Betancourt has not been uniformly excellent for five years, by the way.  How soon we forget a few trips to the DL and a pretty sour 2006 season.

The heart of the issue, as per your average whiny and shortsighted fan, is whether Betancourt's 2011 season is worth whining about at this point in time.  My suggested homework would provide valuable data on that specific question.

"I'm stayin' right here, havin' fun, as usual."

But, to repeat what Jay said, you get to deal with some venom and we get to deal with losing. As you've said, that might change in the future but for now, that's the state of things.

Besides, I think all of the "hatred" in the baseball world really exists for less than obsessive fans. I can talk to a fan of any team and become fast friends if they're waist deep in love of baseball. It's fun to talk about free agents, minor league players, all that stuff with someone who knows about it. Nobody who really loves baseball, Red Sox fan or otherwise, wants to get in an hour long argument over J.D. Drew. I think we all agree it's an unappealing, uninteresting, and vulgar part of following baseball, or something to that effect.

Now, if you want to argue Jed Lowrie vs. Asdrubal, that's something that would be fun. It's all hope and potential, everything baseball is supposed to be.

As I'm sure you know, you're not responsible for legions of people in Pink and Green hats emblazoned with "B's" but you're going to have to take some heat for them and their disgusting accents. It's the breaks.

So if the al Queda Nine were playing the Yankee's I'd root for the ben Laden bunch - in '04 it just happened to be you guys.  I may hafta root for three baseball teams now and throw in the BoSox opponents in as another favorite.

Anyway, I'm not really directing my comments at you on a personal level, I'm just trying to make the point clear.  I really do think that the degree of disparity is not really clear in most people's minds, and I think my little "divide by 20 million" exercise is a pretty good way of making it plain.

You don't have to like it.  You don't have to like gravity, either, but it exists anyway.

Why in fact does MLB's "grotesque" economic imbalance continue?

The imbalance results primarily from the fact that over the past 25 years, the development of the media economy means that a huge portion of all MLB revenue comes from local media contracts, mostly TV, which according to the Basic Agreement goes directly to the individual teams.  This is different from the NBA or NFL, as is the historical resolve and effectiveness of the union representing the players.  By law, almost any change in the way teams cut up the pie has to be approved by the union and thus is subject to collective bargaining.

What is the history of attempts, if any, to ameliorate the situation?

Each successive CBA since 1995 has increased (and tweaked) revenue sharing and luxury tax provisions, which have made a significant impact on competitive balance -- but not enough to counteract the growing role of TV revenues.  Thus the Yankees outspend the Indians four-to-one and yet still make upwards of $100 million profit, while the Indians barely break even.  The natural economic causes of the disparity have simply grown far faster than measures to counteract them.

What plans or solutions have been seriously considered and what and who nixed them?

Reportedly, the owners have had a tougher time figuring it out amongst themselves than getting the union to go along with it.  Obviously the union would resist a salary cap, possibly to the death, and doesn't love revenue sharing either, but they've been negotiated.

/How is it that the small-market teams just go along with it, year after year?

What choice do they have?  The system can only be changed every 5-8 years with a new CBA, and plenty of small-market owners have made a pretty profit merely by owning a non-competitive team.  In this respect, both revenue sharing and tax incentives in the first few years of new team ownership have hurt the cause.

The NFL and NBA instituted salary caps and other economic mechanisms years ago. Can we conclude that MLB is forever going to play the game that has lead to the reality that you've illustrated above?

Maybe not forever, but I don't expect it will be changed soon.  I think it has to get worse before it will get better, because MLB as a whole, both owners and players, may actually benefit by having the contending teams more concentrated into major media markets -- the "contention effect" on revenue may be fairly constant, so that pure overall revenue is increased by multiplying that factor times a larger fan base.  And everybody shares in the extra profit somewhat, so how much is revenue sharing really helping?

One interesting and slightly positive development is that the teams and union have agreed that MLB controls and even distributes all media income from the Internet, and as the Internet and cable networks converge, MLB may centralize a much larger slice of each team's schedule -- someday, maybe all of it.  But significant movement on those fronts is still many years away.

I'm getting married in Cleveland in August. But now I fear Cleveland may not be left standing by then.

STEROIDS DESTROY CITIES!

While you agree the payroll disparity is totally unfair, what I have a problem with is that it's not just the $150M vs the $60M disparity that really hurts.

