Effectively Wild Episode 1317: Alphabatical Order
Ben Lindbergh and Jeff Sullivan banter about the Yankees signing Troy Tulowitzki, Whit Merrifield’s vaguely worded optimism about the Royals, and the necessity of unrealistic expectations, then answer listener emails about holiday sports conversations (featuring Ben’s mom’s hot take about Mariano Rivera and the truth about Rivera versus Edgar Martinez), players who are literally in the Hall of Fame, why many fans side with owners over players in economic matters, the worst baseball card poses, fans managing games, playoff teams drafting players from non-playoff teams, and imposing time limits on games, plus Stat Blasts about Willians Astudillo, John Jaso and the best players never to qualify for the batting title, and alphabetical batting orders.
Audio intro: The Delgados, "Accused of Stealing"
Audio outro: Elliott Smith, "Alphabet Town"
Link to Pecota baseball card
Link to Grandstand Managers Night recap
Link to Schaumburg Flyers fan voting story
Link to alphabetical lineup game
Link to post about winter league playoff format
Link to Pelota Binaria
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Hi! I’m the guy with the question about finances and owner/player perception. Thanks for discussing it!
I guess Jeff understood my question/point better. The money is being generated by the players, mostly, along with team personnel and park workers. If the money generated isn’t going to the players (who have short careers and are the ones who actually play the game, which is what people pay to watch), then it is definitely going to owners. The idea that players being paid more being detrimental to the fans of teams is completely wrong, but incredibly prevalent. That’s where the myth of player salaries increasing ticket prices come from (even though it’s been proven to be a myth several times).
The idea that owners have ‘earned’ their place while players, who have trained and played their entire lives, have not ‘earned it’ and are only ‘playing a game’ is absolutely crazy. I don’t think Jeff really thinks that, but anyway.
I do think this pro-owner/pro-team perception among fans has changed a bit the past few decades, but maybe it’s a personal experience. It seems to me that, individually, fans always think owners are a bunch of scrooges but, whenever a player wants to get paid, the player is greedy? Doesn’t make much sense to me. Not to mention players being forced to adhere to a CBA that they didn’t participate in negotiating, including being drafted and signing for bonus they can hardly negotiate freely. Imagine if the country’s brightest engineers from the best colleges were drafted into engineering companies, with the best students going to the worst companies, for pre-determined salaries that they didn’t negotiate, with the other choice being simply not being engineers? And that doesn’t even get discussed.