Fair Ball

Book #42 of my 2005 50 book quest was Bob Costas' Fair Ball: A Fan's Case For Baseball.

The first thing you should know about the book is that is was originally published in 2000. Although some of the content has aged well other parts feel outdated a mere 5 years later. I guess things change more quickly in baseball than you might think. Unfortunately, another side effect of the book's age is the fact that there's no mention of topics like the impact of steroids on the game, which would be a no-brainer to cover if Costas were writing the book again today.

If you can get past the fact that the book is slightly dated, it's still well worth the read. Costas shares some excellent ideas on revenue sharing, how to more fairly balance player salaries, and ways in which the playing field could be levelled so that it's not always the same 4 or 5 teams going to the playoffs year after year (though with Moneyball we've lately seen how some small market teams have been able to compete regularly by managing their money well and staying ahead of the market). A lot of Costas' ideas revolve around the fact that baseball teams and the players currently want to function as an unregulated free-market economy when it's really in the best interest of the league to collaborate and set limits on the market to ensure the overall healthiness of the sport.

Another area Costas makes some interesting observations is on the way baseballs playoffs are currently structured. He argues that the current system devalues the regular season by making the pennant races less interesting. One great proposal he puts on the board is to eliminate the wild card in each league and have the team with the best record in each league get a bye in the first round. How great would it be if the Yankees and Red Sox were currently battling it out to see which one team would get to the playoffs? Instead it's likely they'll both end up making it and the AL East race will be pointless. By making each playoff game more important and the pennant races more exciting Costas argues you could more than make up for any lost revenue from eliminating one of the first round series.

Costas also argues that the first round series should be extended from five games to seven, as it's too easy for a weaker team to pull off an upset in the shorter series. This will be put to the test this year when the Cardinals are likely to play the Padres a team which they are currently 17-games better than. Though the Cardinals are clearly a better overall team in a five game series anything can happen. In Costas' world the Cardinals would probably be getting a buy and the Padres would have to knock off the Braves in a seven game series to move on to the next round.

All in all a good book and well worth a quick read if you're a baseball fan that's interested in the business side of the game.