The single biggest factor which allows teams with overall less talent to compete with and beat bigger teams with NBA quality talent is the 3-point shot. As long as a team has guys who can pepper 20 footers for three points they will be right there with the big boys who can pound the ball into their big guys but who only get 2 points for doing so. The idea of basketball used to be to force the other team to take long, low percentage jump shots while taking good shots down low on offense. The college 3-point line has turned the game on its head and has created excitement through a gimmick. I don't know if that's good or bad, but it's true.

And please, a player does not "break" the rules when he commits a foul. That is just a stupid way to think about it. The rules contemplate fouls and provide a penalty for it. They are a part of the game and unless you try to injure someone a foul benefits the team that is fouled. The only time it doesn't benefit the team that is fouled is when they miss their free throws and whose fault is that?

I tried Rotissiere one year and hated it. I was rooting for guys I didn't want to and against my team on occassion. I can tolerate that in the NCAA tourney, but not in baseball. Yes, it did make me pay attention to players I might not have noticed but I hated that too. If I didn't happen to know who Seattle's left fielder was based on my normal near obsessive interest in the game, I didn't want to be paying attention to him because he was in the fantasy league. And if someone else knew who that player, and every other, player was just because he was in a fantasy league it seemed like that person was just using baseball as a vehicle to fulfill another more subtle need, such as gambling.

I could see that if someone liked baseball but it wasn't really important to them that fantasy might be interesting as a hobby, but I don't think it's well-suited for people who came to love baseball becasue they just love the game.

I pretty much agree with today's column that market forces drive ticket prices, not salaries, but the amount people are willing to pay for a product, any product, is based on expectations developed over a long period of time. For example, I might be willing to pay $10 for a tiny thing of caviar because I know that it usually costs much more, but if I was handed the same thing without knowing anything about it and asked to pay $10 for it I would say "no way."

Ticket prices have to be suficient to enable a team to have a healthy profit margin over the long term. So while the team tries to maximize revenue, the price which will maximize revenue is driven by people's expectations, which is dependent on many things, including what they paid for a ticket in the past, the price of which may have been affected in part by a rise in team expenses. This seems the same as saying that the price I am willing to pay for a can of tuna at the supermarket is dependent on my expectations for what that item should cost, which was developed subconsciously over many years and no doubt includes as one component the store's expenses. I don't think it's as simple as saying salaries have nothing to do with prices

Proving clutch hitting exists or doesn't exist is like proving God exists or doesn't. First, as with God, it's very hard to define what clutch hitting is. Then, even if everyone could agree on a definition, it is impossible to prove it exists with anything other than anecdotal evidence. Then, even if the empirical evidence appears to support one side or the other, there will always be those who believe the opposite to be true with religious zeal.

Since I don't think logic will ever convince anyone one way or the other on this issue, I don't really see the point in debating it. I'd rather argue about whether there is such a thing as a rising fastball.

Comparing today's game to the game hundred years ago is setting up a comparison to a strawman. A more relevant comparison is to the game played in the 70s and 80s. As far as I can tell it's basically the same game with the same quality of players as it was then. Why less complete games now? I think it's just a change in strategy, nothing else. Use of the entire pitching staff has changed drastically in the last 30 years, with more innings being given to the worst pitchers. starters are pitching fewer innings and the best relievers have been relegated to the nebulous ninth-inning closer role rather than the far more useful "fireman" role they used to occupy. All changes for the worse in my opinion

Good point by Mark but that still doesn't explain why managers take out one of the best pitchers on their staff (a starter) in the sixth inning with men on base so that they can bring in Jorge Julio, or Scott Proctor