller market teams of the star players they’ve taken years to develop?

Enter the Red Sox. They didn’t begin to contend seriously until about 1998 when they began to take lessons from their hated foes. While it wasn’t on the same level of sketchiness, Boston began to lure in (or attempt to… Alex Rodriguez’s name ring a bell, Beantown?) their own crop of big name free agents. And while they also went about it in a more respectful way by developing players and trading for young talent that hadn’t proved their worth and had some sort of risk attached, the Sox became a dominant force in the MLB.

Once again, we all know the story. 2004 rolls around, Boston wins their first World Series in close to a million trillion years, there is something about Cowboy-ing up, Bronson Arroyo looks gangster with cornrows, and the nation seems to fall in love. It was a touching story and, while I didn’t shed any tears over the fact that the World Series drought had ended and that Billy Buckner could finally sleep at night, it was nice to see a storied franchise get their due.

Then there is the dark side. Major league baseball didn’t help anything out by adjusting the schedules so that division teams play each other a ridiculous 20 something times a season. It takes the fun out of it when two teams are playing every other week. And so my point develops.

If the Boston Red Sox and the New York Yankees, the two juggernauts of Major League Baseball, the ying and the yang, the Dice-K and the Wang (the rhyme is a stretch, I know, but cut me a break), play each other 22 times a season, I can’t help but think that I’m the only one that begins to find each game a little more meaningless each time I watch it. ESPN goes out of their way to promote the Yankees and Red Sox rivalry, including the past 3 days when the two teams met for the first time this season. I guess someone forgot to mention to their marketing department that they are tied for last place in the East.

This rivalry gets promoted and hyped up every year. I don’t know what the ratings are for these games, although I’m assuming they are pretty high or else the broadcasts would be switched to something different, but c’mon. Maybe I’m on my own when I say that I’m sick and tired of watching TV and seeing these promo commercials come on about how the “Bronx Bombers are going head to head against the Boys from Bean Town” and blah blah blah… give me a break. David Ortiz is batting a perfect ballgame temperature of .070. Derrick Jeter can’t seem to stay healthy. Every excuse is found to put these teams in the national media spotlight, regardless of what else is going on. It’s 12 games into the season. Why would I care about watching these teams play most likely meaningless games right now?

Over hype of the apparent hatred between these two teams is killing the art of rivalries and baseball. Big name national markets are only focusing on a select group of fans and are disassociating from the rest. As an avid baseball fan, I would love to see smaller revenue teams play on national TV. I would thoroughly enjoy watching some of the young players develop into ball players that will probably end up playing for the Yankees or Red Sox in a few years. I want to know more about Kansas City’s Billy Butler. I want to watch Hunter Pence play in Houston. Oakland is a hot bed for talent, Tampa Bay’s hard work developing players is finally coming through, and the entire western division in the National League is young and exciting.

Let’s go, American media. Let’s see something besides an overrated rivalry between two teams that buy their talent and end careers (sorry Mike Mussina, Chuck Knoblauch, Jason Giambi, Javier Vazquez, Aaron Boone, Raul Mondesi, Curtis Pride, David Wells… should I go on? Drew Henson, David Dellucci, Mike Stanton, David Justice, Scott Brosius…). I want entertainment, that’s all I ask. And for that, I say that the Red Sox and Yankees are ruining the sport’s national spotlight. It’s ridiculous how much attention each game gets. Hopefully, MLB will get things straight when it comes to what they want to promote and how they should go about doing it.

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Tags: championship, Houston, Kansas City, MLB, Oakland, Red Sox, rivalry, steroids, Tampa Bay, Yankees

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