Baseball Contraction: AND THE WEAKEST LINKS ARE . . .

In My Humble Opinion
1

http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=95171

in relation to the above thread, MLB has amazingly announced they plan to eliminate 2 franchises for the 2002 season. Here’s the four franchises mentioned:

MONTREAL EXPOS
TAMPA BAY DEVIL RAYS
FLORIDA MARLINS
MINNESOTA TWINS

I would keep:

MINNESOTA: Over 30 years of tradition in the Twin cities, including 2 World Series titles. To eliminate the Twins, you would be erasing memories of Harmon Killebrew and Kirby Puckett. It’s sad to see they don’t get support, but the Twins are worth trying to keep before at least relaocating.

FLORIDA: You simply cannot have a team that won the World Series a few years ago eliminated. Even if that team no longer exists. Baseball is needed in Florida, because I would
eliminate . .

TAMPA BAY: Tropicana Field was built in 1990, but the Rays didn’t start there until 1998, so it’s not like a stadium was built just for them. This team simply sucks, there’s zero traditon behind it, and it’s a crappy market. Wipe out the mistake while you can and move on.

MONTREAL: IIRC, this franchise made the playoffs one year: 1981 strike season. No tradition. When baseball expanded into Canada in the 1960s, Montreal was the cosmopolitan center of the country. No longer. Montreal has been losing population over the past 30 years. The Expos simply don’t draw crowds, it’s a hockey town. Montreal does not care about it’s baseball tream.

Besides it would be nice and clean: you eliminate one AL and one NL team. I also like the plan to expand each teams roster to 22 to keep the union happy. I am looking forward to my Phillies getting a crack at 40 extra players. Plus it will help improve the piss poor diluted rosters of the other 28 teams. Great plan.

As for relocation, that’s a tougher one- where would you go?
I’m guessing the Carolinas and Nashville. Tampa is a possibility IF you can get a new stadium, and a cooler nickname! :slight_smile:

2

OH . … and Washington is the obvious relo candidate! :o

3

Charlotte would welcome the Twins or the Expos with open arms.

With all due respect, screw Florida. You buy a World Series ring, that’s all you’re left with.

4

Twins…Washington…

Been there done that.

5

The obvious one is Montreal. They don’t draw, have no english TV contact, no one wants to play there and they can’t pay to keep any of their players past their arbitration eligibilty. They are in a downward spiral I see no way out of.

The 2nd choice is hard, I feel no sympathy to either of the Florida teams. Tampa whined and moaned for years about getting a team, and when they got it, the management was terrible. Suck it up, find an owner who cares, and work your way up, the way an expansion team should.

The Marlins took on a huge payroll, whined about it after winning a championship. Again, find a real owner, hire baseball people to run the team and stop the bitching.

The Twins are an up and coming team, if they bother to spend money to keep their youngsters. They are pissed cause they can’t get another stadium built with government handouts. Look, we all know the Dome is a terrible ball park, but it has a huge homefield advantage when it is full and loud. Its been proven in the past that the Twins draw when they win.

Personally, I’d eliminate the D-backs, retroactive to the bottom of the 8th of game 7, therefore giving the WS to the Yankees :slight_smile:

MLB needs to get all the owners on the same page and do something about the out of control salaries. They need revenue sharing, which the greedy bastards won’t do, and some sort of salary cap. You’ll still have pathetic franchises then, but it will be the owners faults then.

Baseball won’t do any of this, they’ll fold 2 teams, Montreal and Tampa IMO, and in 7-10 years, Charlotte, DC or some other city will have an expansion team.

6

I would eliminate Bowie “Bud” Selig.

Talk about your weakest link. :rolleyes:

Too bad us baseball fans can’t vote him off the island.

7

I would eliminate the Cleveland Indians and the Atlanta Braves. They haven’t made the playoffs in years and their attendance is terrible. We obviously do not want to get rid of the Minnesota Twins, who have good attendance. Who the hell goes to see the Indians? They…

…oh, sorry! I was using my 1991 figures. (Now, anyone wanna guess if the strong and weak teams will be exactly the same ten hyears from now as they are now? I’m guessing not.)

This entire contraction thing is very probably a charade. They’re looking to extort money from government to build stadia. Major league baseball and Carl Pohlad could build a new stadium for the Twins with ease, but this ridiculous “contraction” act, which an amazing number of people have swallowed hook, line and sinker, gives them the opportunity to scare cities and states into building new stadia while simultaneously giving them a phony bargaining chip with the union.

