My mom was a baseball nut. Last Christmas, she gave me a t-shirt that says, “Jesus Hates the Yankees,” just like the one pictured above.
I wore it today, and when I stopped to refuel my vehicle, another driver took exception to the message on my shirt.
“Oh yeah?” he sneered. “Then why have the Yankees won 27 World Series Championships?”
“For the same reason the Lord allowed the Babylonians to sack Jerusalem, let the Philistines defeat the Israelites and visited calamities upon Job,” I replied. “Sometimes evil triumphs.”
“How many World Series have the RAYZZZZZ won, huh?” he taunted, still not getting it.
Please feel free to discuss whatever.
? Martin
I need that shirt.
Now.
Starts turning the crank on the Google machine.
maximiliano furtive, formerly known as dr. bloor
Give him credit, Betty. He was able to read the shirt all by himself.
LAC
There were people who hated and mocked Jesus too, but he endures. And his message was about love, not hate. Even including the least among us. Which includes whatever baseball team you support. Bless yew!! :-)
LAC
There were people who hated and mocked Jesus too, but he endures. And his message was about love, not hate. Even including the least among us. Which includes whatever baseball team you support. Bless yew!! :-)
tybee
Some years back, one of our offices in Boston presented me with a “Yankees Suck” t-shirt.
does tend to get a reaction from both sides of the Boston-NY/Mason-Dixon fronts.
Aimai
So much love for your mom. Hugs betty.
daverave
Let’s Go Yankees!
comrade scott's agenda of rage
To quote the late, great Steve Gilliard:
“Fuck the fucking Yankees.”
Truer words never spoken. And the asshat you ran into simply reinforces that.
Botsplainer
Pure genius.
SiubhanDuinne
The more anecdotes you tell about your mother, the more I love her.
brettvk
@SiubhanDuinne: Copy that. Betty, I think your family and life in Florida might make a book.
Karen in GA
I’m a Yankee fan (suck it, haterz), and I love that shirt.
Betty, the world is a cooler place for your mom having been in it.
Fuzzy
Sorry, I just wish baseball would stay in Florida and not be forced on the rest of us for eight plus months. This is a sport meant for radio as background chatter. (ducking down)
burnspbesq
Yankee fans can’t be reasoned with. They’re like wingnuts and Tarholes in that respect.
raven
Stinkin Jankees
mellowjohn
at least he was able to figure out you were talking about the baseball team and not us folks up nawth.
p.s. as a die-hard white sox fan, i hate the yankees, too, but i hate the cubs more. the Yankees are 800 miles away; the cubs only six blocks.
The Ancient Randonneur
I get it and I am still a proud fan of the Evil Empire. Any weak-kneed sissy can root for the Good Guys. Come to the Dark Side, Ms Cracker. We have more fun.
Botsplainer
@burnspbesq:
You failed to mention Dookies.
Amir Khalid
As a follower of the English football, I happen to believe that Manchester United FC is suffering just such a divine comeuppance this season, under its new manager. (But then I’m a Liverpool fan, and of course we would say that.) I also believe Cardiff City FC is suffering the trials of Job under the ownership of my countryman Tan Sri Vincent Tan, who is apparently unfamiliar with Premier League rules on what he can and can’t do.
The Ancient Randonneur
@burnspbesq:
Yes. But, unlike the two aforementioned groupings we Yankee fans happen to be right.
Bobby Thomson
God damn front runners. Yes! Fuck the fucking Yankees!
I don’t even follow baseball anymore and I still hate the fucking Yankees.
raven
He looks like he’s getting ready to slide in that picture on the shirt! Heee ouuutttaaaa dere. . . .
cleek
my wife bought me a shirt that says “I Found Jesus / He Was Behind The Couch!” with a pic of a cartoon Jesus standing behind a sofa.
i wore it once. while wearing it, some well-muscled buzz-cut stranger guy came up to me in the bar and said “hey, what’s that supposed to mean?”
mumblemumble…nothing, just a shirt.
and he walked away.
last time i wore that one.
she also got me a shirt that has a little picture of a ‘factory’, with a little stick figure shooting out of the door. it says “Jerk Factory” on top, and next to the little guy, it says “You”. i’ll never wear that one in public.
Another Holocene Human
@tybee: I got real pissed at being called a Yankee. I’m an Irish Catholic from Boston, you ignorant asshole! Yankees SUCK!
Oh well, living well is the best revenge. I got in good with the African Americans at work. You go ahead and call me a Yankee all day long.
Funniest is when I get called a Cracker. Well, wrong religion for that one, pal, and my surname hasn’t been anglicized, but, hey, it’s a fair cop. I suppose I would look the part with the freckles and all that.
One of my colleagues is Boricuan. Of course he wears a NYY hat everywhere. Had to give him shit about that repeatedly… every World Series, bro. Yankees suck, man.
