Okay Boston, It's Time For the Red Sox to "Pay Their Fair Share"

[ProudVet77]

You know that today Kerry is going to say "How about those Red Sox?" BARF!

[weegee]

(remember the second Presidential debate when he said this in response to the environmental question.....)

GIBSON: Senator Kerry, minute and a half.

KERRY: Boy, to listen to that -- the president, I don't think, is living in a world of reality with respect to the environment.

Now, if you're a Red Sox fan, that's OK. But if you're a president, it's not.

Fair weather fan???

[ProudVet77]

Remember when if he had to chose between winning the white house and the red sox winning the world series, he chose winning the white house. Despicable.

[Grut]

There's still the victory parade; there's still that opportunity for the Sox to choke.

[weegee]

If he had to choose between winning the war on terror or even just in Iraq and winning the White House we ALL know that he would choose power over victory.

[weegee]

If this series had gone to 7 games I figure that many of the young "first time" (but many multi-time) voters would have been too hungover to go to the polls (at least more than once).

Boston is a big college town, despite what Spinal Tap's manager said (60 schools).

[no dems]

You know that today Kerry is going to say "How about those Red Sox?" And, as soon as he does, every die-hard St. Louis Cardinal fan goes into the Bush column. Missouri is no longer close. It's Bush baby. (Thank you Red Sox.)

[SE Mom]

Not even a piece like this can dampen the joy of Red Sox fans this morning.

[foreverfree]

FWIW this is the third year in a row that the WS was won by a wild card team. Which surely doesn't sit well with Bob Costas if you've read his 1990 book "Fair Ball".

The division title in baseball is quickly losing value.

ff

[Mad Mammoth]

The spirit of Babe Ruth was channeled last night, and here is what the Bambino had to say:

Oracle:Are you there Babe? Can you hear us?!

Ghostly Voice:Yesssss I can heeeaaar youuuuuu

Oracle:Why have you lifted the curse upon the Red Sox Babe?

Ghostly Voice:So they can lift the OTHER curse that is upon them!

Oracle:What OTHER curse? Is there another?

Ghostly Voice:Yesssss...it is a spirit of lies, deceit and betrayal named JOHN KERRY! It MUST be exorcised from public life!

Oracle:Say what? Is this really Babe Ruth?

Ghostly Voice:Of COURSE it's me...now honor the Red Sox, and vote for GEORGE W. BUSH!

Oracle:Funny, you sound a little like Karl Rove...

Ghostly Voice:Noooo it's not me! (heh! heh! did you hear that Mitt? They know my voice that good up here?)

[Wilhelm Tell]

The collectivists are already doing this in a fashion. For years the trend is to ban school athletics -- especially sports where people win or lose games. After all, it is "unfair" to subject a child to the possibility that he will lose a game. It is also "unfair" to allow children to win a game just because they won the lottery of life and are better atheletes. And a baseball bat can be a weapon -- double-plus bad! And all of this takes away from the "real" purpose of schools, which evidently involves teaching about cross-dressing and trans-gender-benderism. It is only a matter of time before the collectivists try to ban adults from playing baseball, etc. Especially if anyone gets rich from it.

[theoldChief]

"Not even a piece like this can dampen the joy of Red Sox fans this morning"

But JFake will do his best to do that:
He'll misquote the score,
He'll misname the winning pitcher,
He'll swear that the memory of being right there at Fenway (or was it at Lambert) to watch them win is seared in his brain.

btw, congrats to the Sox and their fans.

[dufekin]

Boston politicians have inherited the Curse of the Bambino. May Kerry and Kennedy take it to the grave.

[misterrob]

This is a load of garbage....Boston sold out every game this year and it's fans support the team through tickets, concessions and through watching them on cable tv. But, we wind up having to pay revenue sharing every year to teams like Pittsburgh, Milwaukee and Kansas City.

Liberalism at its finest

[chainsaw]

Too bad not many of us will be around in 2090 to see them repeat. Just kidding.

[foreverfree]

Correction: "Fair Ball" came out in 2000 not 1990. I was in the middle of getting dressed.

ff

[Poodlebrain]

The Red Sox have the 1994 strike to thank for their World Series title. Without that cataclysmic event baseball would not have realigned and introduced the wild card, along with interleague play. Despite selling out every game during the season the Red Sox still finished behind the Yankees in their divisional race and made the playoffs as a wild card team.

Are you content with competing for that wild card berth on an annual basis as your shot at the playoffs? Because the Yankees have financial resources that far exceed those of the Red Sox, and George Steinbrenner is willing to spend more than the Red Sox are willing to spend to acquire the ballplayers necessary for the Yankees to keep winning the AL East.

Somehow sharing revenue has not prevented the New England Patriots from assembling a winning team. And it didn't take 86 years with the playing field being closer to level.

[misterrob]

The NFL and MLB are different entities......Salary cap being the biggest. Teams can turn over in 2 years and if you look at the Jets this year or the Pats in 2000/2001 and 2002/2003, one season is all it takes.

The wild card is actually good for baseball for the following reasons:

1) More divisions means better rivalries. Yankees and Sox play 19 games a year in the regular season. Same for Dodgers/Giants.

2) Last 3 WS champs were wild card.

3) Money is not the be all, end all. Marlins were a lower payroll team and the Angels had 1/2 the payroll of the Yankees in 2002. A's got to the playoffs 4 years in a row on a low payroll. Yes, money can help buy you a ticket to the playoffs but it cannot buy the series.

4) sox had 2nd best record in the conference and beat the 1st and second overall best record teams in the post season. No charity there.

[Poodlebrain]

I do not buy your arguments regarding the wild card being good for baseball. The purpose of the 162 game schedule is to identify the best team. If one second place team qualifies for the playoffs why shouldn't all of them?

If more divisions create more rivalries why doesn't baseball just go to all two-team divisions and have nothing but rivalries, and they could play each other even more than 19 times a season? And the more divisional champions will create even more playoff teams and more post season excitement. The unbalanced schedules also ensure some teams get to play more games against inferior opponents which makes it relatively easier for them to make the playoffs as the wild card team, and this can be compounded by inequality of interleague opponents.

The last 3 World Series champs being wild card teams should amplify the impact of money on World Series winners as they all made acquisitions at the trading deadline to prop their stretch runs.

Yes, the A's got to the playoffs 4 years in a row, but they finally ran out of luck because they could not afford to keep their closer, who just happened to be a key player in the Red Sox post season success, at the start of the season, and they could not afford to make any acquisitions to improve their team at the trading deadline. The only "low salary" team to make the playoffs this year was the Twins, and they made it because they were the best of a bad lot in the AL Central. No, money is not the be all end all in baseball, but the intelligent use of money is, and disproportionate distribution of money enables some franchises to succeed with less intelligent use of more money.

The Red Sox finished with the second best record in the AL because their late season acquisitions improved their team. Where were they sitting in the standings prior to their stretch drive? Post season series are strange animals. There is no question Boston was playing the best baseball in September and October, but they certainly weren't the best from April through August.