Can Major League Baseball Overcome It's Class Problem?

Major League Baseball, also known as, The National Past Time is intimately familiar with its place on the vanguard of societal issues. Jackie Robinson breaking a shameful color barrier in 1947 to the advent of free agency in professional sports in the 70's. Baseball once again finds itself at a cultural cross-roads, but this time the narrow path doesn't lead to broad social change in racial and economic areas. No, this time that narrow road points inward at the competitive viability of the game itself.

Full disclosure here: I am a New York Yankee fan; have been since I could walk. I am grateful for ownership that cares enough to reinvest its profits into fielding a team with the sole objective of winning. However, after spending over 300 million dollars on contracts of super pitcher C.C. Sabathia, face of the game, Mark Texeria and the potential of A.J. Burnett the Yankees have drawn the ire of baseball fans in the outer regions of economic equality. Milwaukee G.M. Doug Melvin and numerous "anonymous" sources have been critical of the Yankees spending habits. These habits have been adopted in recent years by the Mets, Red Sox, Dodgers, Angels and Cubs. Big city baseball teams spending big city money.

For fans of teams such as Kansas City, Florida, Tampa Bay, Oakland, Pittsburgh and just about any team not in New York, L.A., Boston or Chicago, all hope for a title is abandoned after early June in most seasons. Yes, Florida has won two world series. Yes, Tampa Bay was a 2008 world series participant. But after each world series victory the Marlins did not wait two months before gutting their team in a fire sale of its high impact performers. And the Devil Rays have been below putrid since they came into the league. Only after years of building and retooling their farm system were they able to offer a viable product. Can they repeat that success this year?

Baseball is the petri-dish for the have and have-nots. Baseball was on its deathbed in 1994 when an unpopular strike canceled the World Series.
Then a steroid fueled home run era brought baseball back to national prominence with broken records and raised attendance.

Today, baseball's World Series showcase draws lower and lower national ratings every year. Now that possibly is a result of Fox Sports moribund and sanctimonious announcing duo of Joe Buck and Tim McCarver, but more than likely is the fact that the Tampa Bay's, Florida's and Arizona's of the basball world are not sexy enough to garner attention. Those cities have home grown talent that peeks in a given year, but is widely unknown to those outside of baseball. And this is where baseball suffers. The die-hard fans and purists will complain, but always come back for another hardball fix. But baseball is not gaining new fans in an era of sports where football and basketball have taken over the imagination of the youth.

Without new fans baseball will die. But without a competitive parity in the world of Major League Baseball that allows fans in out of the way places to believe their teams have a chance to be champions or teams, outside of big cities, that capture the imagination of casual observers, baseball won't be able to sustain its television life. Which will further erode the ability of small market teams to compete with their big brothers.