Game Over

Imagine participating in a Monopoly tournament in which you were the dog and your opponent was the battleship. At the beginning of every game, your opponent was given $2,000 in paper money to begin, while you were given only $250. Every time the battleship landed on a valuable property, your opponent could buy it, either because he wanted it himself or he wanted to be sure you wouldn't get it. When you landed on an inexpensive property, you bought it, but when the property began to increase in value — because of the changing board — your opponent was able to buy it from you due to his ever — increasing and your ever-decreasing resources. We all know how that tournament would end. On a rare occasion, the dog might be able to pull off an upset victory — for example if the battleship happened to land repeatedly on Boardwalk and Park Place, which you had managed to buy and build hotels on. But over time, the battleship, with its budget of more than eight times yours, would win.

That's essentially how baseball works today. The battleship is the New York Yankees, with a current payroll of $184 million, and the dog is the Milwaukee Brewers, with a payroll of $27 million. The metaphor of Monopoly is not a stretch when it comes to baseball, because baseball is the only national sport that has been accorded legalized monopoly status by the U.S. Supreme Court. Neither football nor basketball — not even Nascar — can escape the rigors of antitrust scrutiny. But baseball can. Why? Because in times past baseball was deemed to be the national pastime rather than a business, and because the Supreme Court in 1972 felt bound by an earlier ill — advised precedent and left the decision to Congress, essentially exempting baseball from antitrust laws. One wonders where the Supreme Court is, now that sports fans really need it. In 2000, Justices Scalia, Thomas, Rehnquist, O'Connor, and Kennedy found an equal protection violation in the Florida presidential election recount. How can it not be a violation of equal protection for the courts to treat baseball so much more advantageously than other sports-businesses with which it competes for fan attention and media dollars?


As a Red Sox fan, I lack standing to complain because my beloved losers have the second-largest payroll in baseball ($127 million-still $57 million less than the Yankees) and still manage to suffer the curse of the Bambino. (This is the year. Really!) But imagine living in Milwaukee, which simply cannot compete. Even Yankees manager Joe Torre recently acknowledged that several teams he managed before he came to the Yankees didn't "have a chance."

Nor is the fault with Torre or even maligned owner George Steinbrenner. They and their big, bad Yankees are playing by the rules, just as the player with the battleship who starts the Monopoly game with more money than his opponent is playing by the rules. The problem is with the rules. But how should they be changed in order to level the playing field? No one (except perhaps a few greedy owners) would want to return to the days of baseball slavery prior to the advent of free agency. Back then players were literally owned by their teams and could not accept higher offers from other teams. That may have promoted fan loyalty by keeping players in one city for their entire careers, but it was grossly unfair to the players.

The solution to baseball's problem should include a combination of revenue sharing, salary caps, and salary floors. Recent estimates put the Yankees' annual revenue at $223 million-the highest among Major League teams — and the Montreal Expos' at $66 million, the lowest. The small amount of revenue sharing now mandated by Major League Baseball, even with the new so — called "luxury tax" on payrolls, doesn't really address this disparity. Baseball teams must share revenues from local telecasts. In addition, baseball should consider adopting a system like the one in place in the National Football League, under which teams can keep a player by designating him a "franchise player," subject to proper compensation.

Changes are always subject to passionate debate in sports, especially in baseball, which tends to be more tradition-bound than most. But change is essential to the survival of baseball if low — payroll teams are to be able to compete against high budget teams on a regular basis.

It's just more fun to play Monopoly when every player starts with the same amount of money. Only then does real talent determine the outcome of the game.