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11/6/2009 5:24 AM

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In response to the editorial advocating a salary cap for Major League Baseball, a salary cap would lower salaries - this is my strongest opposition. Will the lower labor costs be passed on to the consumer in the form of lower prices for tickets, parking and concession? Yeah, right. The majority of the profits from business should go to labor, no matter how ridiculous the salaries may be. If a fan wants to pay 8 bucks for a beer, it's the players who brought him to the park - not the suit in the executive suite.

Concerning the myth that a salary cap ensures competitive balance, in the last 10 years 15 different teams have played in the World Series, and eight different teams have won it. For the Super Bowl, 14 different teams, 7 different winners. The salary-capped NBA? Eleven teams, 5 winners. For every frustrated Pirates fan, there are frustrated Browns, Lions, Rams, Clippers and Timberwolves fans tired of seeing the Steelers, Patriots, Colts, Lakers, Spurs and Celtics in the playoffs every year.

Which fans are more deserving of watching better players? You could buy a season ticket to the Pirates for less than a ticket to one game at Yankee Stadium. Who deserves a better meal - the guy who spends 200 bucks at a gourmet restaurant or the guy who stops off for a $5 footlong?

Finally, bad management is bad management. If a ball club breaks its bank on a weak-armed, no-power catcher like Jason Kendall and then halfway through his contract pays another team to take him or trades a young, power-hitting prospect like Aramis Ramirez (who was two or three years from free agency) for the use of a broken-down Kenny Lofton, salary cap or no, that ball club will be a loser.

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The main problems of Major League Baseball involve playoffs dragging into November and incompetent umpiring, not the absence of a salary cap.

Don DeAngelis

Canonsburg


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3 comments

Salary-cap absence : 11/6/2009
..or perhaps by today's standards, baseball just isn't interesting anymore.

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: 11/6/2009
Don is likely a Yankees fan.

Nathan Ealy

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Yeah Right : 11/6/2009
Talk about drinking the New York Kool-Aid! It’s ok to try and argue as to what a salary cap in baseball might do. But to pretend that the NY Yankees don’t have a competitive advantage is absolutely ridiculous. Read this for the proof; http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2009/writers/joe_posnanski/11/05/yankees.payroll/index.html

Baseball Fan

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