Hope and Faith and The Facts

[Crash Course]

Back in November 2000, Bud Selig told the Senate Judiciary Committee's subcommittee on antitrust, business rights and competition:

"At the start of spring training, there no longer exists hope and faith for the fans of more than half our 30 clubs. It is my job to restore hope and faith. I can assure you this system will be changed."

Allen Barra, at that time, decided to look at 'competitive balance' in baseball over the years, to see if Bud was right. Barra looked at the number of teams, since 1901, that finished over .600 each year and the number of teams that finished below .400 each year, to see if there was a wild swing somewhere.

What Barra found was that every season there were about three teams each year that finished over .600 and about three teams each year that finished below .400. It was pretty consistent, year after year, over the (then) past century. So, just what was Bud looking to restore?

But, that was in 2000. So, today, I decided to look at the last 5 years to see if there's been any change. This is the tally:

Year	Over .600  Under .400
2004	    3	        3
2003	    3	        3
2002	    4	        4
2001	    2	        3
2000	    0	        0

As you can see, it's still in the "three's" each year. So, when folks today complain about how bad baseball is today because there's such uncompetitive balance, do they really have a beef? Is baseball today any different than any time in the last 105 years? The numbers say that it is not.