Anybody’s Ballgame

It may be a stretch to suggest that competitive and financial parity suddenly has replaced that familiar baseball cry of disparity.

Commissioner Bud Selig would survey the October landscape and call it an aberration.

Nevertheless, the playoffs that begin today are definitely viewed as an eight-team tossup with several entries from the middle- and lower-payroll plateaus having intruded on a neighborhood that has belonged almost strictly to the rich.

“You can make a case that virtually any team in the playoffs can reach the World Series,” said Houston Astro General Manager Gerry Hunsicker, strictly a spectator this year. “There is simply no dominant team.”

The parity is such that three playoff teams--the San Francisco Giants, Chicago White Sox and Seattle Mariners--all use the same music to stoke their adrenaline and celebrate victories: the Baha Men’s “Who let the dogs out, who, who who . . .”

In fact, this alone could be a motivational factor because the Giants claim the White Sox and Mariners pretty much stole what had been their clubhouse anthem. After all, didn’t the Baha Men make it a point to be at Pac Bell Park on the night that the Giants clinched the National League West, clear evidence they know who the top dogs are?

Indeed. In this playoff, the Baha Men may have as good a guess as anyone.

Said White Sox General Manager Ron Schueler: “Where in the past the [New York] Yankees have dominated, this time you can pick a name out of a hat.

“I mean, our scouting reports indicate the Giants are a very good team, but going in anyone has a chance.”

The White Sox ended Cleveland’s domination in the American League Central and led the league in wins.

Their rotation, however, has been reduced to a wing or two and a prayer, and they have to be wondering if the Baha Men can pitch.

“We’re pretty beat up,” Schueler said. “We’ll go only as far as our pitching will take us.”

No one begins the playoffs more beat up than the Yankees, whose postseason domination in recent seasons is illustrated by 12 consecutive wins in World Series games and a 35-10 playoff record since 1996.

The Yankees, however, ended the season with seven consecutive defeats, lost 13 of their last 16, were defeated by 10 or more runs six times in the final two weeks, blew the home-field advantage for the playoffs and limped in with only 87 wins after averaging 100 over the last four years.

In part because of the Yankee breakdown, no team reached a .600 winning percentage, nor did any fall below .400.

In a league of their own, the eight playoff teams stretched from the Giants with 97 wins to the Yankees with 87. In between, the Atlanta Braves, St. Louis Cardinals and White Sox had 95, the New York Mets had 94 and the Oakland A’s and Mariners had 91.

“There’s simply not enough pitching to go around, and that’s why it’s evened out in recent years,” Schueler said. “My guess is that expansion has caught up with us.”

Hunsicker agreed.

“The lack of quality pitching depth makes teams with even the strongest offense vulnerable,” he said. “I don’t care how many runs you score, you have to get consistent pitching.

“Look at the Yankees with less than 90 wins. There were several factors, but pitching has always been the foundation of their success. This year they had periods when Roger Clemens and David Cone and Orlando Hernandez were ineffective, and their middle relief was up and down. Lately, it seems, their entire staff has had trouble.”

Perhaps, but Mo Vaughn sounded a warning Sunday in Anaheim.

“To me, the Yankees are the team to beat because at playoff time they always take it to the next level,” Vaughn said. “You always hear about this guy or that guy having problems, then you look up and they’ve thrown eight shutout innings. Their veteran pitchers always rise to the occasion.”

This year, it seems, they will be rising from the September ashes, but they are not alone.

Pitching has carried the Braves to nine consecutive division titles, but they have significant questions after Greg Maddux and Tom Glavine.

The Giants and Cardinals may have the deepest staffs, but neither has a dominant No. 1, and the Cardinals are opening with a 21-year-old rookie, Rick Ankiel, today.

Many embrace a parity that should produce an exciting postseason, but St. Louis Manager Tony La Russa considers it a dirty word.

“I’ve just always thought of parity in terms of something being watered down and not very good,” La Russa said. “In our league I would look at the playoffs more in terms of four very dangerous clubs, four very good clubs, and I agree that an argument can be made for any one of them reaching the World Series.”

Owners, of course, have long insisted that the only way to achieve true competitive and economic balance is through a change in the salary system and that the high revenue and payroll teams will continue to dominate until it happens.

Management studies indicate that no team in the bottom half of the payroll list won any of the 158 playoff games from 1995 through 1999.

Last year was characteristic. Eight of the 11 highest payroll teams reached the playoffs.

This year, however, only the Yankees, Mets, Braves and Cardinals have qualified among the top 14 payroll teams, and the Giants, White Sox, A’s and Mariners are in with comparatively modest investments.

The Mariners were ranked 15th on the payroll scale and the Giants 17th, generating baseball’s best record for about $55 million. The White Sox ranked 26th for most of the season and the A’s were below that.

Said Selig: “There has always been the potential for aberration, but the disparity issue remains our biggest problem. I mean, the evidence of a correlation between high payroll and winning is enormous.”

Atlanta General Manager John Schuerholz concurred.

“I think it’s accurate to say that the four playoff teams in our league are pretty similar in ability,” he said, “but I also think there has always been the potential for parity of ability in any given year.

“I don’t think that dismisses the old parity-disparity argument. I think it’s more an anomaly, aberration.

“I mean, the true measure of parity-disparity is a team’s ability to perform at a championship level over a number of years.

“The challenge for the Minnesotas and Pittsburghs of the past, and maybe the Oakland of this year, is in their ability to maintain championship-caliber players for more than a year or two, and history tells us that most of those teams have been unable to do it.

“The system is too costly, the salary scale doesn’t permit it.”

The A’s and White Sox rebuilt on good scouting and development, with ownership willing to add an expensive veteran or two when the teams were in position to win.

However, Oakland General Manager Billy Beane agreed with the Schuerholz view that the challenge rests in sustaining what he has built.

“The system simply doesn’t provide any guarantee that we can retain our best players in the prime of their careers,” he said. “Our young players are not going to be young and inexpensive for long.”

The A’s and others have attempted to compensate by signing their best young players to multiyear contracts before they become eligible for free agency or arbitration. The A’s, however, soon face a financial crucible with most-valuable-player candidate Jason Giambi, who is eligible for free agency at the end of next season.

In the meantime, Schuerholz thinks much of this parity-disparity discussion is academic because, “If you take a hard look, I don’t think any of the playoff teams except maybe the A’s really fall into the have-not category.”

He meant that three of the National League teams--the Braves, Mets and Cardinals--are among the top spenders, and the Giants benefited this year from a new ballpark. In the AL, the Yankees lead baseball with a $112-million payroll, the Mariners played their first full season in a new park, and the White Sox have a comparatively new park with a new and exciting team that may in time recapture a lost fan base.

One thing is certain: Whether parity has made inroads on disparity or not, these playoffs, as Giant Manager Dusty Baker said recently, are about as even as they’ve ever been.

With apologies to the Baha Men, Met catcher Mike Piazza may have put it best.

“I can’t talk about the other league, but I think every team in the playoffs in our league has at one time been the best team in the league,” he said. “The team that’s able to recapture that form is the one that’s going to win. That’s the bottom line.”

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ROOS NEWHAN’S PLAYOFF RANKINGS

1. SAN FRANCISCO GIANTS

* Home dominance and rotation depth should be decisive.

2. OAKLAND A’S

* Not much experience, but capable of handling October pressure with September swagger.

3. ST. LOUIS CARDINALS

* Enough offensive depth to survive loss of Mark McGwire and enough pitching depth to rival San Francisco.

4. NEW YORK YANKEES

* Still respected, but inconsistent season took care of the fear factor.

5. ATLANTA BRAVES

* Old hands at this, but Greg Maddux and Tom Glavine only remaining certainties in renowned rotation.

6. NEW YORK METS

* Enigmatic team that has the weapons to defeat anyone, but Mike Piazza still has to come up big.

7. SEATTLE MARINERS

* A-Rod and Edgar represent dynamic duo, but tough to shake memory of August vulnerability.

8. CHICAGO WHITE SOX

* A potent and versatile offense, but the rotation has more holes than the defense.