Mark Gilroy

In 2006 the Harlem Globetrotters got win number 22,000. From 1971 to 1985 they won 8,829 straight games. In 1948-49 they beat the NBA champion Minneapolis Lakers two years in a row, which was a major factor in integrating the NBA. But most of their wins have come against various “stooge” teams, most owned by Red Klotz: the Boston Shamrocks, New Jersey Reds, Baltimore Rockets, the Washington Generals, and the Atlantic City Seagulls were a few.

Legends like Meadow Lark Lemon, Curly Neal, and Sweetwater Clifton are from a long ago era – already past their prime when I saw them as a kid – but amazingly, the team founded by Abe Saperstein in 1926 is still touring and entertaining the world.

Yes, the Globetrotters have steadfastly claimed that their “exhibition” games were competitive, but everyone knows better. The games have been the backdrop for one of the most enduring and entertaining comedy sketches of all time.

Competition in sports assumes two persons or parties with similar levels of ability – and fair rules.

The NBA is contending with charges that the league encouraged referees to “affect” the outcomes of certain playoff games. Anyone who watched Game 6 of the 2002 playoff series between Los Angeles and Sacramento has not problem believing that to be true, though the greatest mystery of the game was probably Shaq hitting 75% of his free throws. And anyone who watched Jeff Van Gundy, now an ESPN-ABC announcer, explain that he didn’t mean what he said when he said that very thing as Coach of the Houston Rockets, knows how awkward that topic is for those with a vested interest in protecting a league that is supposedly competitive first and entertaining second. But I digress …

Returning to the subject of my previous blog, Major League Baseball, and as response to the defenders of this spectacular of beauty, grace, intelligence, and sportsmanship, I would simply say that the numbers don’t lie. The league lacks competitive balance due to the vast gulf between what clubs can afford to pay for talent. Unlike the NFL, the singularly healthy professional sports league in the United States, there is not a revenue sharing plan. That means owners and general managers don’t have to be skilled talent evaluators and traders to build a great team, but rather they simply outbid the have-nots to amass all-star teams on a single roster.

Sure, there are exceptions to the rule and low-payroll teams have a Cinderella year and the high pay-roll clubs have an off year (cough … New … cough … York … cough … Yankees …). But a quick scan of the 2008 payroll figures is a pretty good indicator of how this season will end.

1. Yankees $209,081,579
2. Tigers $138,685,197 (a surprise spender, up from 9th in ’07)
3. Mets $138,293,378 $117,915,819 $20,377,559
4. Red Sox $133,440,037
5. White Sox $121,152,667
6. Angels $119,216,333
7. Cubs $118,595,833 (when you are cursed, does it matter how much you spend?)
8. Dodgers $118,536,038
9. Mariners $117,993,982
10. Braves $102,424,018
11. Cardinals $100,624,450
12. Blue Jays $98,641,957
13. Phillies $98,269,881
14. Astros $88,930,415
15. Brewers $81,004,167
16. Indians $78,970,067
17. Giants $76,904,500
18. Reds $74,277,695
19. Padres $73,677,617
20. Rockies $68,655,500
21. Rangers $68,239,551
22. Orioles $67,196,248
23. Diamondbacks $66,202,713
24. Twins $62,182,767
25. Royals $58,245,500
26. Nationals $54,961,000
27. Pirates $49,365,282
28. A’s $47,967,126
29. Rays $43,820,598
30. Marlins $21,836,500

Certain Major League Baseball teams have discovered the Harlem Globetrotters model for success. Stack the talent and schedule the stooges.

Yes, the dog days of summer are here. That means basketball, a winter sport indigenous to the U.S., is just starting their championship series. And that hockey, another winter sport, but this one transplanted to frigid regions of the U.S. like Phoenix, Dallas, Atlanta, and LA, just crowned a new champion. But as the seconds tick off on the NBA Series between the Lakers and the Celtics, what it really means is that we’re officially entering the dead period before football season starts.

Some sports purists just sat up a little straighter. Say what? Don’t you know it’s baseball season!

True. Baseball is still America’s pastime, particularly if you live in Boston or NYC and can outspend the rest of the league (combined) in the quest for tactical superiority and garnering every spot on the All Star team. But football is America’s passion. And so for the rest of us, excluding St. Louis fans who support their Cards no matter what, Chicago some years (or for certain proud masochistic Cubs fans, every year), and one Cinderella-story elsewhere in America, we just don’t care. Sure, we’ll watch a game or two before the season is over, but the second game depends on whether women’s bowling or billiards (or some combination of those two sports) is in reruns yet.

Just for context, I didn’t grow up with anything but love for baseball. I was born in Dayton, Ohio, about 45 miles north of Cincinnati, and was there when the Big Red Machine terrorized opposing pitchers. (My rookie year as a 5-year-old fan at old Crosley Field was Pete Rose’s rookie year as a player.) I was in Kansas City for most of the George Brett era and attended a minimum of 20-something games a year.

But something happened. It’s not just that the clubs I like started losing. You expect success to be cyclical in sports, unless you’re a Cubs fan, of course. (Sorry for that second gratuitous shot at the Cubbies in one article.) With the explosion of free agency, I discovered I didn’t know half the guys on “my team” from one season to the next. I could have lived with some rebuilding years with a young exciting roster of “our guys”, but once-proud franchises like the Royals and Reds became development squads for the deep pocketed coastal teams. Throw in a couple of strikes, including one that accomplished something that not even Adolf Hitler and Nazi Germany could pull off – shutting down a World Series – and I was gone as a fan. I think forever.

So you’re pretty mad at baseball? You probably think I’m a hater. Nope. The problem is not that I got mad at baseball but that I simply stopped caring a decade ago. And despite publicity gimmicks like the Red Sox winning the World Series and biannual Congressional Steroids hearings, I’ve lost that loving feeling.

It might be Kevin Garnett with a follow up monster jam or Kobe Bryant with an acrobatic mid-air spin move with a reverse lay up that ends the NBA Finals. But whoever does it sometime in the next 10 days or so, all I can say is it’s almost time for football!