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| Monday, June 10 Updated: June 11, 5:23 PM ET Relegation? Make teams earn major league status By Jim Caple ESPN.com |
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Soccer fans always act as if Americans should be ashamed of themselves for not liking the sport and not going wild over the World Cup. The implication is we're too ignorant to appreciate the world's "most popular sport" and that we're missing out on the one thing that binds the rest of humanity together besides Benetton. That's rubbish. We should feel no guiltier about not embracing soccer than we do about not using the metric system. It's the rest of the world that's missing out on the best sport ever invented: baseball. If they would rather watch 90 minutes of passing followed by a penalty kick instead of Barry Bonds launching balls into McCovey Cove, that's their tough luck (along with having to watch Keanu Reeves and "Sweet November" with subtitles). That said -- and before you soccer fans flood me with email about my national jingoism or about how many millions of American kids play soccer (hey, millions of kids go to school, too, but that doesn't mean that when they become adults they're all going to watch the History Channel instead of the Yankees-Red Sox game) -- baseball can learn something from world soccer. I'm not talking about hooligans. Lord knows, we have enough problems with Yankees fans. I'm talking about competitive imbalance. Here's how soccer deals with it. In many countries, there are several tiers to their soccer leagues, beginning with the premier league which has the best teams, and working on down. It's similar to our various major and minor leagues except for one very significant difference. Teams don't necessarily stay in the same tier year after year. Those that are successful are promoted up to the next level. Those that are not, are relegated down a division. It would be an interesting system to apply to baseball. No city or team would own an inalienable right to major league status by virtue of tradition or a relative in the commissioner's office. No city would be condemned forever to the minors simply because it paid for a light-rail system instead of a stadium with a retractable roof during the last expansion round. What a concept. Teams would no longer be judged by the size of their luxury suites but by their winning percentage. A team's performance on the field would be of primary importance, not its profit margin. No team could afford to rest on its market size. Bad teams wouldn't be rewarded for their poor play with revenue-sharing subsidies. Meanwhile, smaller cities could feel a sense of real pride and ownership in watching their teams move up. Portland and D.C. want to be in the majors? It wouldn't take expansion or an Act of Congress, just a damn good team. To avoid a team being unfairly punished for one bad season, relegation could be based on play over multiple years. You wouldn't necessarily have a team demoted every year, so one last-place finish wouldn't doom you to the minors, either. But if you finished in last place for four consecutive seasons (start sweating, Texas) or had 10 consecutive losing seasons (don't forget to write, Milwaukee), it would be time to get out the change of address forms. The beauty of this system is no team could take its place in the major leagues for granted. Owners fearful of losing their major league membership and secret decoder rings couldn't condemn fans to endless rebuilding years. Players fearful of Triple-A would be compelled to care more about winning than padding their stats for arbitration. Incentive would no longer be simply a clause in a contract. True, there are as many holes in this system as in "The Sum of All Fears." But those holes could be patched with imagination and an open mind. And wouldn't be any harder than accepting Ben Affleck in a dramatic role. Consider the minor leagues. Naturally, major league teams facing relegation would never allow top prospects to help a minor league affiliate possibly move up and take their place. That means the minors would have to shift from being strictly developmental farm systems to being truly competitive leagues. While that's not in the interests of the major league clubs who own the player contracts, it isn't necessarily bad. After all, it's the way the game worked quite successfully once upon a time. Sure, there are plenty of other problems but there are problems now, too. As it is, Bud Selig and the owners want to relegate at least two teams to the cemetery, which is far worse than being sent to Triple-A (though maybe not in the case of Scranton). So if we're going to talk about getting rid of major league teams, let's make sure we're weeding out the bad ones. Again, save your e-mail. I realize this is such a sweeping change that it not only will never happen, it will not even be considered. But if we endure another lengthy work stoppage later this year, perhaps it should be. Besides, wouldn't you just love watching Tom Hicks squirm while he figures out how to get the money to pay A-Rod's salary with the Pacific Coast League Rangers?
Box score line of the week Until Sunday, that is. And the meeting between the best hitter of the era and the best pitcher of the era was hardly worth the wait. In one of the more eagerly awaited matchups of interleague play, Bonds stepped to the plate four times against Clemens and never put a ball in play. Clemens saw to that. He hit him once and walked him three times, twice intentionally. Bonds also walked against the Yankees bullpen and finished with a record-tying three intentional walks. Barry's line: 0 AB, 1 R, 0 H, 0 RBI, 4 BB, 1 HBP It was as if Larry Dierker were suddenly managing the Yankees. "If you want to see him get more hacks, come at 5 o'clock,'' Clemens told reporters when asked about the fans booing him for not pitching to Bonds. "Come early for batting practice."
Lies, damn lies and statistics
Off Base Power Rankings
Infield chatter
Jim Caple is a senior writer for ESPN.com. He can be reached at cuffscaple@hotmail.com |
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