Another winter of "big-money free agents" is shifting the balance of power in both leagues somewhat, but there continues to be one constant in the free agency game; the domination of the large market franchises upon the game of baseball. This winter Mike Mussina, top pitcher on the free-agent market and the New York Yankees, baseball's most successful team, agreed to a six-year contract worth and unbelievable 88.5 million dollars. Manny Ramirez requested a 10 year 200 million dollar deal this past month. This would make him the highest paid player in baseball history. Whatever happened to playing baseball merely for the love of the game? Large market ball clubs such as the Yankees and Braves are dominating baseball with small market teams having no chance of competing or making it to the postseason. If this continues small market teams such as the Expos, Pirates, and Twins may have to move to new cities or even fold their franchises.
             What Major League Baseball needs to do is establish a salary cap. A salary cap is a maximum dollar amount teams can spend on player contracts. A salary cap is necessary to maintain competitive balance in the league. Without a salary cap, large market teams, other wise know as the teams with deep pockets can simply outspend the remaining teams for the better free agents. The basic idea is that a team can only sign a free agent if the total salaries for the team will be below the salary cap. So a team with deep pockets is playing on a level playing field with every other team (Dorsey). Each team should be granted a certain amount of money to play with, and the final winner should be the franchise that makes the most sound baseball decisions. Major League Baseball needs to establish a salary cap to prevent large market teams from dominating the game of baseball by controlling the free agent market. Which in turn will increase competition.
             Some baseball enthusiasts do not bel...