King Kaufman's Sports Daily

Selig takes credit for brighter sunshine we've been having as baseball signs new labor deal. Plus: Cards and Tigers: Zoom! Under three hours!

Read more: Sports, Baseball, Bud Selig, World Series, King Kaufman, Baseball Playoffs, Sports Daily

Oct. 24, 2006 | Good news that baseball owners and players have reportedly struck a deal on a five-year extension to the collective bargaining agreement without even the whiff of a work stoppage. The game is rolling in so much money these days that it's not even trying to cry poverty anymore.

"Everybody's pretty happy with the industry," Cardinals reliever Jason Isringhausen told the Associated Press. "Everybody's making out pretty well."

New media is the main reason baseball's awash in greenbacks these days, going from a $3.6 billion business in 2001 to $5.2 billion in 2005, according to the AP. MLB has capitalized on the Internet brilliantly.

Commissioner Bud Selig says baseball's enjoying a boom because the revenue-sharing in the 1997 and 2002 contracts created a more even playing field.

"I had dreams of things getting better but, no, in many ways this has exceeded my fondest expectations," he said last week. "This sport has more parity than ever. We have more parity than any other sport."

Gah! When is this guy going to stop blowing smoke about parity?

Even at the turn of the century, when Selig was moaning loudest about a lack of competitive balance, baseball had just as much parity as the other major sports, and in some ways it had more.

And now, magically, because of the tireless efforts of one Allan H. Selig, baseball has "more parity than any other sport"? Really.

In the last five years, which cover the most recent agreement, 17 teams have made the playoffs. Guess how many made the playoffs in the previous five-year period, from 1997 to 2001, the time when Selig ramped up his complaints about parity, tried to get a salary cap passed, floated the idea that baseball couldn't support 30 teams, that some of them would have to go.

No, go on, guess. Come on. Are you going to guess 17? Do you know me that well?

It's 17.

In the last five years, six teams -- the Yankees, Twins, A's, Red Sox, Braves and Cardinals -- have made the playoffs at least three times. In the previous five, guess how many made the playoffs at least three times.

Go on. Do you feel like saying five? Because it's five. The Yankees, Indians, Mariners, Braves and Astros. The only National League team that made the playoffs in 2002-06 that didn't in 1997-2001 was the poor, downtrodden, small-market Los Angeles Dodgers. All that happened in the A.L. was that the Angels and Twins replaced the Indians and Mariners as regulars, and the Tigers replaced the Orioles' and Rangers' three appearances with one.

Next page: Ask the Royals, Pirates and Wherenextpos about parity. Plus: Cards and Tigers hurry up and play