Fair Ball: A Fan's Case for Baseball (review)

Throughout its long history, baseball has been confronted with a litany of problems. In just the past twenty years, labor strife, illicit drugs, expansion, and free agency, to name just a few, have befuddled and maddened team owners, players, and fans. But not since the Black Sox fiasco became public in 1920 has the competitive integrity of the game been threatened as it is at the beginning of the new millennium.

Overcoming fears of being shunned and labeled a mere "traditionalist" or "purist," Bob Costas, this generation's most awarded and perhaps most respected sports broadcaster, tackles baseball's current malaise and offers cogent solutions. In Fair Ball: A Fan's Case for Baseball, he offers a logical, reasoned, dispassionate argument, based upon the evidence at hand.

A debate about revenue sharing isn't nearly as interesting as arguing the merits of the DH or whether the time has come for the wild card and an extra round of playoffs. But, unless the economics of the sport are changed so that more than one-third of the teams have a hope to be competitive, nothing else really matters. It's true that baseball has always had dynasties: Ruth's, DiMaggio's, and Mantle's Yankees instantly come to mind. Further, big market teams have always had an advantage in attracting the best players, and some small market teams have been forced to sell their talent to pay the bills. Connie Mack periodically was forced to dismantle his championship Philadelphia Athletics clubs and rebuild from scratch. But prior to the mid-1990s, baseball's dominant teams weren't predestined. In the first fifteen years of free agency, the competitive balance in baseball actually increased. Yes, the Yankees and the Dodgers won World Championships, but so did the A's, the Reds, the Royals, the Pirates, and the Twins. Since the 1994 strike, however, no team has made the World Series without having one of baseball's top ten payrolls, and the victor has always been in the top five. The economics of the game have rendered the success of the small market clubs not merely improbable, but impossible. Major League Baseball is generating plenty of total revenue. The problem is that the current salary scale is totally out of control, and existing revenues are not being distributed equitably.

Revenue and Competition

Costas's goal with revenues is to flatten the disparity between the haves and the have-nots, to make every team successful off the field and competitive on it. Under his proposal, each team would keep one-half of their broadcasting revenues and deposit the other one-half into a pot, which would then be equally divided among the thirty clubs. Similarly, Costas would allow the teams to keep a portion of their ticket and stadium revenues and deposit the rest into the equally divided pot. Once revenues are distributed more equitably, Costas advocates not only a salary cap but a salary floor (set at one-half the maximum cap) as well. The specific numbers aren't really important, but their effect is. By his estimation, Costas's plan would dramatically reduce the disparity in team's revenues and payrolls, and the result would be a more competitive and compelling game on the field.

All this may make perfect sense for Costas and baseball fans, but what's in it for the owners and the Player's Association? Unlike a totally free market economy, the Yankees, Braves, and other big-money clubs can only survive if their rivals also thrive. While the Yankees must try to beat the Royals on the field, they can't try to put the club out of business. Nobody will pay to see the Yankees play intrasquad games or the Indians and the Orioles play 81 games apiece. The Steinbrenners and Turners would be asked to give up some revenue and live with more healthy competition for the good of the industry. In exchange, fan interest, and revenues, would...