It seems that the era of the super contract should be dead...the massive team payroll should be dead..the idea that you can stockpile all stars at the trading deadline should be dead...The teams that have won are full of gritty, mostly underpaid, rise above the expectations of the pundits, prime time ball players..They combine youth, a smatter of vets, imaginative managers, and the heart of winners. The teams have relatively loyal fan bases that can survive god awful baseball for season after season, till the team makes that magical run. The owners for these special teams ought get on their hands and knees and thank the fans for letting them pocket the profits and cheat the team budgets year after year, till the pixie dust of fate thrusts their team in the middle of a run..Teams with no minor league system and massive money producing machines will still have to pony up to keep feeding the baseball universe that they have created. The machine ( Dodgers, Yanks, etc. )have created monsters they cannot kill, by starting over, getting younger, and fostering players that still hunger for a prize. When your players are fat and rich for years to come, a man's guts never seem as challenged as when they were reaching for stardom..The teams in the hunt, unfortunately will be slain by the big market teams, who will pick over the carcasses for their youth. The major payday will come for many of them finally, but not from their present ownership, who will go back to penny pinching ,thinking the fans will be satisfied for another few years of losing baseball. Maybe that is the new nature of baseball. Trust to luck, give your fans just enough to create hope , and then cry poverty, when they choose to lose their gems to free agency. There are days, I wish my Yankees were those teams again. I grew up a fan of the Yankees from the 60's and beyond and my fondness memories are still of those no name players of my youth. I loved those players because they were all mine and would stay with my team forever. No expectations of championships and pennants to sour whatever record they might have had. I truly took to heart each game as my own little championship and cheered and strutted with the best of them, when my team won that game and yet still found ourselves under .500. The sickness of expansion and free agency forever killed the innocence of baseball, the pure joy of simple accomplishments. Can any player of the last few years actually be considered one of the all time greats of the game. Not in my flashback 8 year old mind, when guys like, Horace Clarke, Clete Boyer, Mel Stottlemyre, etc. were like baseball Gods..My rant is over, great job to date to those teams and fans still in the race. They remind me a bit of the Yankee teams, I used to worship...Michael