SatanicPanic
Yeah, the Yankees are awful but the Dodgers are worse.
c u n d gulag
@burnspbesq:
I assume you’re talking about the younger fans who got into the team just in time for 4 WS’s in 5 years, in the mid-90’s.
We older Yankee fans – those like me who came of age in the Horace Clark years, or in King George’s maddest period, the 80’s and early 90’s – have quite a lot of humility, and know that in sports, as in life, as Catfish Hunter once said after a loss, “The sun don’t shine on the same dog’s ass every day.”
And if it does for awhile, eventually, it won’t, and shine on some other dogs asses for a bit.
And yeah, Betty, your Mom was very, very cool.
Btw – until I noticed the mitt-shaped cloud, I thought it meant us folks from the North.
Ash Can
This made me LOL. Hats off (once again) to Betty’s mom.
PaulW
Evil cannot comprehend Good. The Yankee fans will obsess over having those 27 titles and they enjoy the hatred that all the other fans have against NYY, without ever understanding that it’s the arrogance and the greed of the organization that makes them so hated and un-Christian-like.
Go Rays, indeed. Truly.
Karen in GA
Oooh, I have a non-baseball-related story about my new banjo! A music store in Virginia had a used Bart Reiter Standard for a decent price. I’d heard Reiter Standards were good, couldn’t find one to try near me, took the risk and bought it sight unseen anyway. Got it yesterday, and it’s in immaculate condition and sounds great.
Has a 12″ rim instead of the usual 11″ rim one would expect to find on the Standard, and a star inlay on the 5th fret. I look on the builder’s website, and it doesn’t look like a Standard. I email Bart Reiter, give him the serial number, and he confirms it’s a Round Peak — a step or two up in the model lineup. He adds, “If you paid less than $1,000 for it you got a good deal.” I did, and I did.
So — I got a nice deal because the music store didn’t know what they had, and I get to be a Yankee fan! (Please — not in the face!)
Another Holocene Human
@cleek: I had a “Jesus is Coming — Look Busy” shirt that I loved a great deal until some young wannabe pastor waylaid me at the deli to talk about his religious theories for an hour. FUCK that guy.
PaulW
@cleek:
It means Jesus can be found anywhere, much as any man or woman or child can find change beneath the seat cushions.
Carol
You live in Florida, don’t you? If so beware the Yankee fan who stands his ground.
raven
@Amir Khalid: I’m giving “Inverting the Pyramid” a go as you would say. It’s a tough slog since I haven’t a clue who all these people are.
EconWatcher
Brilliant, but I have to ask: Was that what you really said, or what you wish you’d said as you were driving away? If the former, you’re my hero for life.
Personally, I’m great with witty retorts–about ten minutes after the encounter is over.
Yam
Technically, those occured before Jesus…
Also, rooting for the Yankees is like rooting for Microsoft.
Villago Delenda Est
The Yankees are Satan’s Team.
Ask any Red Sox fan.
Ask any Mariners fan.
They’re Satan’s Team…look who’s on their roster…PAY-ROD!
Kylroy
@SatanicPanic: Well, baseball in general is a question of which of the dozen highest – spending teams will win the championship. I hate the Yankees but will credit them with generally spending their giant buckets of cash wisely – if all winning took was money, the Dodgers would also have 27 championships.
I just wish my Brewers didn’t serve as a farm team for clubs that are actually allowed into the World Series.
Villago Delenda Est
@SatanicPanic:
Duck the Fodgers?
Yam
@EconWatcher: Avoir l’esprit de l’escalier is a really fancy way to express your ability.
Kylroy
@Yam: I always say it’s like cheering for the house in a casino.
“You’re hitting on 13…and BUSTED by the king! Take that, *tourist*!”
Villago Delenda Est
@SiubhanDuinne:
Just this.
Damn, I wish I had known Betty’s mom. A fountain of wit and wisdom!
opiejeanne
The Rays have one of the best managers around right now, and my team wishes they had him still.
Michael Bersin
Don’t have a dog in that fight. Have to cope with the Kansas City Royals instead.
Betty Cracker
@mellowjohn: I think the inclusion of “the” is critical to accurate interpretation. It never occurred to me that someone might take it for a denunciation of Northerners. I personally thank Jeebus for them; otherwise, this state would be even more loopy.
It was jarring, as a Southerner, to be called “a Yank” when traveling abroad. I always wanted to say no, you’ve got it all wrong!
@EconWatcher: It’s a reasonable paraphrase of what I actually said, but that wasn’t the first time I’d had a similar conversation with a Yankees fan. This area of Florida is teeming with them, so I’d had a bit of practice.
Gin & Tonic
@Villago Delenda Est: Ask any Red Sox fan.
Living here in the DMZ, I can assure you that Red Sox fans are way more annoying than Yankee fans.