What really hurts is the ability of the Red Sox and Yankees to be able to draft the Boras clients in the mlb draft. You know, the guys like Chamberlain, etc who are saying they want $5M signing bonuses, etc. Teams like Tampa Bay and KC cannot financially do such things.

To top it off, both Cashman and Epstein are now focusing on the minors much more than they used to. So not only can they throm mega$ around to FA, or trade for large contracts when a small market team can't keep them at arbitration, etc, but now they are throwing huge $$ into the minors as well. Not to mention the large sums to Japanese players, Latin America etc. No way the smaller market teams can compete with that.

It really is going to get ugly when both the Yankee$ and Red $ox have all the Santana, Manny type players AND all the high priced amateur talent under contract. We may as well close up shop at that point.

And yeah, the depth was great, especially in the bullpen. Jensen Lewis in particular was a revelation. But we weren't counting on Cliff Lee, David Dellucci, Andy Marte, Josh Barfield, and Roberto Hernandez to carry us! I mean, if you were going to pick a bunch of guys on the roster to get hurt or suck, those are exactly the guys you'd pick!! What happens if next year it's (god forbid) Victor or Grady that blows a hammy? Or if (again, god forbid) Fausto's shoulder starts hurting?

I just think you can't count on any of the core members of this team improving in 2008, except Hafner. Don't get me wrong, I'm not burying us, this is a really good team and we should win around 90 games IMO. But that's not exactly "on the cusp" when you play in the same division as the Tigers and the same league as the Yankees, Red Sox, and Angels.

Look at the TV ratings first. The NFL buries MLB time and time again. While having only 16 games versus 162 does make a big difference, the popularity of football is because the fans do know that their team is NOT at a competeive disadvantage for very long. The NFL has a salary cap and floor that requires each team to spend a certain amount on player salaries. MLB has neither.

The NFL pools its revenues so all 32 teams get a fair shake (with a few minor exceptions of course). MLB does not have this. As Jay pointed out previously, the core of the $$ that teams use is from local media contracts, not the national package with Fox/ESPN. This is how the Yankees have a 5+:1 edge over small market teams.

While I agree the ownerships in KC, Minnesota, Florida do very little with the revenue sharing $$, even if they spent that money, they could not compete with the Bostons, New Yorks, for various free agents OR RETAIN their own superstars. Don't you think KC would have loved to have kept Damon, Dye and Beltran in their outfield? They were hard pressed to keep just one, and ended up with none of them. Had all three started as Yankees and put up those numbers, New York would not have batted an eye in signing all 3 to high priced deals.

When the Bostons, New York can field All-Stars at 5 or more offensive positions and have more than one former Cy Young winner on their payroll, and the small market teams are lucky to have 2 All Stars and/or a Cy Young winner, that is some serious talent disparity. Not to mention the disparities in the draft and Japanese/Cuban/Latin America players. The small market teams have virtually no chance for the high caliber players from the USA or abroad. They have to be very, very lucky AND good.

Note both of them have made it in 7 of the 13 years and four fo the last five years. That is some serious advantage they have over every other AL team in that timeframe.

Also!! The NFL was not even close to poor financial health when they established the salary cap. In fact, they had already passed baseball as the most popular sport at that time.

 Year Ag Tm  Lg  G   AB    R	H   2B 3B  HR  RBI  SB CS  BB  SO   BA	 OBP   SLG *OPS+
+--------------+---+----+----+----+---+--+---+----+---+--+---+---+-----+-----+-----+----+
 2003 21 CLE AL  77  242   24	55  10	1   4	21   1	3  20  65  .227  .295  .326   67
 2004 22 CLE AL   8   25    2	 6   1	0   0	 2   0	1   3	6  .240  .321  .280   64
 2005 23 CLE AL 141  504   82  147  35	4  24	78   0	2  58 128  .292  .366  .520  137
 2006 24 CLE AL 149  569   84  146  28	3  13	68   0	1  56 152  .257  .323  .385   83
 2007 25 CLE AL 152  574   87  155  27	1  21	72   4	4  61 146  .270  .341  .430  100
+--------------+---+----+----+----+---+--+---+----+---+--+---+---+-----+-----+-----+----+
 5 Seasons	527 1914  279  509 101	9  62  241   5 11 198 497  .266  .336  .425  100
+--------------+---+----+----+----+---+--+---+----+---+--+---+---+-----+-----+-----+----+
 162 Game Avg	     588   86  156  31	3  19	74   2	3  61 153  .266  .336  .425  100
 Career High	152  574   87  155  35	4  24	78   4	4  61 152  .292  .366  .520  137