Objectively speaking, there are more teams out there who can spend the big money than you think. And, conversely, there are also fewer teams without the money than you might suppose.

Take, for instance, the seemingly hapless Minnesota Twins. The owner has deep pockets, he just chooses to keep his money where it is--in his pockets. If that organization is frustrated with its situation, they should take a look at themselves first before pointing a finger at the rest of the league as the problem.

Granted, there are a few organizations that have started the past couple of years with no chance at the postseason. The Expos. The Royals. The Brewers. And maybe a couple others.

But such bottom-of-the-barrel teams exist in every sport, be it due to any number of reasons, ranging from a lack of fan support to organizational mismanagement. (Montreal, for one, has no business hosting a baseball franchise. It is time for the league to move that team to Vegas or northern Virginia and move on.) But will a salary cap solve the problems of these teams? Well, how much has such a cap helped the Clippers in the NBA? Or the Bengals in the NFL?

And other than that handful of six or so teams in baseball, who else are we supposed to shed tears over?

Surely not the Phillies. I don't care that they finished tied for the worst record in baseball last year. They have money to spend, they just don't do it wisely. This is an organization that shelled out more than six million clams per year for Jose Mesa and Rheal Cormier last month. Surely a salary cap would not prevent that kind of stupidity.

So who should we cry for? Certainly not the Marlins or Padres. Seeing as my Red Sox have not been in a World Series in fifteen years, I'm not inclined to feel sorry for two clubs that have both been there within the past four. And the Marlins just announced a plan to build a new, $318-million ballpark. So don't tell me they need a hand up.

Is there anyone left to feel sorry for? Even a team like Pittsburgh, as horrible as they are now, enjoyed a pretty remarkable stretch of making the postseason during the early 90s. And that was back when only two teams made the playoffs from each league, as opposed to the four teams that qualify now.

The disparity is not as great as it seems. When it comes down to it, what really riles people up is not who-is-signing-who, but what the fetching price is. Deep down, people are sickened not so much by the fact that a relatively small-market club like Seattle was unable to re-sign A-Rod, but that the ultimate price tag A-Rod fetched was so monstrously high.

But you know what? I don't care what these players make, and neither should you. When you think about it, it's really none of our business. And even if it was our business, who are we to say these players are overpaid? If the Dodgers are willing to pay Darren Dreifort $10 million a year, then that is what he is worth. So don't blame A-Rod simply for taking what was coming to him.

The rising salaries are a function of the good economic times that are being experienced across the board, the sport of baseball included. The relative size of payrolls should not be the target of any potential solution imposed on the game.

Which is why a salary cap is the wrong way to go. Institute one, and all you do is shift the balance of power between the players and owners in favor of the owners. Is that really preferable? Personally, I would rather see the players make their money than the fat-cat owners. The athletes, after all, are the ones we all pay to go see, and we have already witnessed what happens when owners are afforded too much power. You need only look to the retired hockey old-timers who were taken advantage of during their playing days and are now forced to essentially sell out to memorabilia moguls to pay the bills.

Let's make clear another point about salary caps: they do not necessarily guarantee parity. While spending limits may seem to put all teams on an even plane, it has been proven that there is always plenty of wiggle room for the smart teams to use to an unfair advantage. Contracts containing deferred money, for example, allow for softening of the cap. The wealthier teams can still secure the frontline players by simply promising more money at a future date. Take a glance at the NBA. You can count the number of teams who are actually under the cap on one hand. Even the pitiful Celtics exceed it by a good $15 million.

And even if a salary cap did ensure parity, it does it in the wrong way. That is, it balances the playing field by bringing the better teams down to the lesser teams' level, as opposed to the other way around. A salary cap doesn't give the poorer teams any more money to play with. Assuming they are spending as much as they possibly can already, their payrolls will stay virtually the same. Thus, a spending cap does nothing to make the Minnesota Twins any better; it serves only to make them less worse relative to the rest of the league.

And lastly, even if salary caps did ensure parity, and even if they did so in the proper way, I still would not support them. Why? Because parity is overrated. Say what you want about competitive balance in the NFL, I think it just makes things boring. There's a reason why last year's Super Bowl between St. Louis and Tennessee received such low ratings. And this year's title game will surely be no better. The Ravens and the Giants? For those outside Baltimore and New York, it doesn't get much more boring than that.