SatanicPanic
@Kylroy: I’m a Padres fan so I feel your pain. Part of the reason why I can’t stand the Dodgers is that they do spend a ton of money every off-season, spend spring training rubbing that in our (relatively) poor faces and the proceed to make asses of themselves throughout the season (obviously last season they did pretty well). At least the Yankees are successfully evil.
shelly
I’m still waiting to hear more on that story when the sailors were in town and your Mom gave you five bucks and said ‘If you can’t drink all night on this…”
Another Holocene Human
@Kylroy: OMG, a true baseball die-hahd!
schrodinger's cat
@Gin & Tonic: Agreed! I cheer the Yankees on, if only to annoy the Red Sox True Believers.
Roger Moore
Maybe because they sold their souls to Satan. Just a theory.
ranchandsyrup
I believe you could have shot him under teh FL Stand Yr Ground Law.
cleek
@PaulW:
that’s what i should’ve said. but i was too busy looking for the exits.
schrodinger's cat
I made you comic strip with Putin and did not eated it; And I will Always Love You.
Amir Khalid
@Betty Cracker:
In my schooldays we had an exchange student, from North Carolina, who carefully explained to us that he was an American, but most definitely not a Yankee. What is the exact definition?
Another Holocene Human
@Betty Cracker: “Yankee” changes its meaning the further and further you get away from Southern Vermont.
Yankee, from Algonquin yengee, from the French anglais, it was originally an Iroquois term for the English
raven
@ranchandsyrup: Shot or killed?
Lawyer Goudy: Mr. Cogburn, in your four years as U.S. marshal, how many men have you shot?
Rooster Cogburn: I never shot nobody I didn’t have to
. Lawyer Goudy: Well, that was not the question. How many?
Rooster Cogburn: Shot or killed?
Lawyer Goudy: Let us restrict it to “killed” so that we may have a manageable figure.
Cacti
@SatanicPanic:
I’m a Padres fan so I feel your pain. Part of the reason why I can’t stand the Dodgers is that they do spend a ton of money every off-season, spend spring training rubbing that in our (relatively) poor faces and the proceed to make asses of themselves throughout the season (obviously last season they did pretty well). At least the Yankees are successfully evil.
Every team in the NL West hates the Doyers. They have a Yankees-type superiority complex, but without a trophy of any kind for the last 25 years.
A pair of local DJ’s here in D’backs country started a #PlunkPuig hashtag, and L.A. management about had a stroke.
Gin & Tonic
@Amir Khalid: Anybody who is from anywhere north of where you’re from.
raven
@Amir Khalid: There is no exact definition. Language, as you know, is dynamic.
ranchandsyrup
@raven: LOL well played, Chief Illiniwek. Great movie.
duhkaman
God, not Satan, was responsible for Job’s misfortunes. Remember God tormented Job for reasons not disclosed in the text. Sorta, like the explanation for how Roger Clements played in the Bronx for a few years. Oh wait…
Roger Moore
@Amir Khalid:
There is no universally agreed upon definition. To foreigners, all Americans are Yankees. To Southerners, anyone from North of the Mason-Dixon line is a Yankee. To people from the Mid Atlantic states, a Yankee is a New Englander. And so on.
Cacti
@Amir Khalid:
In my schooldays we had an exchange student, from North Carolina, who carefully explained to us that he was an American, but most definitely not a Yankee. What is the exact definition?
The best explanation I’ve heard is this:
To a foreigner, a Yankee is an American. To an American, a Yankee is a northerner. To a northerner, a Yankee is an easterner. To an easterner, a Yankee is a New Englander. To a New Englander, a Yankee is a Vermonter. And to a Vermonter, a Yankee is someone who still uses an outhouse.
Another Holocene Human
I got my start in Red Sox fandom the year Bill Buckner let a bouncy grounder slip between his legs (that is not a double entendre dammit!!). Rooting for the Red Sox used to build character. Dodging spilled beer in the bleachers also builds character. You know.
About the time that Camden Yard started raising prices any time the Red Sox were in town I started to realize that rooting for a winning team was not all it was cracked up to be.
Belafon
@Amir Khalid: Where I grew up, Texas, it meant anyone from the Union States of the Civil War. I suspect that’s what your acquaintance meant as well. It carries a “war of northern aggression” aspect to it.
justdale
NSFW,but always appropriate for a NYY discussion: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zWVcIn7Q4Cc
Neutron Flux
Fear the Cracker!
SatanicPanic
@Cacti: They’re in exactly the same spot as us Padres and Rockies fans, at least in the last 25 years (though it could be pointed out that the Pads and the Rockies at least made appearances), but every year they act like this year they’re a lock to win the WS. I don’t hear D-Backs or the Giants fans crowing like that.
japa21
@Kylroy: Hey, they have an owner not afraid to spend some money, Starting rotation looks solid this year. If they avoid the injury bug this year, they have a legitimate chance for the playoffs. At least that is what I want to believe and will continue to believe until they are out of it. Hopefully it isn’t by the end of May like last year.
