Playoffs show parity at work

Thursday, October 12, 2006 | Print Entry

In New York, answers were demanded. In Boston, Web sites asked why New Englanders couldn't have a spirited, "well-managed" team like the Tigers? Of course, no one raised those questions on the last weekend of the season when the Tigers needed to win one game against the Royals to get home-field advantage ... and were swept.

These are different times. Of the top 13 payrolls, only the Mets (fifth, $101M) have more than one postseason win; the Yankees (first, $199M) have one. The Tigers were 14th at $82M, Oakland 21st at $62M, the Cardinals 13th at $87M, which means that four of the top 17 payrolls made it to the postseason, three of the top 10, and only one of those, the Mets, are in the final four.

When Bud Selig led the coup against Fay Vincent on Labor Day, 1992, the primary rationale was that Vincent was too closely aligned with the big-market clubs that opposed widespread revenue-sharing. Now the World Series will be played with either the 14th-ranked Tigers or 21st-ranked Athletics.  
 

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  • Peter Gammons Peter Gammons

    Hall of Fame baseball reporter Peter Gammons has worked for ESPN since 1988. He primarily serves as a studio analyst for "Baseball Tonight," but he also does regular spots for "SportsCenter," ESPNEWS and ESPN Radio and contributes to ESPN.com and ESPN The Magazine.

    Gammons was voted the National Sportswriter of the Year for 1989, 1990 and 1993 by the National Sportscasters and Sportswriters Association and was awarded an honorary Poynter Fellow from Yale University. But his highest honor was the 2004 J.G. Taylor Spink Award, voted on by the BBWAA and awarded at the Baseball Hall of Fame for outstanding baseball writing.

    Gammons, a 1969 graduate of the University of North Carolina, began his career as a reporter for the Boston Globe in 1969. He has also worked for Sports Illustrated covering the NHL, college basketball and major league baseball (1976 to '78, 1986 to '90). In 1986, upon his return to Sports Illustrated as a senior writer following a second stay at the Globe, he wrote numerous stories covering some of baseball's most important news events and authored Inside Baseball, Sports Illustrated's weekly baseball notebook. Gammons is also the author of "Beyond the Sixth Game," a look at free agency.

    Gammons is a gifted musician, and his debut album, "Never Slow Down, Never Grow Old," was released on Rounder Records. With the assistance of a crack band of Boston rockers, Gammons trades in his typewriter for a Stratocaster and delivers a rousing set of vintage classics, originals and rock obscurities -- all to benefit Theo and Paul Epstein's Foundation to be Named Later, a charity that raises funds and awareness for nonprofit agencies serving disadvantaged youth in the greater Boston area.

    Gammons' vocals and guitar are featured, along with guests such as Theo Epstein, Juliana Hatfield, George Thorogood, Little Feat's Paul Barrere, Kay Hanley and an all-star chorus consisting of past and present Red Sox players, including Jonathan Papelbon, Kevin Youkilis, Trot Nixon, Lenny DiNardo, Tim Wakefield and Bronson Arroyo, and NESN broadcaster Don Orsillo. Get more information from Rounder Records.

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