Opinion | Right Field: Baseball's Chicago Cubs ready to make a long-awaited impact
After the Red Sox renaissance, it is now cash-rich Cubs' turn who are stirring from 106 years of hibernation to redefine leaders
Potentate is a powerful, evocative word that is biblical, medieval and regal with roots in Middle English, Old French and Late Latin. Potentates make life-altering decisions for billions of people because they are defined as possessing great power or authority, especially a ruler or monarch. It is just a really big important word often used by really big important people and we can thank Boston Red Sox chief executive and part owner Larry Lucchino for bringing it into a sporting context.
A little less than a year ago, Lucchino was wearing the smugness of success when he addressed members of the media. His Red Sox had gone from worst to first, winning the 2013 World Series after a horrendous 2012 season.
The team had also successfully managed to shed a number of onerous and horrid contracts in the process. Naturally, Lucchino was beaming and could not resist taking a poke at his arch-rivals, the New York Yankees, as well as the Los Angeles Dodgers, two teams that were spending like sailors on shore leave.
There is a new potentate in town, a voraciously hungry and over-arching one with more money than Central America
"These guys want to win and they want to win now," he said. "Money is not an issue. I suppose potentates in other leagues around the world want to do that too, but it's a different business plan than we have. They don't want to win any more than we do. They're just not as concerned about reasonable spending as we are."
Well, hypocrisy is a fantastic word as well and without it there would be no need for opinion merchants because, after going from worst to first and back to worst this year, the non-potentate got very potentatish.
The Red Sox began their spending frenzy by throwing US$110 million at Hanley Ramirez and then gave Pablo Sandoval US$100 million, both five-year deals. They then proceeded to offer free-agent pitcher Jon Lester, a guy they had traded midseason to Oakland, a six-year deal for roughly US$150 million. That's US$360 million worth of "reasonable spending".