Why Your Team Is More Awesome Than the Yankees

*** Outside of the links, text below is same as in cartoon. ***

Being awesome is taking the hand you are dealt and going beyond expectations with intelligence, performance, and hard work. Being awesome is welcoming competition because it will test your skills and prove your greatness. Giving yourself an unfair advantage and then declaring yourself a champion worthy of praise is childish and lame. Yet this is what “great” teams do in Major League Baseball.

The big-spending baseball teams always have a massive advantage. Imagine a recreational league where every year the best teams were able to take the best players from the unsuccessful teams. Would that be fair? Wouldn’t it be moronic for the stacked teams to boast and prance around like peacocks when they win? This silliness is what baseball fans have to tolerate annually.

For every small-market fan out there, remember your time will rarely come … but when it does, your team will have done it the hard way and it will be awesome—awesome in a way the fans of “great” franchises will never experience.

2012 MLB Division Series Team Salaries (millions)

Winners

Yankees 198

Tigers 132

Giants 118

Cardinals 110

Losers

Reds 82

Orioles 81

Nationals 81

Athletics 55

Dedicated to the 2012 Orioles, the 2012 Nationals, and Joe Orsulak.

Links

2012 Major League Baseball Team Salaries, USAToday.com. LINK
Frank Deford, “Until a Salary Cap, MLB Outcomes Will Remain Predictable,” SportsIllustrated.CNN.com, 7 Apr. 2010. LINK
Neil deMause, “Does Baseball Need a Salary Cap?” ESPN.GO.com, 30 Mar. 2006. LINK