MLB All-Star Vote

[Da King]

An article by Paul White for USA Today, and an excellent idea. I've already done this, and urge you to do the same:

Just when people thought you didn't care anymore.

There has been an overwhelming response to our idea of stuffing the All-Star ballot box with votes for Expos and Twins. We view this as a non-disruptive protest to what's going wrong in baseball. Fans are paying attention and they care — enough to take action.

E-mails are running at 19-to-1 in favor of the idea we suggested last week. More importantly, readers are voting and they're passing along the idea. Richard McIntosh of Washington, D.C., wrote to say that he never votes for All-Stars, until now.

Scores of you have written to explain how you're using home, work and various other e-mail addresses to vote beyond the 25-per-person limit at the mlb.com Web site. You've explained how you've called your local talk shows to promote the plan, how you've passed along the idea through chat rooms, fantasy league Web sites and general e-mail to every baseball fan you know. Teachers have got their students involved — what a great civics lesson.

A group at baseballvote.com also is promoting the idea and has a link to help you vote quickly and easily.

One reader suggests taking banners to major league games urging fans to vote for Expos and Twins. Another says you should stick to going to minor league games for the time being — and mail your ticket stubs to the commissioner's office.

A lot of you are suspicious they'll suppress the vote. Right there on the ballot, it says, "The office of the commissioner will have final decision on all voting matters."

Well, good. If you force them to change the results, we've won. They'll understand how you feel.

Charles Petrafesa of East Haven, Conn., worries that fans of large-market teams don't care enough about the plight of their less-fortunate brethren, and another reader says all we're doing is giving Joe Torre license to fill the AL reserves with more Yankees than ever.

Don't stop now. It's going to take at least 80,000 people voting 25 times each to put most of the Expos and Twins in the starting lineup.

Some of you have reported voting once according to performance and 24 times for Twins and Expos. Others have explained that your ballot followed our suggestions with one or two exceptions. That's OK. The important thing is that you're getting involved. You're getting fired up. You're striking back.

[Ice Cream Jonsey]

Ah-hahaha.

Believe me, I couldn't give a fuck about major league baseball. I honestly couldn't care less about a sport where the more people there are that live in your city, the better off the team is going to be. The players don't want a salary cap, and the owners don't want revenue sharing. They fucking deserve one another.

But the Expos and Twins thing in the all-star game is really funny. I can appreciate that for the comedic value alone: the two teams that the "commish" STUPIDLY wants to eliminate having 8 guys in the all-star game taking place in the "commish's" own park. Bwa-ha-ha-ha-ha!!! Besides, since you cannot vote for pitchers, the only Blue Jay that I'd care to see in the game is one I can't vote for anyway.

The question is, with 8 Twins on the roster, will Torre display a fucking modicum of restraint and professionalism, and get guys who are having great seasons on the AL roster, or will he simply fill out the rest of the reserves with Yankees as he has done every other year in recent history?

[Da King]

But the Expos and Twins thing in the all-star game is really funny. I can appreciate that for the comedic value alone: the two teams that the "commish" STUPIDLY wants to eliminate having 8 guys in the all-star game taking place in the "commish's" own park.

EXACTLY the point of the article. It would send a big "Fuck You" to Selig's desire to eliminate MLB teams. Dont get me wrong... I completely believe that the talent pool is diluted (much like the gene pool). However, the owners should not be able to arbitrarily add and remove teams at their whim. They decided to add teams, they should now have to live with them.

[Ice Cream Jonsey]

Yeah, there was no need for their recent expansion. They hadn't recovered from the Rockies/Marlins one, in terms of there being enough quality players to go around. (And certainly, hockey should never expand again.) That being said, the existence of the Diamondbacks really doesn't bug me. Tampa should have been one of the first to be considered if they were going to remove a team, not check in at #3 on the list.

But while you can make the argument that there are two many teams and not enough pitchers to go around, the owners aren't looking at it that way at all. They just want to be able to threaten the players with two teams' worth less jobs if they don't bend over. Everyone involved with the game, except those selling programs and hot dogs are doing everything possible to kill it. Kill it dead even, which is the worst kind.

[Eric]

Ah-hahaha.

I honestly couldn't care less about a sport where the more people there are that live in your city, the better off the team is going to be. ?

Well but how about "the greatest good for the greatest number?" Was that Bentham? Utilitarianism or something?
It makes a perverse sort of sense really.

I shouldn't admit I'm a Yankee fan - but I was a Yankee fan when the most exciting thing that happened was when a couple of their pitchers traded families one year. I was for the Yankees when, rather than Ruth, Gehrig, Dimaggio, Mantle et al they had Dooley Womack and Horace Clark and Thad Tillotsen - the Bizarro Yankees.

But I would like to see baseball have a salary cap. What the heck, there'd be enough guys want to go to biger markets anyway for the bigger endorsement opportunities, but it would even it out some.

[Ice Cream Jonsey]

So long as a minimum cap was there as well, it really would help players. I don't know why they are so against it. There are more rank-and-file guys (well, if you can call the average .230 hitter who is pulling down over a million per season "rank and file") than those making > $15 million a season. The hell business do the top 5% salaried guys have in veto power over a cap?