SiubhanDuinne
@Another Holocene Human:
I had always heard that “Yankee” was a (corrupted, or at least Anglicized) Dutch term. Had never heard the Algonquin/Iroquois version. And according to Wikipedia, that’s been pretty much discredited.
Betty Cracker
@shelly: That story actually has a very nice, if unremarkable, ending. So my mom shooed my sister and me out for a night on the town, and we sallied forth into Savannah with our $5 each. We didn’t get 20 steps down River Street before a pair of sailors asked to buy us a drink.
We ignored them at first (more from shyness than haughtiness — we were mere striplings!), but the elder of the two sailors said something along the lines of, look ladies, we’re honestly not trying to get in your pants. We’re just here for a short time, and we’ve been trapped on the boat with 30 other dudes for weeks, and we just want to talk to girls and have a good time. His straightforwardness appealed to us.
So the two sailors squired us around the local taverns (making sure all their fellow sailors saw that they were hanging with two hawt chicks), gave us a tour of their boat (nothing untoward occurred!) and walked us back to our fleabag hotel by 11 PM, receiving only a peck on the cheek in recompense. When we showed our mom that we still had the $5 she’d given us, she beamed with pride!
Villago Delenda Est
@Another Holocene Human:
I will never forget that moment. An army buddy and I were watching that game in a restaurant on the Tacoma waterfront, and the entire place let out a collective exclamation of astonishment when that happened. It was amazing.
ranchandsyrup
@SatanicPanic: SP, if you ever want to hit up a Fathers’ game, let me know. Can get a hold of tix.
I’m distantly related to Pee Wee Reese and I still hate the Dough-yers.
Villago Delenda Est
@Betty Cracker:
Oh, what a wonderful story! More /hugs Betty, and thank you for sharing these terrific tales of your mom with us!
SiubhanDuinne
@Neutron Flux:
And to unite the two major themes of this thread, Atlanta’s baseball team for 64 years was called “The Atlanta Crackers.” They disbanded when the Braves moved here in 1966, but there are still some old-timers who have great stories of seeing the Crackers play. I lived here in the mid-1960s for a few years but I wasn’t a baseball fan then and never went to a Crackers game. Now I regret that.
Belafon
OT: (Fox news link) A Bitcoin CEO found dead in Singapore, an apparent suicide. And not one of the two companies in the news.
SatanicPanic
@ranchandsyrup: Definitely, maybe when the Rockies are in town?
Neutron Flux
@SiubhanDuinne: That’s a nice story. For me, I must agree with Micheal Bersin above. I am a Royals fan.
SiubhanDuinne
@Betty Cracker:
Great story! Someone up thread said you should write a book about your mom. I agree. It would compete with Life with Father, Auntie Mame, and Cheaper by the Dozen as one of my favourite funny family books!
schrodinger's cat
@Betty Cracker: Was they cute?
SiubhanDuinne
@Neutron Flux:
I am, first, a Braves fan and, second, a Cubs fan — but mostly I’m a baseball fan. I just really enjoy the game, and if I don’t have a dog in the fight I’ll just watch for the sheer grace and athleticism.
rikyrah
Meet The 7 Democrats Who Just Voted Down A Civil Rights Nominee For Supporting Civil Rights
BY IAN MILLHISER ON MARCH 5, 2014 AT 12:56 PM
Debo Adegbile, who previously served as the acting head of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, is one of the nation’s top civil rights attorneys. He’s also a leading expert on voting rights who twice defended the Voting Rights Act before the Supreme Court — the first time successfully. He was, in other words, an ideal candidate to lead the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division — the division which, among other things, oversees the federal government’s voting rights work in an era where conservative state lawmakers are currently waging a widespread campaign to prevent demographic groups that tend to vote for Democrats from casting a ballot.
And yet, the Senate just voted his nomination down, thanks to seven Democrats. TheDemocrats who opposed Adegbile’s confirmation are Sens. Bob Casey (D-PA), Chris Coons (D-DE), Joe Donnelly (D-IN), Heidi Heitkamp (D-ND), Joe Manchin (D-WV), Mark Pryor (D-AR) and John Walsh (D-MT
http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2014/03/05/3364851/meet-the-7-democrats-who-just-voted-down-a-civil-rights-nominee-for-supporting-civil-rights/
Villago Delenda Est
@rikyrah:
But…but…Heidi Heidkamp is constantly telling me she’s a progressive, like Elizabeth Warren, Al Franken, and Jeanne Shaheen!
