Where Have All the Rivalries Gone? Part 2

The Lakers dynasty…Celtics dynasty…Yankees Dynasty…all the way to the Ming dynasty. Dynasties are hard to come by these days. Whether it be little league baseball or Major League baseball, nothing lasts forever. Kids move, districts are re-aligned and players get disgruntled with ownership. My brush with dynasty greatness came in the early years of my life. The Roseville Youth Baseball Association provided us with the opportunity. Like many little league teams, we all had played together since t-ball and had all grown into pretty good baseball players. In 1997 we went 15-0 and won the league championship and were running the table in the RYBA. Things looked great for the future. Unfortunately, two buddies of mine grew out of baseball and moved onto other sports while I signed up too late for the season and couldn’t get onto the team that I had been on since I was a t-ball-er. My former team went on to have another great season while I was stuck playing with kids who couldn’t tell what end of the bat to hit with. The point of the story is that no matter what age, dynasties do not last forever (even in RYBA baseball).

We’ve already looked at how parents and league commissioners have ruined rivalries in professional sports. Now I want to change gears and see how the creation of free agency has ruined rivalries in professional sports.

Until 1975, professional sports teams could exercise what was known as a “reserve clause”. With this, teams could sign players for a number of years and at the end of this contract they could choose to sign them for longer or release/trade the player in question. The only way that someone leaves the team is through being released or traded. Players had no say in which team they played for, they were merely property of the owner of the team. You always hear that Babe Ruth was sold to the Yankees not “traded”. If you ever heard today that Randy Moss was “sold” to the New England Patriots…there would be a slight problem. Players are no longer the property of owners and they have a great deal of rights now. These rights were gained by the creation of player’s associations and free agency.

On a fateful day in ’75, Dodgers pitcher Andy Messersmith and Expos pitcher Dave McNally set the wheels in motion for the eventual demise of rivalries in sports.

Both were unhappy with the offered contracts from their respective teams and went to an arbitrator wanting to be able to hear offers from other teams. With one swift decision, arbitrator Peter Seitz awarded Messersmith and McNally the right to play for another team. Free-agency had begun.

It is interesting to hear what the MLB Commissioner at the time, Bowie Kuhn, had to say about Seitz’s decision and the birth of free agency,
"I'm confident had I resolved the Messersmith-McNally grievance, a free-agency system would have been negotiated that would have worked out better for the fans than the one we have today," Kuhn says. "I didn't have a specific system, but one should have been created."
It’s like Kuhn was like Senator Bail Organa in Star Wars Episode 3…when the Republic turned into the evil Empire and he was just sitting there watching as the horror begun. A nerdy reference I know, but a good one nonetheless. He really felt that he could have come up with something better but the fact of the matter is that he didn’t.
Before free agency, players often remained with their teams for their entire careers. The same guys would be on the same teams each year. Bad blood would carry over from season to season because the players and fans would return the next year ready to fight for bragging rights. In a crowded professional sports area like New York, teams like the Giants and Jets fought bitterly for so many years and the rivalries were intense. As I mentioned in part 1, the Red Sox/Yankees rivalry is the most famous and intense rivalry in professional sports today. How do you think that it survived for so long? For so many years, it was the same guys that were coming back year after year to fight for pride. There was always Ruth, Gehrig, Williams, Doerr and Foxx year in and year out. Every year, animosities were fostered more and more because the same guys who hated each other and the same fans who hated each other came back every summer to beat the snot out of the other team. None of them had the option of leaving their team. So in turn, players were loyal and played for the sheer glory of playing baseball…not for money.
So now we turn to 1975 up until the present. Free agency has been around for 32 years now and within the last decade we have seen the biggest impacts of how it is ruining rivalries in professional sports. At the time of conception, free agency seemed like a small occurrence in the professional sports scene. What people didn’t fully realize is that it would roundhouse kick the door open for contract deals that would involve multi-millions of dollars in value. Players have become seemingly greedier in professional sports. A great example of this comes from a player who is currently running away with the AL MVP race like Lance Armstrong in the Alps.
In 2000, after the Mariners had lost to the New York Yankees in the ALCS, Alex Rodriguez would make one of the most important decisions of his young career. He decided to test free agency and no longer be a Seattle Mariner. After Ken Griffey Jr. and Randy Johnson were traded, A-rod was the cornerstone of the Mariner franchise. He had the potential to follow in Ruth’s footsteps as he did for the New York Yankees... “Safeco Field…The house that A-rod built…”. Sounds a little weird I’ll admit, but the potential was there. He was the first shortstop in 11 years to start for the AL All-Star team that was not named Cal Ripken Jr. He was coming off some injuries but still managed to hit 41 HR’s and 132 RBI. There’s a saying that “for money, one will do almost anything”. Rodriguez auditioned and nailed the part for this role in the new movie “Greediest Athlete Ever”. He left a very talented Mariners team for a Rangers team that had finished 5th out of 4 teams (yes…they were that bad). He was making $ 4.3 million for a team that was thisssclose to getting to the World Series and now he was going to a team that makes today’s Tampa Bay Devil Rays look like Murderer’s row. A-rod didn’t just take a pay raise…he raised the bar for professional sports contracts for what may be forever. For 10 years and $252 million dollars, A-rod sold his soul to the green monster. No, not that one…the one that represents the ever popular concept in our society…greed. To me, because of A-rod’s clear showing of money over mind, professional athletes have lost all credibility to say that they are not greedy. A player today can ask for $60 million like a 15 year old asking his parents for a couple bucks to go to the movies. Since 2000, we’ve seen Kevin Garnett ($126 million), Alfonso Soriano ($138 million), Gil Meche ($55 million…for what?!) and my personal favorite…Barry Zito ($125 million for these numbers…). Because of baseball’s lack of salary cap, we see most of these mega deals here, but other sports have their monster deals as well. Who can forget one of the more recent bone-headed moments when it comes to contracts. Now, because of his severe stupidity, Sprewell goes from putting down jumpers at The Garden to putting down money for law suits. Players have gotten more and more greedy and selfish.
Since the inception of free agency in professional sports, there has been more money given to athletes than ever before. Due to this, many players no longer play for the sheer enjoyment and pride of their sport but for the money instead. When players come right out of high school and get a $ 90 million shoe deal, why even play for the sake of playing if they are just going to give you money without even seeing you play in the NBA? Along the same lines, if you can move to a terrible team but make so much money that Donald Trump blushes, why not do it?
Rivalries used to be about pride and playing the game. Guys didn’t play for the money because there really wasn’t much to be earned. Guys stayed with teams for their whole careers, connected with their respective cities and fought for everything they earned. Unfortunately, with the amount of money in professional sports, rivalries are being ruined. Guys sign 5-6 year contracts and then move on like those last 5 or 6 years didn’t even happen.
The players are the big winners and the fans are on the losing end of this situation. Until things change, we may never see rivalries return to what they should be…about pride and for the game.