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Baseball is not always a perfect metaphor for life, but it is a good one for investing.Good teams know how to find value where others may not see it. Spending gobs of money on expensive players does not always pan out and successful companies do the little things well. There is no better illustration of this than the current sad state of the New York Mets and New York Yankees.
Despite investing more money than the GDP of some small, developing countries on high-priced talent, the New York Mets and New York Yankees are being outperformed by teams from the vast baseball wasteland known as Florida. The pain being felt by New York sports fans pales in comparison to the anguish in the executive offices of Walt Disney Co. (NYSE: DIS)'s ESPN and News Corp. (NYSE: NWS)'s Fox Sports, which spent big bucks tor the rights to broadcast baseball games. I bet ESPN and Fox ad sales representatives would break out in a cold sweat at the thought of an all-Florida World Series.
What's ironic is that the people in Florida don't seem to like baseball. More than 80,000 people showed up to watch the football games of powerhouses University of Florida and Florida State in 2006. Last year, the American League Rays attracted an average of 17,148 fans to their games and the NL Marlins drew 16,919, according to the Baseball Almanac. That's roughly a third of the 52,739 who went to see the Yankees or the 47,579 who went to watch the Mets.
Every baseball pundit with a mouse, computer monitor and keyboard predicted that the New York Mets would win the National League East and stand a decent chance of making the World Series. Instead, the not-so-Amazin' Mets are near the the bottom of the division with a record of 24 wins and 24 losses, almost six games behind the Florida Marlins. Their cross-town rivals, the Yankees, are doing even worse, languishing in last place in the American League East. Much to everyone's surprise, the Rays are remaining competitive with the World Series champs Boston Red Sox.
This underscores baseball fans like investors need to question conventional wisdom. It also proves to a long-suffering Philadelphia fan like me that there is a God.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
5-29-2008 @ 8:15AM
Constable Odo said...
Still early in the season yet. I have to admit that the Yankees do suck. I guess I consider myself a Yankee fan but I still want the Mets to do well as a New York team.
Playing .500 this early in the season isn't terrible except for the fact that the players are worth more than their weight in gold. You might hope that their in first place from the first game to the last and win the World Series. Won't happen. Never will. I think today's players must be muscle-bound since they're always pulling something. It's like they don't stretch or warm up properly. Good for them, since they can rest on the bench more and lengthen their careers.