Another Holocene Human
@Cacti: Btw, the person who still uses at outhouse, one should hasten to point out, is not some degraded, slack-jawed, unlearned mountain hick, but a CHEAP-ASS MOTHERFUCKER. Because in New England, the word that follows “Yankee” is “thrift”, a nice euphemism for never replacing anything, freezing your ass in wool blankets in the winter, curb shopping, yadda yadda.
Another Holocene Human
@rikyrah: The hell? Jesus, fuck Delaware.
ranchandsyrup
@SatanicPanic: I’ll start inquiring abt tickets.
Another Holocene Human
@SiubhanDuinne: The “Dutch” explanation has no textual support. It’s a just-so story* that doesn’t even make sense if you sound it out in Dutch. (Btw, New Amsterdammers are Knickerbockers, not Yankees.)
A Cherokee origin is completely nonsensical if you look at a map.
There is, IIRC, some primary text support for the Iroquois theory from the late Colonial period.
Wikipedia doesn’t know everything.
*-like saying “okay” comes from “Orl Korrect” when there’s overwhelming evidence it derives from West African languages
Roger Moore
@SatanicPanic:
Teams that have actually won the World Series recently have less need to brag about how soon they’re going to win it.
Gordon, the Big Express Engine
I have both a Weyland Yutani Building Better Worlds t-Shirt. I have been asked “What do they do” several times. I always explain it as if it’s a real company.
Another Holocene Human
The “Dutch” theory is that the work yankee comes from “Jan Kees” which would be pronounced “yawn CASE”, meaning a cheese merchant, presumably in New York.
Nonsense.
Rob in CT
I embrace the hate.
Let’s Go Yankees! [They look to be decent but not particularly good this year, so much schadenfreude could be available to the haters. 85-90 wins & no playoff appearance is pretty likely, IMO]
Kylroy
@japa21: Yes, if we have few injuries and all our players get hot this year we may yet achieve that grandest dream of the bottom 2/3rds of MLB – losing in the NLDS to a team with twice our budget. Maybe, if we’re really lucky, we’ll get to lose in the NL*C*S instead!
Feh, I say. If Mr. Moneyball can’t get his A’s into the World Series, no other team that isn’t spending the GDP of several African nations on it’s payroll has a chance.
If I’m gonna pray for ridiculous good luck for the hometown team, I’d prefer it fall on the Packers, because if they get it, they’ll actually win a championship.
Belafon
@Another Holocene Human:
Considering that the section quoted contained numerous citations, your blowing it off is weak.
El Caganer
@rikyrah: I’m sure Casey voted against because of Adegbile’s one-time defense work for Mumia (PA law enforcement was in a frenzy about this nomination). Don’t understand any of the others, though.
Gordon, the Big Express Engine
@Villago Delenda Est: 3 and 2 to Mookie Wilson. Little roller up along first. Behind the bag! It gets through Buckner!!! Here comes Knight and the Mets win it!!!!!
One of the great moments in my personal sports fandom. I was 14.
catclub
@Kylroy: “the Dodgers would also have 27 championships”
I never got the impression the Brooklyn Dodgers had money. Now, the LA Dodgers have a GDP.
Angela
@Aimai: What Aimai wrote Betty Cracker. Repeat as needed.
FlipYrWhig
@rikyrah: Coons has been horrible lately, pissing and puling before AIPAC and now this. I expected to like him from his Senate run. I’m getting annoyed. And I don’t know what the deal is with Casey, who’s been better than I expected, but not here.
catclub
@rikyrah: Sure sounds like the Irish cop wing of the Democratic party. This is one drawback to no filibuster of nominees. Democrats not on board for the final vote, either.
FlipYrWhig
@Kylroy: In the last 5 years baseball has seen teams making the playoffs that include Pittsburgh, Baltimore, Cleveland, Oakland, Tampa Bay, Minnesota, and Milwaukee. The competitive balance issue is IMHO vastly overstated.
Anoniminous
Re: definition of “Yankee”
Surprised no one has mentioned the thesis I learned growing up in Louisiana. To wit,
They are called that because “assholes” was already taken.
JustRuss
@Another Holocene Human:
That can’t be right, Jesus loves the dairy products industry:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-xLUEMj6cwA
BGK
In my late ’70s/early ’80s Catholic elementary and junior high schools, Yankee fandom was a very, very close second to Holy Mother Church as a subject of worship, including among the nuns we had. Though we had, contrary to the tropes, no physical disciplinary action whatsoever, I can so imagine Sister Anne Therese, had she seen that shirt, grabbing the closest stick and beating you into next week. Or else, pulling down her office window shade had she seen the youngsters outside delivering a beatdown for same.
Also too, living near Ft. Myers, I calculated $0.36 of my annual property tax tab goes toward financing the absolute cornholing we took from the Red Sox on the JetBlue Park deal. If it wouldn’t get me tagged as a tax delinquent and all the heartburn that entails, I would so hold back that $0.36.
