The view from New York

Crying poverty, some MLB owners are laughing all the way to the bank

Unfortunately for Pirates fans and now Indians fans, ownership is not willing to spend what it takes to be competitive. Instead, they pocket all that revenue-sharing and central fund dough and claim they're losing money, meaning they must trade away their best players to "secure the future." What future?

Hard as this might be to believe, baseball has managed to turn back the clock 60 years, resurrecting the spirit of the St. Louis Browns and Philadelphia A's, teams that routinely sold off their best players to the Yankees and Red Sox to stay in business. The only difference is that those teams really were broke. The disgraceful Dolans in Cleveland and Bob Nutting and Frank Coonelly in Pittsburgh are crying poverty and cheating their fans all the way to the bank.