when the yankee season ends, my baseball season ends. i'm not really interested in any other team enough to watch them. similarly, if i'm at a bar or something and there's a non-yankee baseball game on, i wont give a shit about that, either; october or otherwise.
Fair enough, but it sounds a little like a vicious cycle: you're not interested enough to watch, and you don't watch enough to get interested!
Seriously, though, anyone that wants their baseball team to win should at least be aware of the Tampa Bay Jesus Rays. Virtually no payroll or prestige, and an offense that is more pedestrian than powerhouse; they win not necessarily with 'smallball' but with
smartball. They were #1 in adjusted defensive efficiency as a team, they have hitters that work the count(indeed, like your Yankee teams of...yore), and they have a deep, super-deep, Grand Canyon-deep pitching staff that allows them to spread the workload out. Some of this is due to the high draft picks their epic loserly ways afforded them(both Garza and Price were acquired, either directly or indirectly, with #1 overall picks), but the management, much derided in the Lamar era, really deserves a lot of credit. They found ways to exploit the market and build a strong team with the resources they had. This philosophy can applied to large-market, high-payroll teams also, as Boston and the Epstein '$100 million player development machine' has shown.
that's another thing -- stop mailing everyone tapes.
But I really thought you'd like my VHS of Ed...
