It’s nothing to obsess over, but it is an important step in the right direction. Major League… It’s nothing to obsess over, but it is an important step in the right direction. Major League Baseball announced the other day that the average salary of its players is down 3 percent this year from last season, marking the first time since 1995 — the year after the strike — that salaries have decreased.

It’s not a big decrease, but it’s a start. The average salary in 2003 was $2.56 million and this season it is $2.49 million. One might think baseball players make the most money of any athletes because there is no salary cap, but that’s where most people go wrong with baseball.

In actuality, basketball players average the most money, averaging $4.9 million this season, almost double what baseball players make. And to make that figure even more staggering, basketball somehow has a salary cap.

This leads to the question of whether the Yankees are bad for baseball because of their free spending. Last night, ESPN held a mock trial of this hot topic with well-known lawyer Alan Dershowitz heading the prosecution team. I hate the Yankees more than anyone else, but they certainly are not bad for baseball. nor are they doing a single thing wrong in buying championships.

As for what I said before — about basketball having a salary cap and still paying its players twice as much as baseball — it just proves that a salary cap can be reached in America’s pastime. The cap can be set at somewhere near $100 million; this way the average salary on a 25-man roster could be $4 million, over $1.5 million more then the average player makes right now.

As with anything in this world, this type of cap would settle issues and cause problems at the same time. Heading into the 2004 season, the Milwaukee Brewers had the lowest team salary, at $27.5 million, while the Yankees were the highest, at $183 million.

So as you can see, the Yankees would never have been able to afford Alex Rodriguez under such a cap, but the Brewers would be up a creek without a paddle since they would only spend a quarter of what a cap would be.

Hang with me because I have a point here. It all stems back to ESPN’s “Yankees on Trial”. The Yankees have every right to spend the amount of money they want, same with the Brewers. But with a salary cap that amounts, per player, to more than the average player makes now, the Yankees can still outspend the Brewers by $73 million and field an amazing team.

The major difference would be the fact that teams like Boston, Baltimore, Toronto and other American League teams could spend the same amount as the Yankees and not be outbid every year, making competition better.

In this type of salary cap system, only owners with the desire to spend money and go after players could win, much like in basketball, in which only teams like Sacramento, Los Angeles and San Antonio win because their respective owners go out and spend, while staying under the cap.

Meanwhile, teams like the Pirates and Brewers can continue to piss off their respective fans by not spending money, and finishing last every year.

As much as I hate to say it, don’t blame the Yankees for their success; blame the system.

Brian Goldman is a staff writer for The Pitt News and he blames Jeffrey Maier for the Yankees’ success. You can send comments to [email protected].