Sure, it got the Yankees a ring, but what else does $423.5 million buy?

The Yankees spent $423.5 million during the off-season, and what did they get in return?
 
C.C. Sabathia, A.J. Burnett, Mark Teixeira, and a World Series ring.

That's nice and all, but have you considered what else you could buy for that kind of money?

-You could have your choice of 17 other MLB franchises, 18 if you ponied up an additional $3 million for the Seattle Mariners. The Yankees already treat smaller market organizations like their own farm teams. Why not make it official? 

-You could pay off Barack Obama's campaign debt and still have plenty left over to lobby on behalf of the Evil Empire. Given the team's lack of success with Republicans in the White House, it'd be a wise investment. 

-How about purchasing the stadium naming rights for two of the Yankees' three vanquished playoff opponents - the Phillies and Twins? Heck, maybe you can convince the Angels to sell their ballpark's name while you're at it.

-Perhaps you heard the Boston Globe was available this summer? I'm sure Red Sox fans would appreciate the gesture.

-Just because you're rich doesn't mean you can't be thrifty. Check out the McDonald's Dollar Value Menu. That kind of money is good for 423.5 million Hot Fudge Sundaes.

-A nice centaur painting can be had for $3,700. Those two over A-Rod's bed may not be enough to satisfy his ego.

-Derek Jeter can't get enough Minka Kelly. Take care of your franchise player with six million copies of the "Friday Night Lights" three DVD set.

-Oh, and A-Rod can't get enough of Kate Hudson. But he's an easy target regardless of how many post-season RBI he gets. Buy 36 million copies of "You, Me and Dupree" and ask him what he thinks of Owen Wilson's performance. 

-Mark Teixeira would make good use of four million Don Mattingly jerseys.

-Why not download 423.5 million copies of "My Way" on I-Tunes and see if you can ruin another Sinatra classic?

-While you're on I-Tunes, check out "Empire State of Mind"? Forget buying the song; buy the artist. Jay-Z's a veritable steal at $150 million. You can throw in Russell Simmons for a little Old School flavor at $110 million and house them each in their own Yankee Stadium suite.

Then again, the Yankees are traditionalists at heart. They believe in the purity of the game just like everyone else.

And $423.5 million buys a hell of a lot of peanuts and cracker jacks.

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Former Orioles Sporting World Series Rings

Jerry Hairston played one season in New York, appearing in 45 games.

Mike Mussina played eight seasons in New York, starting 248 games.

Hairston has a World Series ring; Mussina never won one.

You can call it the "Curse of Mussina" or pair the former Orioles ace with Don Mattingly and pronounce the pair "the two unluckiest men to ever don the pinstripes"; Mike Mussina still says he has no regrets about retiring after last season.

Fair enough. But does he know about Josh Towers?

Towers, who started his career in Baltimore when Mussina left Charm City, pitched two games for the Yankees this season.

Yes, even he now has a World Series ring.

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Happy Hall-O-ween

 The Orange and Black holiday. Go O's!

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Flashback Friday: Baltimore's 1979 World Series Parade

In New York or Philadelphia, they will soon hold a parade to celebrate the World Series champions.

To the victors go the spoils. Usually.

On Oct. 18, 1979, Baltimore had a parade for its beloved Orioles despite the fact that the team lost the World Series in excruciating fashion to the Pittsburgh Pirates, blowing a three-games-to-one lead, including the final two home contests.

Wrote Malcolm Moran in The New York Times: "The sun came up here, as hoped, at 7:19 on the morning after. The victory parade started, as planned, shortly after 11:30. Earl Weaver, the manager of the Baltimore Orioles, reminded everyone that his team had won more games than any other team in baseball this season. And for a little while, thousands of people chose not to remember that the Orioles had lost the last one."

At City Hall, Rick Dempsey sang "Take Me Out to the Ballgame."

Wild Bill Hagy led the O-R-I-O-L-E-S cheers that turned him into a local legend.

And the crowd chanted for its cleanup hitter, who batted .154 in the Series: "Ed-die, Ed-die, Ed-die."

An estimated 80-million people - then the largest audience in the history of televised World Series games - watched the Orioles' lose Game 7.

A day later, 125,000 Baltimore fans showed up downtown despite the outcome.

"It's the greatest parade I've ever seen," said Mayor William Donald Schaefer. "Never seen anything like it."

Perhaps the words emblazoned on a billboard near Memorial Stadium said it best: "We love you, Birds."
 
Image source: Here.

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World Series Ramblings

-Two southpaws took to the mound at Yankee Stadium on Wednesday night for Game 1 of the World Series, which speaks to the value of quality left-handed pitching. That's one of many reasons I love having Brian Matusz on the O's. It'd be great to have Erik Bedard back in (orange and) black as well.

-Perhaps the networks should look to Jeremy Guthrie for some perspective on Cliff Lee and C.C. Sabathia's time as Indians teammates. Guthrie played with the pair in Cleveland from 2004 to 2006.

Given each player's development since, it's hard to believe that a team with Sabathia, Lee, and Guthrie never made the playoffs. The Indians finally broke through in 2007, a season after Cleveland designated Guthrie for assignment.