Also three, I have assurances from the rabid Red Sox fans in the New Hampshire office of one of our suppliers that I have prepaid bail should I, after spotting him somewhere in town, punch Dan Shaughnessy in the back of the head.
Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism
@Belafon: Four of the citations go to the same work, The Merriam-Webster new book of word histories (1991). I’d give more weight to the pair of citations to Michael Quinion, myself.
Number of citations is meaningless.
Karen in GA
@Betty Cracker: Echoing what’s already been said. What a great story, and a great mom.
Another Holocene Human
Wait wait wait, I read that TP article–this is over Mumia spite? I guess that would explain the PA vote. Man did that whole thing bring out the crazy authoritarians.
Personally, I feel like Mumia is guilty, but even a guilty man deserves due process of law. Those people screaming “Cop killer!” are as dishonest as the “why do you hate America” crew during Bush II’s first term.
ruemara
@duhkaman: I hate to mention, but I’m gonna. It is mentioned in text. God is just fucking with Job to prove to Satan that he’s so awesome, he can screw wildly with this faithful man, lay waste to his sons & daughters-but that beaten dog will never turn against God. Essentially, he is the Marquis deal Sade, but with fluffy clouds and glory. A most disturbing biblical book.
Kylroy
@FlipYrWhig: Yes, and the number of champions among the seven teams you listed can be counted on the fingers of one head. Only the Rays even made it to the World series.
Yeah, it’s nice that teams that aren’t big spenders are getting into the postseason. But the fact is that pay disparities mean that a bottom-2/3rds team can only be good for a year or two before their talent is lured away by teams with deep pockets, and you can’t build a championship team in one or two years (at least not when you constantly need to replace your stars).
Baseball’s timid profit sharing means that small market teams can opt to spend the money on players and put up a decent record and may even see the postseason, but an actual championship *will* *not* *happen*. I almost admire the brazen move by the Astros owner of just pocketing the money and fielding a crap team: “Thanks for the cash, let me know when I can actually compete and I’ll think about it.”
Roger Moore
@SiubhanDuinne:
Even more ridiculous, the city’s Negro League team was actually known as “The Atlanta Black Crackers“. More evidence that Americans have always been irony impaired.
Betty Cracker
@ruemara: Yes. The abominable behavior of many of the chief protagonists in the bible — especially God! — was what first made me go, “Hmmmm, maybe this is ALL bullshit!” when I was a child.
Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism
@ruemara: And I’ve heard a credible argument, I think at Slacktivist, that Job was written not as history but to scold the “misfortune is deliberately set upon you by g-d for your failings” types.
Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN)
@Kylroy: One of the smallest markets in MLB is St. Louis. Detroit is below average. Tell me another story.
Kathleen
@brettvk: My condolences, Betty. I love your stories about your Mom.
And that guy was probably a New York Snow Bird? (BTW, my daughter who lives in Tampa lives and breathes the Rays).
Rob in CT
@Kylroy:
You’ve overstated the case.
Revenue sharing isn’t enough for full balance (and never will be), but the idea that a small market team will “never ever” win a championship is absurd. The Rays example is pretty interesting, because they’re not “small market” so much as “no market.” [or rather no developed market. There are people there – their problem goes beyond population] I’d be fascinated to see what the Rays management team could do with a small market but not absurdly so team. The Indians, for example. Or the Twins. The Rockies?
Revenue sharing + the draft (now with actual slot bonus rules) means that the poorer teams really can build teams and the big dogs really do have a harder time staying on top. They do not, however, create a truely level playing field. The Yankees, Sox, Dodgers, etc. retain an advantage.
Back to potential market vs. developed market: theoretically, the Marlins have a solid market. But they’re a joke in terms of revenue/fan support. Theoretically, the St. Louis Cardinals rank 18th or 19th in MLB in market size (putting them in the bottom 2/3, notice), but they punch above their weight. The Mariners and Orioles (and Mets) punch below theirs, IMO. Some of that – often a LOT of that – is on the team’s ownership and management. In the case of St. Louis and Boston, it’s that mixed with nobody else in a broad region around them (Red Sox have New England. There no other viable MLB market there, so they basically get it by default).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Baseball_Bugs/population
So, is the current setup perfect? No, of course not. But I’d give the recent draft slot bonus changes some time before you just declare the whole thing a sham.
KS in MA
@Botsplainer: Co-sign.
FlipYrWhig
@Kylroy: Rob and JMN got there before I did. I agree with them. “Market size” is clearly beside the point, or Houston and San Diego and Miami, not to mention the Mets, would be dominant teams. And if your measurement is not playoff appearances but WS wins, you can hardly complain about the LA Dodgers. To the degree that there’s distortion in competitive balance in MLB, it’s almost entirely a Yankees-Red Sox issue. If playoff appearances aren’t the metric, you could say the same thing about the NFL, where teams like Atlanta and Houston and Carolina briefly flourish. And the NBA has a gulf between the teams who win at a 65% clip — relatively rare in MLB — and the weaklings who scuffle along at 33% and worse. So I really don’t think MLB is the flagship for the problem of big money in sports.
Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again)
@Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN):
Detroit is in the upper half. The fan base isn’t only the entire state of Michigan, but the Toledo Strip and Southern Ontario (Wayne Gretzky is a huge Tigers fan from his childhood), too. What St. Louis lacks in market size, it makes up for with an intensely loyal fan base.
Kylroy
@Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN): Does the story of what teams actually pay their players count?
http://deadspin.com/2013-payrolls-and-salaries-for-every-mlb-team-462765594
I suppose you can flag me for the Cardinals being 11th on that list, rather than 10th. And I never said money guarantees championships – it’s just a prerequisite.
@Rob in CT
OK, if there are recent rules changes regarding the draft, I’ll concede they may take time to affect the game. But I’ll believe it when I see an actual World Series champion from the bottom 2/3rds of the payrolls.
Kylroy
@FlipYrWhig: The NBA suffers from the problem of playing a 5 man sport – a handful of greats in one place distort the whole league.
Also…the Bucks have been varying degrees of mediocre my entire life, so I don’t follow the sport too closely. I’ll concede it’s less balanced, but I don’t know what the league can do in the face of, say, three players accepting salaries below their market value so they can play on the same team and rack up championships.
Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN)
@Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again): Almost every team has a fan base that extends beyond the direct metro area but that’s where the bulk of the money comes from. Baltimore draws heavily from the D.C. metro area. Toronto draws from all of Canada. The Twins draw from across the upper midwest.
And my source is this. Detroit is the 14th largest metro area in the U.S. All of the areas above them have a MLB team and three of them, all more than twice as large as Detroit, have two, plus Toronto isn’t on that list and is a lot larger than Detroit. By my count that puts Detroit at 18th.
Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN)
@Kylroy:
Count for what? The reason St. Louis can spend more is because they have done a good job of marketing themselves and the local populace supports them more heavily than do fans of other teams. Sorry, but teams that are successful like that SHOULD be able to win more championships than teams that are incapable of running themselves well.
Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN)
And that’s the Padres big problem: not market size but the fact that they’ve been run by complete fuckups for decades.
Kylroy
@Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN): Well, by that standard, the Yankees are the awesomest team ever, and MLB’s luxury tax and profit sharing are unfair attempts to contain their perfection.
Me, I prefer leagues where franchise success is determined by player development and management, rather than marketing.
Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again)
@Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN):
And according to this, the Tigers’ market is #12. The markets for sports franchises include not only the home metro area, but those areas that are covered by the franchises’ radio and tv networks. The converse to Detroit here is San Diego, which ranks 17th on the list of metropolitan areas by size, but 26th as an MLB market- the Padres’ market is blocked in the north by the Dodgers and, to lesser extent, the Angels, and in the east by the Diamondbacks.
chrome agnomen
@c u n d gulag:
i said it more times than i can count. i’m so old that i remember when i had respect for the yankees and their organization. that need long ago. about the time george took over.
Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN)
@Kylroy: St. Louis fans care more than Padres fans do, as demonstrated by the fact that they spend more money on the team. I don’t see why that shouldn’t be rewarded. Well run businesses are always going to be more successful than poorly run ones and marketing is a part of running a business whether you like it or not.
And there isn’t a league out there where that’s not true. If you think the success of the “small market” Green Bay Packers is somehow divorced from them having done an outstanding job of marketing themselves over the decades, you’re deluded.
Roger Moore
@Kylroy:
Good players are generally going to be more expensive than bad players, so it’s no surprise when good teams are expensive. There are also some quirks about the way team payrolls are reported; they’re usually based on what teams are paying late in the season, so trades that depend on how the teams are performing- pickups for teams that are doing well and salary dumps for teams that are out of it- affect the quoted payrolls. The big question is no whether the most expensive teams tend to win. That’s expected. The big question is whether teams in small markets can afford a payroll big enough to compete when they have the talent to justify spending that much. As long as they can- and the existence of successful, high salary small market teams suggests they can- then there isn’t a huge problem.
Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN)
@Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again): Any ranking system that claims that Oakland is the second smallest market in the majors is fundamentally flawed, to the point of being unconnected to reality. Their problems are largely self-inflicted, thus pissing away what should be a good market. Look into the history of their broadcast contracts, for instance.
And that’s the basic problem with this piece: because it looks at revenue streams themselves, it conflates incompetence with genuinely small markets.
