Baseball Economics Quotes

It's bad for baseball to have owners who can benefit another business by losing money in baseball.

I don't know that I've ever looked at baseball like a purely casual fan. That's just realistic when you grow up with it putting food on your table, and with it taking your dad out of town.

As much as we disliked the Yankees, fans and players alike, they were good for baseball. They consistently unsuccessful teams like the Browns, Senators, and A's paid a lot of their bills with those big crowds that poured through the gates when the Yankees came to town.

Today, you hit .230, and you get a million and a half and think you're underpaid.

My pat line about the Cubs and payroll is that the amount of merchandise the Cubs would sell off a world series championship would more than cover for a big payroll.

When McGwire started the home run mania, attendance came back. The owners understood that the sudden spike in homers wasn't accidental. All baseball knew it. But baseball is run on money, and home runs meant money. Baseball turned a blind eye.

The fan is the one who suffers. He cheers a guy to a .350 season then watches that player sign with another team. When you destroy fan loyalties, you destroy everything.

By the 1880s, baseball was entrenched in the Cape's sandy soil. Semipro teams, commonplace before World War I, were organized into the first Cape Cod League in 1923 - Orleans joined the four original teams five years later. By 1940, the league had foundered on financial shoals and disbanded.

I understand business and understand the ugly face of baseball, which is the business part of baseball.

Yes, we've seen it all before. And yes, those who do not study history are condemned to repeat it. But no, the sky is not falling - baseball is such a great game that neither the owners nor the players can kill it. After some necessary carnage, market forces will prevail.

Look at all of the pitchers getting six- and seven-year deals at 30, 31, and 32. You see what's going on and the money that's out there. You'd be a fool not to try to benefit from that, or at least try to get what you feel you're worth.

I am dead set against free agency. It can ruin baseball.

The economics of baseball are the big problem. The big clubs make a lot of money and the little clubs don't.

And then came the nineties, when management, suddenly frightened that they had ceded control to the players, sought to restore baseball's profitability by 'running the game like a business.'