Does anyone know if the Red Sox won today?

Blitzkrieg

It's as simple as this. The Red Sox win today, they can close out the White Sox @ Fenway.

Just like the Angels have to win a game in the Bronx now, I think they screwed themselves. Colon has a right to be pissed at Garret Anderson.

IRALB

I'm enamoured in what seems to be a Grail-esque search for the 1992-1993 payrolls.

IRALB

Ooh, here we go. Now of course granted inflation of professional sports salaries over ten plus years...

http://www.thebaseballcube.com/stati...0_1992_R.shtml

1992 Toronto Blue Jays payroll
$43,663,666

http://www.thebaseballcube.com/statistics/1992/5.shtml

1992 Boston Red Sox payroll
$42,203,584

http://www.thebaseballcube.com/statistics/1992/20.shtml
1992 New York Yankees
$35,966,834

http://www.thebaseballcube.com/statistics/1993/30.shtml
1993 Toronto Blue Jays
$45,747,666

http://www.thebaseballcube.com/statistics/1993/5.shtml
1993 Boston Red Sox
$37,108,583

http://www.thebaseballcube.com/statistics/1993/20.shtml
1993 New York Yankees
$41,305,000

Again like I said granted the inflation over the past ten plus years, but the maximum increment between the salaries of the Blue Jays over either the Yankees/Red Sox has been in the $8+ million range, kind of a little higher than the $80-$160+ million range.

Yes, you can obviously take into account that the Jays attendance was a million or two higher than the YankSox, but again they were in the midst of fielding their greatest team in franchise history. Inflation of players salaries has soared over the past ten years, but honestly you cannot defend the spending habitures of the YankSox as pure attendance/inflation. From the Jays upping both clubs by 8 million plus back in 92-93, to the Yankees upping them by $160 million plus, and the Red Sox by half that margin. I mean come on, that's not all attendance related.

DMW

There's a hell of a lot more factors to payroll than attendance.

IRALB

Indeed there is, I just recall everytime this argument is brought up, it always reverts back to the attendance factor, and "not supporting your team". What have you got DMW?

Dr. Giganto

The thing with MLB revenues is that it's all circular. It goes like this:

Yankees play well --> More fan interest --> More revenue (attendance, apparel, advertising, etc) for the Yankees --> More money to spend on salary --> Yankees play well

When the Yankees weren't playing well, they didn't do well attendance-wise (the location of the stadium also played into this), their payroll was not exorbitantly high, and because of that they were mediocre for Don Mattingly's entire career. But once they started turning it around, they implemented a system (forming their own network) that assured that they would ALWAYS have plenty of money to spend on great players, and thus, fan interest would always be high.

Plus, the Yankees and Red Sox have long storied histories of their franchises. Ruth, Gehrig, DiMaggio, Mantle, Ted Williams, Yastremski, etc. and stuff like that draws young kids to their teams. I mean, how many kids grew up watching baseball hearing all about the great Babe Ruth and became Yankee fans in the process? Or parents telling their kids about Mantle the same way we will talk about players like Mariano Rivera and Roger Clemens to our children?

The Yankees, more than any other franchise in American sports, have ingrained themselves so much in the fabric of America, both spiritually and financially, that it's almost impossible for them to do poorly

AudioSavior

*EDIT* I read something wrong there.

Blitzkrieg

Are you saying attendence doesn't play a big factor in this?

The Jays set a record in 1992 with over 4 million in attendence.

Here's this years' numbers..

Total- Average- Percent

1,977,949

24,724

48.9

How do you explain that?

Miakal

How can you average a sellout? Is that even possible?

The Boston Red Sox (in the minds of the confused fans) must be so great that they can shatter the laws of mathematics.

Blitzkrieg

The Red Sox averaged a sellout because every game was a sellout.