Rob in CT
@Kylroy:
The proper comparison for the Yankees is the Mets. Now it’s true you’d want to give the Yankees a small handicap b/c they had the advantage of being the established (and already wildly successful) team when the Mets came into being. However, it’s been 50 years now, and the Mets are not even close to being as successful as the Yankees.
This does not mean the Yankees don’t have real advantages over other (non-Mets, anyway) teams. They do! The New York Metro area is a staggeringly huge market.
Both things are true: the Yankees have done a good job marketing their product *and* they have a built-in advantage over almost all other teams.
Rob in CT
Oh, and by the way: player development and management is important in baseball. It’s one of the reasons the Yankees haven’t been doing all that well of late. They haven’t been developing new players. This is partly b/c they’ve had success and thus draft late and partly because baseball prospectin’ is a crapshoot, but moreso it’s because they pissed away some draft picks in making dumb panic trades, traded away some good young players/prospects in other trades that, while they weren’t terrible, now don’t look so good (Granderson for Kennedy and Austin Jackson now looks like a clear loss) *and* their ability to pay over-slot bonuses to prospects who magically “fall” in the draft (by making it clear they’ll hold out for a bonus only the rich teams can provide) is no longer kosher. Their last truely great player was Cano, who they got ioff the international free agent market (bon voyage, Robinson! Good luck with that contract, Mariners!). Brett Gardner is a good player and all, but if he’s all you have (from in-house), it hurts even a team as rich as the Yankees. And the Yankees aren’t so well run as to make up for it with straight up cashola.
So again, I’m not claiming all is perfect with the system, but I see problems with the NFL approach too.
Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again)
@Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN):
Their biggest problem is that they moved into an area that the Giants had effectively locked down upon arrival. Yeah, the A’s blew the opportunity to make inroads when Finley channeled Connie Mack and parted out the championship teams of ’72-’74, but they were never going to fully emerge from the shadow of the Giants- or the Raiders.
Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN)
@Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again): Sure, but they also badly mismanaged their local broadcasting rights, refused to try to market strongly, spent a decade alienating their fan base by threatening to move, and signed a really stupid lease agreement.
Oakland should not be a small market and the team has done a terrible job of trying to develop it.
Fred Fnord
Another possible response to his question is ‘Because the Yankees have more money than God.’
Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again)
@Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN):
That’s the history of the A’s, though, isn’t it? They owned Philadelphia for decades. The Phillies were a joke*. Then, in the ’40s, with the Phillies living down to expectations, the A’s lost the market.
*ETA: There was a large billboard on the huge right field wall at the Baker Bowl for a brand of bar soap. It read, “The Phillies use Life Buoy”. The common addendum from the fans was, “…and they still stink!”
Kylroy
@Rob in CT: Teams with money can drop the ball, clearly – look at the Dodgers. It’d be nice if some quantity of bad decisions actually keeps the Yankees from contention for a while – maybe the relatively recent luxury tax is what keeps them from just spending their way out of mistakes?
But again, I never said money buys championships, I said you can’t get championships without money. TTP(JMN) is making a (specific, sports-related) version of “the unsuccessful DESERVE their failure!” – which, when you’re talking about millionaires working for billionaires, is a harsh but hardly heartless point of view. I just object that it results in a league where the majority of teams can never realistically hope to win a championship. You’re gonna get dysfunctional organizations in any setup, and they’re gonna stink – MLB has the Padres, NFL has the Lions. But where the Lions can hope to run things better and be where the Sea hawks are in a decade or less, the Padres can aspiring to be…the Twins? The A’s, maybe? Because any desire to ape the Yankees or the Cardinals is purest fantasy.
Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN)
@Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again): Pretty much. And no one has ever come up with competitive balance for stupid.
LT
“For the same reason the Lord allowed the Babylonians to sack Jerusalem, let the Philistines defeat the Israelites and visited calamities upon Job,” I replied. “Sometimes evil triumphs.”
Awesome
Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again)
@Kylroy:
We shall see what the future brings, but I don’t think the Jaguars can compete if they stay in Jacksonville. That was a bad location from the get-go. Deron Cherry must be a fuckin’ Jedi knight.
Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again)
@Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN):
Well….There are the Cubs. Horribly mismanaged for….ever….And they still have a huge following.
Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again)
@Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again):
The Cubs lost me (they were my NL team- the Tigers are and will always be #1) when they let Maddux get away. Idiots.
Talentless Hack
FWIW, God visited the calamities upon Job to settle a bar bet with the Devil.
chrome agnomen
@Another Holocene Human:
i still use an outhouse, dipshit.
/yankee
feebog
@cleek:
I have one that says “Jesus is coming! Everybody look busy!” I’m in SoCal; no one has even asked what it means or taken offense.
Cheryl from Maryland
@Roger Moore: Not just a theory. It is known via the musical “Damn Yankees.” The Yankees are Satan’s favorite team. Rent the film with Ray Walston as Mr. Applegate, aka the Devil.