Hey Big Spender

If it weren't for this whole Daisuke Matsuzaka business, there wouldn't be much to blog about. God, I love baseball's offseason. Hands down the greatest offseason in professional sports. You gotta love it.
I was surfing the web tonight, much like I do every night, and I came across a great piece by Michael Rosenberg, over at Foxsports.com. He, like many of we Yankee fans have been doing over the last few days, is drawing comparisons between the Yankees and the Red Sox. The title of the piece is "Sox fans can no longer whine about 'Evil Empire.' Sox fans, like it or not, your organization is just like ours.
To steal a line from his piece: "No more complaining about the Yankees' payroll, Red Sox fans. Your team is the second-fattest cat on the block." I'm curious if Red Sox fans feel as if part of their identity has been stolen, as Yankee payroll comments have been part of the Sox fans' repertoire for what seems like forever. You guys can't fall back on the "payroll argument" anymore. No more quips about the Yankees trying to "buy championships." Assuming the Red Sox fail to win the World Series in 2007, or miss the playoffs like they did this year, you can't even fall back on the "you have the highest payroll and didn't win it all" argument. What are you guys going to do? And you can try to justify this all you want, but it's not flying with anybody except with members of the RSN. I've seen, read, and heard comments such as "well, it doesn't count against the payroll." And "it's an investment." Hey, keep telling yourselves that. Whatever helps you sleep at night. The Sox dropped $50 million to negotiate with a guy, and going off the assumption the two sides reach an agreement, there's another $40-50 million. It may not all count toward the team payroll, but the Red Sox just dropped $100 million to sign and pay one guy for his services. Potato, potatoe. Or better yet, Red Sox, Yankees.
I can understand why then Red Sox want to be like the Yankees. Who doesn't want to win 26 World Titles? Who doesn't want to have one of the most recognizable logos in the world? Who doesn't want to break both home and away attendance records? Who wants to wait 86 years to win a World Series? Who doesn't want to win? To try and do this, the Red Sox took a peek at the Yankee playbook, but what they found is really no secret. It's a simple business practice. You have to spend money to make money. Plunking down $100 million to sign Matsuzaka may make the Sox money in the long run. Unless the Sox cut payroll or increase the costs of tickets and such, getting a positive return on their "investment" might be hard to do. From a business standpoint, I wonder what their plan is? Fenway sells out every game, so it's not like there is extra ticket or concession revenue to be had. Are they relying on the Japanese market to buy Sox gear? Seems like a tall order. Time will tell I guess. Now will spending money help them win? Any Yankee fan should be able to answer that one.
As I said the other day, the Sox are now no different in how they try to operate. The Yankees just do it better. Always have. Always will. Long live the Empire.
It's past my bedtime.
J