Bud Selig is such a colossally inept doofus that it’s becoming surreal. The timing of this announcement has probably cost MLB millions of dollars just by virtue of killing off the goodwill generated by the World Series. Selig is so insulated from reality I can’r decide if I should laugh or cry.

However, if they contract, it’ll do irreperable harm to major league baseball.

8

I know it’s been a long time, RickJay, but I have to say: I couldn’t agree with you more.

9

Lower the freaking ticket prices so that John Q. Public can afford to go see a game without taking a second mortgage on his house and maybe the game will become popular again. All these teams want new stadiums with high dollar sky-boxes. When are they going to understand that there are a LOT more ordinary folks than there are corporate executives?

Outlaw strikes by the player’s union. Anybody who makes as much dough as the average ballplayer and feels he has a right to strike should be taken out and shot.

Hell, I’m not even a fan anymore, and basically, I couldn’t give a rat’s ass if all of MLB went down the chute. But, if the owners want to save it, they need to give the game to the PEOPLE who made it great. I’m not talking about the players, I’m talking about blue collar Americans who USED to be able to afford to take an afternoon off work and take their kids to the ballpark, have a couple hotdogs and a beer without going broke.

10

im with the last guy! scrap them all! i hate boreball!

11

I have just two words for Bud and his cronies…

Salary Cap

12

You know baseball has had it when the O’Malleys (Los Angeles) quit. I’ll second getting rid of Selig. Bring back Peter Ubberoth, or anyone who has an ounce of sense, and no vested interest.

Does MLB stand for Moron League Baseball?

13

The players union will never allow the contraction of 2 teams. The most logical solution is to simply move the Expo’s to a larger market. Some say Washington, I say San Antonio, but that’s just me I guess. If the players actually do approve contraction, hundreds of people within the eliminated teams will lose their jobs, not just a few players. I just want to ask Bud Selig one question…Since you have no soul, what do you put in that space where you would normally have a soul? Is it human excrement or dog excrement?

14

If contraction does in fact happen (still debatable, IMHO), I think the likeliest candidates are the Montreal Expos and the Florida Marlins.

Montreal does have a small diehard fan base for baseball, but it is small - it simply cannot support a major league franchise any more (if it ever could). It is, indeed, a hockey city (cf. the Maurice Richard funeral of a few years back).

The state of Florida clearly does not have enough baseball interest to support two separate franchises on top of all of the spring training baseball, and perhaps not even one. Frankly, I wouldn’t mind seeing both the Deviled Eggs and the Marlins removed in contraction, but I don’t see MLB admitting that the Tampa expansion in '98 was a mistake (morons). Given that, I think Florida is a strong candidate, the '97 championshop notwithstanding.

I have to agree with ShrekLookAlike about out-of-control prices - I live in Boston, a town that has seen the Red Sox, under the leadership of that ass Dan Duquette, raise ticket prices 5 straight years, with the cheapest ticket going from $8 to $18, for the back three rows of the bleachers (the only tickets in the stadium now under $20 - I won’t even talk about box seats) …but I disagree with his anger towards the Players’ Union. The union is not saying that the players aren’t being paid what they’re worth at some absolute level, it is simply trying to get the players their share of the profits that MLB in general is reaping.

I do think that some sort of salary limitation is required, but the only way I see to end the problem of escalating salaries is to tie player salaries to some percentage of total profits, so that players (and owners) make more money only if the sport collectively makes more money. Of course, I’ll probably be branded a communist.

15

The weakest link is Bud Light Selig.

Montreal has basically failed. Give them a AAA team like their own Royals. Maybe more the team to Raleigh or something? Washington has had 3 teams. 3 strikes, you’re out.

Weren’t the Twins the first AL team to draw 3 million? Pohlad is just cashing in and his buddy is helping him. He’s the supposedly richest owner in baseball according to Forbes. He just wants to draw his “bad market” money and not spend any.

Let Selig sell his players to other teams and take that money for folding the team. Brewers and Expos.

If they owners want to alleviate the small/large market difference, let them share the TV revenue like the NFL does before they impose a salary cap. That way, if someone wants to risk more money for a better team (and maybe a better gate) they can. It wouldn’t matter as much in the NFL, where all seats are sold.

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I’m torn. One side of me thinks the only fair thing to do is to declare that those are fightin’ words and give you a chance to take them back. On the other hand, I have that little voice that just wants to exclaim It’s clobberin’ time!!!

:slight_smile: