Today's Max Kellerman show was broadcast from a New York baseball landmark - Mickey Mantle's Restaurant. Because the show was broadcast on a live set (as opposed to from the studio), it allowed for people to ask questions directly to Max Kellerman and Brian Kenny. Or to paraphrase Max, "instead of ignoring callers I can ignore the people in the restaurant." But of course he didn't ignore them.
Working backwards through the topics that the show touched on, there were questions asked of Max Kellerman and Brian Kenny by various marines who were in the restaurant. These included some marines who had no opinions on baseball (prompting Max to ask for them to pass the mike to someone with an opinion) -- to marines that said that they had stopped following baseball after the strike. This provoked what sounded like a well rehearsed dissertation by Max and Brian as to how the owners got greedy and as a result the players needed to strike in order to get what they deserved.
Oddly enough, the discussion actually closed the circle from a topic which started the show off, as to how the nation is not appreciative of the Yankees. Max and Brian developed a theory that the game of baseball and more particularly the small market teams are being subsidized by the New York Yankees and that without the Yankees, these teams would not be around. This point was new and innovative to me as I had not heard it phrased in the same manner.
The problem with the theory is that when applied to the strike, it actually proves that the players do not properly appreciate the owners (not that I love ownership either, but...). If the players could command whatever salary they desired without limits, non viable teams would fail and the league would contract and there would be less jobs for the players. In my opinion, the end result is that whereas eight hundred players now make an average of over a million dollars a year, after contraction there would still be the same team salary structures (some players making more than others) but less players in the game.
The concept of lack of understanding of how we benefit from the actions of the few has its roots in Torah as well. The gemara in Berochos 17b, mentions R' Chanina Ben Dosa and the fact that the whole world was fed in the merit of R' Chanina Ben Dosa while he subsisted on one kav of carobs a week. I can't say that Max Kellerman, in discussing how the world should be Yankee fans (because they support all of baseball) was specifically making reference to R' Chanina Ben Dosa as this would be a stretch even for me. But his novel analysis of the lack of appreciation for the actions of the few and how their actions are responsible for the continuation of the (baseball) world's existence has its parallel in the world of Torah as well.
Working backwards through the topics that the show touched on, there were questions asked of Max Kellerman and Brian Kenny by various marines who were in the restaurant. These included some marines who had no opinions on baseball (prompting Max to ask for them to pass the mike to someone with an opinion) -- to marines that said that they had stopped following baseball after the strike. This provoked what sounded like a well rehearsed dissertation by Max and Brian as to how the owners got greedy and as a result the players needed to strike in order to get what they deserved.
Oddly enough, the discussion actually closed the circle from a topic which started the show off, as to how the nation is not appreciative of the Yankees. Max and Brian developed a theory that the game of baseball and more particularly the small market teams are being subsidized by the New York Yankees and that without the Yankees, these teams would not be around. This point was new and innovative to me as I had not heard it phrased in the same manner.
The problem with the theory is that when applied to the strike, it actually proves that the players do not properly appreciate the owners (not that I love ownership either, but...). If the players could command whatever salary they desired without limits, non viable teams would fail and the league would contract and there would be less jobs for the players. In my opinion, the end result is that whereas eight hundred players now make an average of over a million dollars a year, after contraction there would still be the same team salary structures (some players making more than others) but less players in the game.
The concept of lack of understanding of how we benefit from the actions of the few has its roots in Torah as well. The gemara in Berochos 17b, mentions R' Chanina Ben Dosa and the fact that the whole world was fed in the merit of R' Chanina Ben Dosa while he subsisted on one kav of carobs a week. I can't say that Max Kellerman, in discussing how the world should be Yankee fans (because they support all of baseball) was specifically making reference to R' Chanina Ben Dosa as this would be a stretch even for me. But his novel analysis of the lack of appreciation for the actions of the few and how their actions are responsible for the continuation of the (baseball) world's existence has its parallel in the world of Torah as well.
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