News

Three-Point Play

By Michael Pare

Posted on Oct. 02, 2008, at 12:00 a.m.

WNBA is a league destined for obscurity

This week, the WNBA Finals began and would have ended without my knowledge, had I not stumbled upon game one airing on ESPN2. Surprised as I was, I lingered just long enough to glean that the Detroit Shock and the San Antonio … Silver Stars (sorry, had to look that one up) were playing for the championship. The entire WNBA season passed by with hardly a blip on the sports radar, and once the season is over the eventual champion will be forgotten to history and the fading memory of my friend’s grandmother-the only known fan of the WNBA. You can call me sexist, and you can call me a non-believer, but there are three simple reasons why the WNBA will never rise above obscurity:

- Schedule: The WNBA season runs from May to October – during the NBA’s offseason. In the sports market, this pits it against baseball, America’s traditional pastime, and football, America’s contemporary pastime.

- Product: Let’s be frank. The WNBA is in no way a compelling product to watch. For American sports consumers who are used to watching the NBA, MLB and NFL, the WNBA offers only novelty and inferiority by comparison.

- Marketing: Intentional or not, the WNBA comes off, to me, as one big gimmick. Lets explore this from the view of a collegiate women’s basketball player. After the college basketball tournament ends, put on your Sunday best because draft day is tomorrow. At the draft that nobody watched, you are picked by a team whose name connotes electricity or high temperature (seriously, eight of the 14 teams: Sparks, Shock, Suns, Sol (Spanish for sun), Fever, Mercury, Storm). Since you were a collegiate star, you are immediately a WNBA all-star and command a salary of up to $40,000 per year. You will play your entire career with a ridiculous-looking basketball, attaining a maximum payscale of under $100,000 per year and retire in anonymity.

All that is missing for the WNBA to become “A League of Their Own” is the girls playing in dresses. But you know what? The girls in that movie loved the game so much they were willing to make that sacrifice to make their dreams their livelihood. As long as the WNBA is content to be nothing more than a dream fulfiller and the women content to be unsung heroes, there will be a place for them in sports.

Manny vs. Jason Bay in retrospect

Manny Ramirez was always an enigmatic figure in Boston – once vilified and later accepted by the media for his aloof nature. Every season brought the guarantee of hall of fame production but with questionable character. Frustration over his refusal to report to camp on time, hustle on defense or run out ground balls culminated this season in his trade to the Los Angeles Dodgers. In 53 games since, Manny has taken his game to another level, batting .396 with 17 HR and 53 RBI. The Red Sox finally made a personnel mistake, right? Not so fast. They didn’t just give Manny away. They got a nice ballplayer in return: Jason Bay.

Since his arrival in Boston, Bay has hit .293 with 37 RBI and filled in very well at left field. Perhaps more importantly, Bay, 30, is younger than Ramirez, 35, and does not cost $20 million to keep on the payroll. He may be inexperienced in the postseason, having played for the woeful Pittsburgh Pirates his entire career, but so far he has been unphased, hitting two home runs and leading the Sox to a 2-0 lead over the Angels in the ALDS.

Jason Bay has certainly cushioned the blow of losing Ramirez’s bat, and made apparent what a distraction Manny was to the organization. With Ramirez off the books, the Red Sox have found a capable replacement and positioned themselves to sign their young nucleus, guaranteeing competitiveness for years to come.

The biggest question mark regarding the deal was never how it would affect the Red Sox in the regular season, but how it would affect them in the games that really matter – the postseason. Manny has been a rock for every team he has ever been with, while Bay has no experience, having spent his entire career with the unsuccessful Pittsburgh Pirates. Inexperience has not been a factor so far in this postseason, as both Ramirez and Bay have hit home runs twice in leading their respective teams. Ramirez’s Dodgers completed the sweep over the Cubs to move on to the NLCS. Bay and the Red Sox are up 2-0 against the Angels.

Note: Red Sox vs. Angels Game Three concluded after press time.

Shot from inside the arc this week

This entry was posted on Thursday, October 2nd, 2008, 12:00 am. You can follow any responses to this article through the RSS feed.