The Evil Empire North?

I rolled out of bed this morning at roughly 11:30, brushed my teeth, grabbed some water and went to my computer.

Priority #1. Making sure Yahoo still credited Green Bay Packers WR Antonio Chatman w/ 14 yards instead of 15 (The yardage Al Michaels announced the catch as) which had left a team I need to catch 1 point short of a win this week... HUGE!

Priority #2. Confirm the Josh Beckett/Mike Lowell deal for Hanley Ramirez, Anibel Sanchez and a A pitcher. CHECK! Again, huge. In case you didnt get the memo, we dont like the Yankees at this site (or redheaded males from Scarsdale).

Priority #3. Make it later priority to pick up flowers for Mama Sippy Momo. Today is her birthday and damn do I love her

Priority #4. Check the e-mail.

So I checked my e-mail. Back in my better days as a member of the employment line, I used to be an e-mailing machine. See, I didn't do all that much at my job and found e-mails as a way to pass the time, maybe catch a laugh or two, after I had sucked out every ounce of information that ESPN and Yahoo Sports had to offer, and after I had given a thorough read through of the bible, the New York Post.

So I had about 33 e-mails from this one group of friends of mine, they all seemed well.

Then I had one from Sippy Momo Sr. which read:

Are the Red Sox becoming the Evil Empire North? Is that why Theo quit?

Sippy Momo Sr.

At first, I brushed this question off as a father trying to relate to a son (no disrespect, pops). About 2 minutes later though, I thought some more and a million things ran through my head.

1. Why did my father sign his e-mail with his full name? No Dad or D? That just gave me a little chuckle.

2. But had the Red Sox, America's favorite underdog, become the Evil Empire North?

The answer to that is no.

If the Yankees had the prospects to make this deal, it would have been done months ago. Every small team in baseball knows that if they want to dump salary, they go to the Bombers.

The Red Sox payroll still remains roughly 60% of the Yankees. The difference between them equals the salaries of the Royals, Devil Rays and about half of the Tribe. It's enough to fit an A-Rod and a Matsui (the good one, not ours, although you could fit an A-Rod and two Kazuos if you were so inclined) in there.

What is evil about this trade is the shape of baseball today.

Major League baseball has almost established itself into two sections.

1. The Major Leagues
2. Their farm systems

In the majors are all the big teams. The Mets, Yankees, Red Sox, Angels, Cubs, Dodgers. These are the big city teams with the big money.

In the farm you have the Marlins, A's, D-Rays. These teams have no money and payroll restrictions.

So after five or six years of quality play for one of these farm teams, a player enters his prime and is either traded for rookies or lost to free agency to, surprise, surprise...one of the bigger teams.

Think of what those three aforementioned farm teams alone have lost or will lose in the last 3-4 years, including this one.

1b. Jason Giambi
2b. Luis Castillo
SS. Miguel Tejada
3b. Mike Lowell
RF. Aubrey Huff
CF. Juan Pierre
LF. Julio Lugo (we'll throw him in there, the guy has speed)
DH. Carlos Delgado

SP. Mulder
SP. Hudson
SP. Beckett
SP. Burnett
SP. Pavano

RP. Foulke
RP. Baez
RP. Benitez

This may be the greatest team could have ever been put on a baseball field.

Is there a single one of these players that would have left any of the big teams I listed above? Not one. None of them would let them go.

It'd be like someone telling me that the Mets had to choose between signing David Wright or Jose Reyes and losing the other.

Is this really what baseball has become?

Major league baseball is now the one major professional sport in the United States without a salary cap. Competitive balance has returned to every other sport but not baseball.

Unfortunately, Major League baseball (The Real Evil Empire) has the defense that the small market teams like the A's and Indians remain very competitive.

This argument stinks. You should check the archive, "Thank God The Yankees Play Baseball" from October 26th. It highlights the fact that if the Yankees could do what they do financially, in any other sport, how they would never lose.

It just so happens that baseball is a game that in any given series of three, The Charlotte Bobcats could beat the San Antonio Spurs 2 out of 3.

This would not happen, in basketball or football. And I'm not sure, Sans Goat, that anyone really cares about hockey.

Basically writing this blog has saddened me. It made me think of my father's second question, to the e-mail that he so appropriately signed with his full name:

Is this why Theo quit?

I hope not, but I'm worried that it might be.

Could it be that baseball's owners are just truly greedy? That they care about the money more than the game? That their team is an investment instead of their pride and joy?

Me and my friends always joke about how if any of us get rich, we will buy a team and we can all run it. But people like us aren't the one's that make that money. It is usually nerds that do that. The nerds that we used to give swirly's too in the bathroom.

Note: Unemployed people that blog and live with their parents is not nerdy, nay, it is the new chic.

So are these Scarsdale born, red headed owners using baseball to get back at us?

I don't really know, but again, this is all making me kind of sad. And I gotta hit the road, call the deli for the SM special, Roast beef sandwich, sour cream and onion chips, rasberry snapple and you know it... A NEW YORK POST.

As the great Ghost Face Killer once said, "Word up Mommy I love you,"

Sippy Momo