For the latest installment of my Baseball Prospectus column “Payoff Pitch” (free to non-subscribers this week!), a brief history of baseball revenue sharing, and why it’s neither evil socialism nor, um, good socialism:

A little over a week ago, Yankees president and designated apoplectic pit bull Randy Levine decided to divert attention from his team’s pitching woes by going after a new target: Rangers owner Chuck Greenberg. Five days earlier, the Texas honcho had asserted that it was his team’s efforts to sign Cliff Lee that had stalled the Yankees long enough for the Phillies to enter the picture with their ultimately winning bid. Levine, hearing these as fighting words, lashed out by calling Greenberg a welfare case… [read more]