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No cents to owner's argument
Attanasio, the owner of the Milwaukee Brewers, lost pitcher CC Sabathia to the Yankees this year when Attanasio couldn't match New York's offer of $161 million to the free-agent pitcher. He recently had this brilliant analysis of modern-day baseball being dominated by large markets:
"We don't know if that's a trend or just an aberration."
I don't claim to be a mathematician, a statistician or sabermetrician, but I can spot a trend when looking at the following numbers:
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Until the blockheads who run baseball enact a hard salary cap - similar to the NFL - and drop the current watered-down revenue sharing plan, which is a Band-Aid for a gaping wound, baseball will never solve its problems.
Attanasio and his fellow owners of small-market teams, such as the Pirates, have their chance to change the financial landscape in baseball when the current Collective Bargaining Agreement with the Players Association expires after the 2011 season. But don't count on it. The small-market owners will cave under the pressure and give in to the New Yorks and Chicagos.
"There are better ways to address the competitive balance than salary caps," Attanasio recently told The Associated Press.
Tell that to the NFL.
• It's two months into the Frontier League's offseason and the Wild Things are still without a manager for next year. Mark Mason was working on a one-year contract last year when the Wild Things stumbled to their first losing season. No decision has been made on his future with the club.
While the majority of Frontier League teams have filled their managerial spots, the long wait is nothing new for Washington. The Wild Things have twice hired a manager in mid-December, and in 2004 they waited until January to announce the hiring of John Massarelli.
• One thing you can count on about the WPIAL playoffs - in any sport - is the site of the events will raise the ire of at least half of those involved. Fans and coaches always are quick to complain when the site is closer to the opponent's school.
Scheduling postseason events is a thankless task and the WPIAL usually does an excellent job. Then there are times, however, when the WPIAL schedules an event that just leaves you asking, "Why are they holding this game here?" That was the case with the Class A volleyball quarterfinal match Tuesday between Jefferson-Morgan and Frazier that was played at Chartiers Valley High School in Heidelberg. The site was more than 40 miles from both schools, yet for the 6 p.m. match the crowd was at least four times that of the Class AAA contest that followed.
"I know they cater to the Class AAA schools when they schedule, but if the WPIAL would have scheduled this match at someplace like California - anywhere that's closer to both schools - we might have filled the place," J-M coach Ron Headlee said.
Maybe the WPIAL doesn't know where Jefferson-Morgan and Frazier are located. In the days before the Internet, when sportswriters had to make telephone calls to WPIAL employees to get updated playoff sites, an Observer-Reporter writer asked why a baseball playoff game between South Fayette and Chartiers-Houston was being played at Beth-Center.
"You know, South Fayette has to drive 30 minutes past Houston to get to Fredericktown," the O-R staffer said.
The WPIAL employee admitted that all he knew about Beth-Center was it was located in Washington County. He just didn't know where in Washington County.
Sports Editor Chris Dugan can be reached at dugan@observer-reporter.com