Here are some other O's who played with Lee and Sabathia on the Indians: 



Arthur Rhodes (2005), Danys Baez (2002 & 2003), Nerio Rodriguez (one game in 2002), Sal Fasano (2008), Jorge Julio (2008), Jason Johnson (2006), Joe Borowski (2007 & 2008; Borowski played six games with the O's in 1995), Chris Gomez (2007), and David Dellucci (2007-2008; Dellucci played 17 games for the O's in 1997).

-Did you notice the Severna Park hat that Mark Teixeira sported in his Little League baseball photo during the MLB players-as-kids commercials? He was probably thinking about Don Mattingly when the picture was taken.

-Speaking of high-priced free agents, the Yankees have had the highest payroll in baseball every year since 1998 when they were topped by .... you can guess where this is going ... the Baltimore Orioles.

Here's an excerpt from a Rick Bozich column in the Courier-Journal: 

According to the baseball salary database compiled by USA Today, the Baltimore Orioles had the highest payroll in baseball in 1998. The Orioles were on the hook for $70.4 million.That was the last time the Yankees let that happen. In fact, this season the gap between the Yankees' $201.4 million opening-day payroll and the payroll of the number two team (the Mets at $149.4 million) was greater than the total payroll of the Marlins, Padres and Pirates.

Using the USA Today numbers, since 2000 the Yankees have spent about $502 million more than the Red Sox, the club with second overall payroll.

-On a related note, the Wall Street Journal's Allen Barra penned an interesting column about the 1994 baseball strike and "competitive balance" (tip of the cap - @TWeb):

The issue over which the strike was forced, said Commissioner Bud Selig, was "competitive balance"—the idea that the "big market" teams were dominating the "small market" teams.

Competitive balance, though, was just a diversion. By 1993, the Yankees hadn't won a World Series in 15 seasons, and the Mets had won just one (1986) in 24 seasons. The Dodgers, the biggest-market team in the National League, had taken only one World Series (1988) since 1965; the Angels, with whom they shared a colossal fan base, had never won a Series at all. In fact, the previous two World Series had been won by the Toronto Blue Jays, who, as former union executive director Marvin Miller shrewdly noted, "were labeled a small market team when they lost and a big market team when they won."
 
Ironically, the phony issue of competitive balance ended what was, by the standards of previous years, one of the most competitive seasons baseball had ever seen: Of 28 teams, just two had a won-lost percentage of over .600 and none were under .400. Baseball had been evolving towards equality for decades, and the advent of free agency in 1976 had accelerated that evolution along.
... 

The sports press hailed the luxury tax as a victory for the owners, but ultimately what did it accomplish? For the 2009 season, the average player's salary was $3.26 million, or $2.06 million more than 15 years ago. And if the point of forcing the strike was to make smaller-market teams competitive against big-market teams, that, too has failed. The four teams that just finished playing for the league championships—the Yankees, the Angels, the Phillies and the Dodgers—represent baseball's three biggest markets.

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Beware the Winning Season Hangover

If the O's post a winning season, are you prepared for the disappointment that may follow?

Two teams that embody what the Orioles are hoping to do in the near future are the Detroit Tigers and the Tampa Bay Rays. Both teams suffered 10 or more consecutive losing seasons before reaching the World Series in the years they broke their respective streaks - the Tigers in 2006 and the Rays in 2008.

Dare to dream, O's fans. 

Each team's turnaround was remarkable; to have it happen twice in the span of three years provides reason for hope. But beware of the Winning Season Hangover - a team's "morning after" season can give headaches to fans with suddenly elevated expectations.

[More after the jump.]

After 12 losing seasons, the Tigers won 95 games and the American League pennant in 2006. The following year they won 88, a seven win drop-off  that left the defending ALCS Champions on the outside looking in come playoff time.

Detroit hasn't returned to the postseason since its World Series appearance. The team suffered an excruciating collapse this year and came up short in their 163rd game, a winner-take-the-playoff-berth contest with the Twins.

The Rays, meanwhile, are observing the postseason from home this year after ending a run of 10 straight losing seasons in 2008 by posting 97 wins and winning the American League pennant. The team's drop-off during their hangover season was nearly twice as steep as that of Detroit: Tampa Bay went from 97 wins to 84 wins.

Milwaukee produced a less-celebrated turnaround than either the Tigers or the Rays; however, their encore performance was much the same as those two teams. Though their fans were less drunk with victory, the Brewers still fell victim to the Winning Season Hangover.

In 2005, the Brew Crew ended a streak of 12 consecutive losing seasons with an 81-81 record (okay, it's technically not a winning season, but it still counts). A six-game drop-off in wins in 2006 left the team with a 75-87 record and their 13th losing season in 14 years.

Milwaukee has posted winning records in two of the past three seasons but has only one playoff appearance to show for its efforts, a 3-1 Division Series loss to the Phillies in 2008.

Together, the Brewers, Tigers, and Rays averaged 91 wins in their turnaround season and 82 wins the following year. In other words, all three teams regressed to the mean after ending double-digit streaks of consecutive losing seasons.

So heed this advice, Birds watchers, should the O's turn it around soon: Enjoy the trip, and be sure to pack some aspirin.

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