I'm not convinced a cap doesn't help the great players as well, especially when you consider that having more than four available markets to peddle your wares in would probably be in their best interests. It's likely that Texas will allow Pudge Rodriguez to become a free agent. They will not trade him because he will be hurt for the rest of the season simply because he is on my IF fantasy baseball league. Really, the odds were against Pudge from the get-go. Anyway, he becomes a free agent -- so what? He left Texas, so they are out. The Mets already have Piazza, so unless the cretin for Out Magazine who by all rights should be terminated for stating that he's homosexual pulls an Eddie Brock/Venom and kills him, that team will not need a catcher next season. Posada is fine for the Yankees so that leaves the Dodgers and Braves. And hell, the Braves are probably better off waiting for Javy Lopez to pick it up again. While there are a TON of teams who are absolutely laughable at the catching position, none of them can justify the ten million that Pudge's bat and arm will earn him. Having a minimum and maximum cap now makes things interesting.



Bah. It's frustrating talking about baseball. Just about anybody could solve the problems facing the sport in an afternoon. Boom, complete revenue sharing. Boom, a min and max salary cap. Boom, taxpayer-funded stadiums result in broadcasting of all games on either basic cable or free teevee. Boom, Cuban defectors and eligible Japanese players go INTO THE DRAFT and are no longer simply assigned to the Yankees or to be bid on simply so an agent can get his. Boom, there's drug testing. Boom, you draft a guy and Boras wants a ridiculous signing bonus, well, his rights remain with the team for 10 years after the day he was drafted. Boom, Torre is allowed to coach the all-star game but banned from picking players. (OK, not really on the last one.) And, hell, if you have a cap you no longer have to deal with the miserable "compensation" rule that states that poor teams will get first round draft picks from wealthy teams, but only if they win X amount of games. Oh, and the "wild card team cannot meet their division winner in the first round of the playoffs" thing is removed as well.

From there all you have left to deal with is ensuring that Topps places a washed-up journeyman on the bottom of their packs so that the gum can stain that guy's card instead of the prospect and/or star that it otherwise ruins (I suggest Mike Morgan: he has played for 40 years and will play for 40 more, and his rookie card will never be worth more than a dollar) and the assassination of Tim McCarver and Joe Buck and their blatant east-coast bias.

But none of that will ever happen -- except for the death of McCarver, which I may take into my own hands if the Jays ever make the playoffs aga-- no, right. None of the things listed above will ever happen.

[Ice Cream Jonsey]

I shouldn't admit I'm a Yankee fan - but I was a Yankee fan when the most exciting thing that happened was when a couple of their pitchers traded families one year.

That, by the way, is the greatest accomplishment of any two professional athletes, ever.

I mean, the wife-swapping is one thing. That, well, I wouldn't say it happens all the time or anything, but still. Common enough. But the swapping of KIDS and PETS as well? Outstanding!

[Da King]

So long as a minimum cap was there as well, it really would help players. I don't know why they are so against it. There are more rank-and-file guys (well, if you can call the average .230 hitter who is pulling down over a million per season "rank and file") than those making > $15 million a season. The hell business do the top 5% salaried guys have in veto power over a cap?

Because unions are huge, evil empires. If the union leaders says "A Cap is bad for you guys", then everyone files in behind and votes that way. Nobody wants to be the guy who votes against the union. Thats how legs get broken and how you end up at the bottom of Lake Havasu.

Honestly, salary caps DO hurt the upper-end players. (What team would spend 1/4 to 1/3 of their salary on just one guy, IE, A-Rod or Jeter? None).

Bah. It's frustrating talking about baseball. Just about anybody could solve the problems facing the sport in an afternoon. Boom, complete revenue sharing.

I'm not a big "revenue sharing" fan... just because it penalizes the popular teams who can actually make money (IE, where would the incentive be for the Yankees to grow their business if they just have to give the money away?) and helps teams that nobody cares about (the Expos would get to gravy train off the Yankees fanbase). Yes, it might help things... but its not the end-all answer. It doesnt level the playing field as far as salaries are concerned.

EVERYONE needs to play with the same salary cap, a la football. The NFL's salary cap is the best equalizer in all of pro sports. Its a model that everyone should follow.

[Ice Cream Jonsey]

I'm not a big "revenue sharing" fan... just because it penalizes the popular teams who can actually make money (IE, where would the incentive be for the Yankees to grow their business if they just have to give the money away?) and helps teams that nobody cares about (the Expos would get to gravy train off the Yankees fanbase).

Expo fan would care about their team if they had a fighting chance. Their attendance was fine when they had Carter and Dawson and everyone. Plus, the last time they were good, the season was cancelled. It would have been Expos-Yankees in the World Series. Even I can admit that that would have rocked.

I don't know that the Yankees need incentive, per se, to grow. There are just more people in NY than Montreal -- every team should try to maximize the number of people in their own city who are going to games. Right now, the only interesting matchup in the AL is NY-Bos. Maybe NY-Seattle. But -- they all have a chance to make every game worth watching if the teams had the same resources. Who gives a damn when KC comes to town? Nobody. And I mean to anybody's town. But if KC had the resources and chance to compete that they did in the 80s then that's another exciting three games worth of baseball.

Oakland has pretty much done everything right in the last few years. I think their payroll is in the bottom five. They had one mistake this year -- and it was more a "problem" than a true mistake. One of their pitchers got hurt and the other isn't playing as well as he did last year. That's it for them, though, they are absolutely finished. They are looking towards the draft already. They need to be perfect to have even a remote chance at the playoffs. It shouldn't be that way; they should have more cash to help themselves like the larger market teams do.