Iconic baseball writer Bill James, in 1987, frustrated with MLB's labour stoppages and the decline of the minor leagues, wrote that the minors 'were an abomination… if you're selling a sport and the players don't care about winning, that's not a sport. That's a fraud… an exhibition masquerading as a contest.' Bill imagined a better model and proposed that, as opposed to limiting the number of teams in MLB to protect parity, a free market was capable of sustaining many more franchises — hundreds, even — if we would just allow it to sort out the level at which those cities might best compete. Cap in Hand goes a step further, arguing that a free market in sports teams and athletes once existed and could work again if the monopolists of MLB, NFL, NBA, and NHL would simply relent from salary-restraint schemes and reserve-clause models that result in elite talent being spread as thinly as possible and mediocrity being rewarded via amateur drafts and equalisation payments. Cap In Hand a
