Brilliant, brilliant, brilliant. Allen Barra on why the big-market baseball whining is ridiculous.

"Predictably, Detroit is being used to bolster the argument that
baseball needs more revenue sharing and spending
restrictions," Barra says.

"By large-market teams, Selig apparently meant only teams that
spend a lot of money, not teams that make a lot of money. He
couldn't have meant the New York Mets (who, after cutting
their payroll drastically at midseason, will fit under the $117
million threshold), or Philadelphia Phillies (potentially the
biggest-market team in baseball, as they play in either the
third- or fourth-largest population concentration in the United
States but don't share the territory with another team), the
Chicago Cubs or White Sox (who, between them, haven't won
a World Series in more than 160 seasons), the Angels (who
have won just one World Series in their first 42 seasons and
aren't going to win one this year), or even the Los Angeles
Dodgers.

The Detroit Tigers play in a fairly substantial market, not as big
as the Chicago White Sox (although Chicagoland is shared with
the Cubs) but certainly bigger than the markets of the other
three teams—Minnesota, Kansas City, and Cleveland—in their
division who are ahead of them in the standings. The Dodgers
play in the second-biggest market in the country (though, if
you want to assume that there are large numbers of Dodger
fans both north and south of Los Angeles, you might consider it
as the biggest potential market). Which is the biggest disgrace,
that the Tigers are wrapping up one of the four or five worst
seasons ever or that the Dodgers are 13 1/2 games behind the
San Francisco Giants, not merely a small-market team but one
that has to share its fan base with the Oakland A's. Wouldn't it be a reasonable assumption that the problems of
both the Tigers and the Dodgers have something to do with
mismanagement of available resources?