What a great weekend so far for the heroic BoSox, once again fighting the Evil Empire and their newly christened star, A-Hole. Friday night was looking rough, especially after A -Hole (the hottest freaking hitter on the planet right now) blasted a 3 run homer in the 5th inning. However, even at this dark moment I saw something I liked; Coco Crisp's tumble into the bullpen while attempting to catch the HR. (As my friend Salad texted me "Ha Ha, Coco go boom=!" Well , Mr. Yankee fan, Coco did indeed go boom then, but his heart and guts showed through in the 8th inning when his 2 run triple against Uber-Closer Mariano Rivera blew the game against the Sox. Again. - (9 Blown saves out of 29 chances against the Sox) - Following up his blown game against Oakland a few days earlier against a player batting .059, Mo gives up the triple to the struggling Crisp (.192). 5 runs in the 8th, and then Hideki Okajima, an unknown dude signed primarily to help Dice-K be as comfortable as possible with his adjustment to Boston, gets a sweet 22 pitch save since Wunderkid Jonathen Papelbon had already pitched back to back games. Of course, the amazing A-Rod didn't come up with the big hit at the end of the game.
Yesterday another Sox win, 4th of the year for Beckett. A note to Yankee fans - if you want to remember prime Mo, just watch Paps. (0.00 ERA) So now the Yankees are a .500 team with a 195 million dollar payroll!. (The beauty of being a Sox fan is that even with our payroll at 142 million the Yanks are still higher by 53 million dollars. In other words the Yanks spend approximately 37 percent more on payroll than the Sox, so don't believe the hype about the Yankees cutting payroll. They are 1 mid season signing away from the 200 million mark!
Objectively I believe a ceiling and basement established for MLB teams would be a good first step and I've always considered the 60 to 120 million dollar range to be fair. Parameters like this would only affect the Yanks and Sox at the top end. San Diego, Colorado and Arizona are all over 50 million, with S.D. at 58 so spending a little more for these teams would keep them in the mix. Pittsburgh, Washington, Florida, and Tampa Bay would either have to pay up or get out. I would rather have 26 teams making a legit effort to compete than 30 teams with bottom feeders. MLB was disgraceful with the manner in which they handled the Nationals, the Marlins have shown they can win when they spend, Tampa Bay will never generate real revenue, even with a dome, and I don't know what to say about Pittsburgh. They supposedly have a beautiful park but until they become respectable they will continue to be a bottom feeder.
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