sox nation complains about our payroll as if the red sox are run by the public broadcasting system.

and finally: pumpsie green

the red sox can be team of the decade if they want – they purged the curse by being idiots. nice representation of how america acted toward the international community during those years too – drunk, irreverent, unaware of the consequences.

only difference is that if the sox had said “mission accomplished” it would have been true.

Also, I think the Cardinals and Dodgers deserve team of the 1960s.
Post 1964, the Yankees were really a bad team

I can remember people talking about Team of the decade around ’79-’89-’99, Not like today because there wasn’t a lot of media back then but I remember it. I think baseball digest used to have a “team” of the decade like the ’76 Reds and then the best overall team and I think it came down to a debate over the Reds, A’s, and Pirates and I think they picked the Reds.

For some reason, I remember in ’89 there was a big deal made about “player of the deade” in each sport. I don’t know why exactly, maybe it’s because sport-talk radio was just starting as a format and they needed something to talk about, but I remember this topic being debated all the time during the fall of 1989. think in the end it was Schmidt in Baseball, Montana in Football, Magic in Basketball, and Gretzky in hockey. I still have a sports magazine with those 4 guys on the cover with the title: “Players of the Decade”

I don’t remember them doing anything like that in 1999.

There, that settles it!! }8^D

I’m sure you’re right, basically, but for what it’s worth my wife’s parents, big Reds fans, have an old poster hanging in their basement, from 1979 or 1980, that designates The Big Red Machine as “The Team of the Decade.”

As to payroll, there’s a million different ways to look at it, but it drives me crazy when anyone lumps the “Red Sox and Yankees” together in discussions about salaries. The two are not comparable, and have not been at any time in recent memory. The Yankees have had the largest payroll in baseball every year back to 2002 (earliest year I can find data). Depending on the source, they have spent between 60M and 100M more than Boston every year.

Again depending on source, Boston has ranked anywhere from 2nd to 5th over that span, typically grouped in with the Mets, Dodgers, Cubs, and a couple of other teams. The Tigers have been in that group recently. Basically when you look at payroll, it’s the Yankees in a group by themselves, a half dozen teams next (Dodgers, Mets, Red Sox, Cubs, etc), and then everyone else.

Whether any of this is really a problem is another question altogether. I think the game is stronger now than at anytime in my life, and with MORE competitive balance, not less. But there are certainly people with valid opinions in the other direction.