When Next Year Never Comes

"Every successful person I have heard of has done the best he could with the conditions as he found them, and not waited until next year for better"
- Edgar Watson Howe

Despite the what feels like a never-ending falling of snow across the country, many of are warmed by the onset of Spring Training and the hopes that the comfort thought of "there's always next year" may finally be put to bed. For some, that means the dream that their team may finally be putting something together in hopes of a deep playoff run. Unfortunately for others, despite what our President has promised us, change just isn't coming.

Herein lies the true conundrum of the sports fan. Many fans comfort themselves with the thought that they see improvement in their teams from year to year, or at the very least, the promise that those areas where their team fell short, will at the very least see some sort of attention in the offseason. How though, do fans of some teams, who show no desire to better themselves or in the very least, do anything more than occupy a spot at the bottom of the league standings on a yearly basis? These fans, they are the true fans of the game. How else can you explain how these fans come back from one year to the next, knowing from the onset that they will have nothing to root for aside from possible personal statistics for perhaps the team's only star.

We're talking about the folks in Pittsburgh, Florida, San Diego, and Kansas City to some regard. These teams seem to be more than content with maitaining the status quo that they've set throughout the years, sparsing payroll on a yearly basis with more concern over maintaining a bottom line revenue figure than giving the fans a reason to come to part and spend money. They would rather choose complacency, with full knowledge that they barely qualify as a major league team, before they pump addition dollars into scouting, player development, or heaven forbid, free agency.

Sure, someone will note that Florida has won two World Series championships during their existence. However, one of those needs to be written off in context of this argument, because they were buyers in 1997, loading up on free agents to buy themselves a championship under Wayne Huizenga. That championship lost a ton credibility when the team promptly tore down the roster during the following winter in hopes of making the team a more attractive buy for the next ownership group, a feat that would be repeated after the 2003 season, when Florida won its second championship, this time using talent it had accumulated in the first round of trades.

Kansas City, Pittsburgh, and San Diego, despite middling levels of success, which may or may not be attributable to weaker division foes for San Diego and Kansas City when they enjoyed what little they've had in recent years, are completely different stories. KC has spent a few more dollars in recent seasons, perhaps more so because they've been labeled as a parasite sucking on their revenue sharing dollars. Despite that though, they have enjoyed little turnaround. San Diego has a division championship under its belt, but it could be easily seen as one of the weakest crowns ever awarded, and they've disregarded addressing their ultimate needs to make the next step in hopes of keeping the team in the green.

That leaves us with Pittsburgh, a team that once was one of the prides of baseball, but now enjoys its title of being one of its neglected step children. The Pirates are more concerned with crying foul against the rest of the league who plays the game the way its been laid out before them. Even so, you'd assume that they would at some point show some prosperity in their farm system, as we witnessed last year from the perennial doormat Tampa Bay Rays, but their shrewdness with opening their purse strings can only be topped by their total inability to scout and draft quality prospects. One thing that is worse than knowing you have no chance this year is knowing that there is no clear spot in the future when that is going to change.

So, I salute you fans in Pittsburgh, San Diego, Florida, and Kansas City. You folks must love the game more than any of us, because at the end of the day, the game must be the only thing that keeps bringing you back!