It's Time For Some October Baseball

This is why I love baseball. Without the “enlightened,” highly regulated salary cap approach of other major sports leagues (and the NHL, too), major league baseball has managed to put together a post-season dominated by solid, deserving teams that are nevertheless considered underdogs because of their finances.

The Cleveland Indians (23rd highest payroll out of 30 teams), Colorado Rockies (25th) and Arizona Diamondbacks (26th) have proven, yet again, that a team of highly motivated, talented young players can succeed against the teams that spend lavishly for established stars. This speaks well of the team nature of the sport of baseball, as well as for the intangible factor of team chemistry. It is often the case, as it is with each of these three teams, that the low-priced youngsters have played together for many years within the organization prior to getting to The Show. It may be anecdotal evidence, but the results are compelling. The happy result for fans is that we get to see young players who still love the game for what it is, not necessarily for what it can do for them. I defy to to not crack a smile when grown men, playing a boy's game, cheer for each other and their team's accomplishments as if they were still the boys that, in their hearts, they still are.

It is worth noting that so far in the playoffs, these teams have taken down the teams with the highest payroll (New York Yankees), the 8th highest (Chicago Cubs) and the 13th highest (Philadelphia Phillies).

Of course, each of these teams is likely to be crushed by the other team remaining in the playoffs, the Boston Red Sox (2nd highest payroll, who defeated the team with the 4th highest payroll, the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim, Orange County, United States of America).

[Incidentally, one of the other major leagues of world sport that operates without a salary cap, the English Premier League, has come to a completely contrary result. English football is known by its “Big Four”: Manchester United, Liverpool, Arsenal and Chelsea. Spending money in quantities that make George Steinbrenner look like a penurious miser, those four clubs have rarely finished anywhere but the top four places since the Premier League came into existence in 1992. Oddly, English football fans seem to like it that way. If ManU ever goes into a rebuilding cycle, it is certain that scores of supporters will be found blundering about the stoops of pubs the world over, babbling incoherently about how the end is nigh, and that ol’ Sir Alex would nevah’d alloowed this ta ‘appen on ‘is watch.]