Last updated: 7:57 am
June 27, 2008
Posted: 3:52 am
June 27, 2008
THIS weekend the team with the highest payroll in the majors will be facing the team with the second highest in a tribute to just how little $347 million buys these days - not just at the gas pump or supermarket, but on the Subway, too.
You can pay for the entire Colorado Rockies' roster with change to spare simply on the difference between the Yankees' payroll ($209 million) and the Mets' payroll ($138 million). Yet the Yankees will be starting Dan Giese and Sidney Ponson today in a doubleheader to open the latest version of New York-New York, and Darrell Rasner will go Sunday. Keep reminding yourself that this is interleague, not the International League.
The Mets are outspending the combined efforts of the Phillies and Marlins by nearly $18 million, yet trail both in the NL East. They recently grabbed Trot Nixon and Andy Phillips off the scrap heap - where Ponson apparently has been named king - in hopes that duo could supply much-needed depth and energy, qualities lacking despite the Mets' highest payroll ever. Wow, energy costs really have skyrocketed.
What this latest Subway affair is emphasizing is that money doesn't buy happiness (just ask Willie Randolph) and it doesn't even guarantee a playoff berth (just ask Willie Randolph).
Neither New York team arrives at this four-game set in a postseason position. Instead, they are symbols of gluttony. The kids had daddy's credit cards - in this case the fathers being Fred Wilpon and George Steinbrenner - and bought all the famous names they could stuff on a roster. But the game changed during the shopping spree. Possibly due to greater concentration on drug testing, older players have begun to resemble older players again, and not age-defying Adonises dipped in needles.
Essentially the players who cost the most are those nearing or already in their thirties. You are paying for what these players have done. You are hoping they maintain skill rather than get better - which becomes trickier if the strongest chemical associated with both teams is hawked endlessly and disturbingly by Giuseppe Franco. Watch the games this weekend and it will be disheartening how few players on the two costliest rosters have their best years in front of them.
