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Friday, November 28, 2008
Another marathon
A couple weeks ago, I ran my 8th marathon. This one was in Tulsa, Oklahoma. That might seem like a very strange place for someone from New Jersey to go for a marathon, but that's all explained
on my Race Report, which can be found at the link to the left. Also included there, of course, is my recap of the whole event.
In a nutshell, it was okay.
And now, I have no more races planned. I don't know what my next marathon will be. The Mardi Gras Marathon in New Orleans on Feb 1 is one possibility. But that date is creeping up quickly, and I'm afraid it won't happen.
And if that's not it, I have no idea what it will be.
In the time since the Tulsa race, I had one of the nastiest viruses that I've had in many many years. There was
one day where I could barely lift myself out of bed. I can't remember the last time I felt that terrible. Luckily
it didn't last too long. Within a couple days, I was almost back to normal. I do say "almost" though, because
it's now been a week and I still feel just a wee bit run down and sapped for energy. I might need a couple more days of extra
sleep, and then hopefully I can get back at it. Whatever "it" is.
Since yesterday was Thanksgiving, let me take the time to wish all my loyal readers a Happy Thanksgiving!
Tuesday, November 11, 2008
Payrolls since last winning a World Series
I'm a numbers geek. I've always loved numbers. So with the Tampa Rays and their low payroll
in the World Series, I was wondering which teams have spent the most money on payroll since last winning
a championship. Is it the Cubs, who've gone 100 years? Or the Yankees, who've only gone 8 years, but have spent a lot
of money in that time? Well, I wasted some time by figuring it out...
I did a bit of poking around on the internet,
and I found that USA Today lists team payrolls going back to 1988 on its website. I found another site that lists payrolls going back to 1976. I used this site for the years 1976-1987. And then I added up the numbers
for each team since its last title. The Phillies obviously have a total of $0, since they just won. The Red Sox are at $133
million and change, which was their 2008 payroll, i.e. the only year since they've won a title. Etc. Here's the spreadsheet where I added up all the numbers.
A number of teams, of course, haven't won since 1976. And since my
list only includes totals since 1976, some of the numbers aren't going to be 100% accurate. But the average team payroll in
1976 was only $1.17M (yes, that's team payroll). And I'm sure that number drops even farther the further back in time
you go. So even though the Cubs played 67 seasons between 1908 and 1976, I doubt that would add more than $50M or so to their
total.
The result? The Cubs are actually only fourth on the list. They would have had to spend almost $100M between
1909 and 1975 to move higher than fourth. As I just stated, I doubt that's possible.
Instead, the Yankees have the
highest total, despite only 8 seasons without a championship. The Mets (22 years) and Dodgers (20 years) are both also ahead
of the Cubs. As expected, the teams other than the Yankees that have won recently are near the bottom of the list.
The
Mariners, Rangers and Giants are all pretty closely packed, and factoring in those years before 1976 could put those three
in any order, ranked #5 thru #7. Otherwise, I think the list is pretty much in the right order.
Well, I thought this was interesting and I hadn't seen it written anywhere. It's useless information,
but what the heck...
Money spent on payroll since last World Series championship: (data since 1976)
2000 New York Yankees $1,376,850,008
1986
New York Mets $1,361,664,071
1988 Los Angeles Dodgers $1,324,283,210
1908+ Chicago Cubs $1,228,121,562
1977* Seattle
Mariners $1,154,979,413
1961*+ Tex Rangers/Was Senators $1,144,702,012
1954+ San Francisco Giants $1,143,647,093
1983
Baltimore Orioles $1,111,230,938
1962*+ Houston Astros $1,064,950,462
1995 Atlanta Braves $1,063,855,394
1948+ Cleveland
Indians $992,328,526
1984 Detroit Tigers $991,959,743
1969*+ San Diego Padres $872,583,548
1993 Toronto Blue Jays
$861,471,906
1990 Cincinnati Reds $841,463,011
1969*+ Mil Brewers/Sea Pilots $796,029,491
1993* Colorado Rockies
$777,367,864
1985 Kansas City Royals $750,185,161
1989 Oakland Athletics $744,429,660
1979 Pittsburgh Pirates $662,899,801
1969*+
Was Nationals/Mon Expos $656,616,494
1991 Minnesota Twins $634,187,039
2002 Los Angeles Angels $609,231,322
2001
Arizona Diamondbacks $493,541,399
1998* Tampa Bay Rays $401,125,708
2005 Chicago White Sox $332,611,832
2006 St Louis
Cardinals $189,911,272
2003 Florida Marlins $169,868,876
2007 Boston Red Sox $133,390,035
2008 Philadelphia Phillies
$0
+ indicates that total is missing years prior to 1976.
* indicates franchise has never won a World Series, and
the date shown is the year that the franchise came into existance.
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Welcome to Bob Mann's web page. I was looking around the internet recently and I thought to
myself, "Gee, there aren't enough blogs out there. What the world really needs is one more idiot throwing his every
moronic thought into cyberspace." And thus this page was born.
Of course, this site is a work in progress, and probably will remain so for quite a while.
Please feel free to poke around as much as you'd like. And please send me any comments you may have. Idiots like
me who make these sites couldn't possibly make them better without input from idiots like you!
-RBM 05/30/06
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