do u agree with this article about the red sox?

[DannyC]

A possible $140M payroll. The highest ticket prices in the game. It's official: The Red Sox have lost their true personality and joined the Yankees as a baseball empire, writes Jim Caple

Congratulations, Boston fans. Your Red Sox are the new Yankees.

Oh, I'm not saying that one World Series championship in the past 88 years is on par with the Yankees winning 26 championships and 39 American League pennants in the same period (I already get enough hate mail from New York fans to suggest such a ludicrous thing). But when the Red Sox signed J.D. (the Iron Man) Drew to a $70 million contract and invested $103 million in Daisuke Matsuzaka, they officially became everything Boston fans used to loathe about the Yankees. A team that fills out its roster by opening up a Costanza-thick wallet.

While Boston's projected 2007 payroll (perhaps $140 million) is still substantially south of New York's, it still will likely be more than all the other teams in baseball. If the Red Sox aren't the new Evil Empire or co-Evil Empire, they at least are Wal-Mart to New York's Halliburton.

Hell, the Red Sox paid more just for the right to negotiate with Daisuke Matsuzaka than five teams paid their entire roster last year. And as Gordon Edes wrote in a terrific story on the wooing of Matsuzaka in Sunday's Boston Globe, the Red Sox arrived at the $51,111,111.11 bid because owner John Henry thought that string of 11s would be lucky. Now, when you have the luxury of slapping $1,111,111.11 on a bid for the pure look of it, you definitely are not living in the same neighborhood as the Kansas City Royals or Pittsburgh Pirates (or even the Chicago White Sox, for that matter).

It's to the point that if John Henry gained 40 pounds and started acting like an ass, you would think George Steinbrenner owned the Red Sox.

Not convinced the Red Sox have turned into the Yankees? Then consider this. No team has ever paid more money for a world championship than did the 2004 Red Sox (the Yankees have spent more trying to win, but their payroll was a mere $114 million when they won the Series in 2000). Further, when those Red Sox recorded the final out of that World Series, not a single player on the field was homegrown. When the Sox open the 2007 season, they may have just two homegrown players in the lineup, first baseman Kevin Youkilis and second baseman Dustin Pedroia.

A possible $140 million payroll. Signing two players for $170 million in a two-week span. Assembling a team from everyone else's farm system while trading away your own. The highest ticket prices in the game. Over-the-top fans seemingly everywhere. These are precisely the things Red Sox fans despised about the Yankees for years. And now they're also true of the Red Sox.

Next thing you know, Ronan Tynan will be singing "Sweet Caroline.''

Most teams have a distinct character, built up over the decades, a personality that persists almost without regard for actual record. The Twins will always be dependable Midwest farmers getting by on hard work, good soil and solid team fundamentals rather than stunning payrolls. The Athletics will always be West Coast free spirits going about the game their own way (whether that's drawing walks or drawing tattoos). The Yankees will always be pin-striped Gotham storm troopers dispatching opponents with cold corporate efficiency. The White Sox will always be the South Side blue-collar workers playing in the shadow of their yuppie northern neighbors. And for decades the Red Sox were the Calvinist, heroic underdogs always destined to fail tragically in the end.

That personality disappeared in October 2004 with the speed of a Big Papi home run leaving the yard, and no sane Red Sox fan would ever want it back. Understandably so. Who wants to have his heart broken again and again and again when you have the chance to live happily ever after with the person of your dreams? The Red Sox are finally on par with their hated rival and are delighted about it.

But that doesn't make things easier for everyone else. It used to be there was just the Yankees empire with which to contend. But the Sox knocking off the Yankees in 2004 didn't rid baseball of a menace. It simply meant there was another nuclear power in the ever-escalating arms race.

Sigh. It's enough to make you hope the Cubs never win.

[DannyC]

source: http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2...e=caple/061221

[DannyC]

btw, sidenote

the red sox have not yet finalized a contract with jd drew as there are still questions concerning his shoulder that were brought up during his routine physical

[Iceodu921]

with the way they went at dmat of course they are like the yankees.

[DannyC]

the red sox bid 51 mill, the mets bid 44

dont be a hypocrit

[Iceodu921]

where are you getting your info? reported in ny papers as mets bidding 37 not 44. and anyway if it is our payroll is more than 40mil less than urs not counting the 51 million bid and around 90 less than the yanks.

stop acting like the mets compete with you guys and the yanks because we dont. both chicago teams spend more than the mets.

if we spent like you guys would have zito already.

[DannyC]

when u get zito, u can tack close to 20 mill more per year on that payroll, and its only goin up, not down

[Old Soul]

I heard Mets bid 45.

[Iceodu921]

Originally Posted by DannyC

when u get zito, u can tack close to 20 mill more per year on that payroll, and its only goin up, not down

and its still less than the yanks, soxs cubs etc..

i dont knock for high payrolls i say if you have the money you should spend however its a lie to say the mets spend like the top teams because its just not true. I wish we did spend like the top teams if we did we wouldve gotten arod, giambi vlad etc.

the mets more like to go after the 2nd best option whose cheaper than the best would cost them more money.

and per the mets offical statement they bid 39 mil. no other team went over 40.

[DannyC]

spend like the top teams?

mets are a top team.

top 5 in payrolls as a matter of fact

[Iceodu921]

wrong again..

as of now they arent a top 5 payroll of course that can change but they arent at the moment.

anyway when I said the top teams I was talking about the yanks and soxs whose payrolls dwarfs everyone elses.