Ettinger: Dissecting parity in baseball  As the Fall Classic
begins to unwind, the weather is turning rather fair. True to
form, as the bandwagon comes rolling into the station, so does
an onslaught of cliché sports arguments. Indeed, it seems like
the only thing more common this time of year than Tim Lincecum
t-shirt jerseys is a really dumb baseball opinion. As a Yankees
fan, the overwhelming majority that I hear go something like
this: “Baseball isn’t fair. Teams like the Yankees spend too
much money and win the World Series year after year, while teams
like the Pirates are handcuffed by their budgets and are
perpetual cellar-dwellers.”  There’s a fair amount of truth to
this argument. Baseball isn’t fair. The Yankees are allowed to
spend far too much and the Pirates far too little. In no way am
I arguing that the payroll finances of baseball are sensible.
Still, I think it’s worth shedding some light on the actual
state of parity in baseball. As usual, to defog the ire of
baseball’s fair-weather populists