The Register Citizen (Torrington, CT)
Travelers Championship benefits over 100 charities
The Travelers Championship officially announced Wednesday morning that the 2020 tournament held in June generated more than $1.6 million toward its 115 charities.
Among those organizations benefiting are two new ones: CT-4, a nonprofit that is helping fund COVID-19 relief efforts across the state; and the University of New Haven’s Center for Advanced Policing and Tow Youth Justice Institute, which is receiving a grant from Travelers for its program that will help train and educate police officers to help improve their relationships in their communities.
Travelers made the announcement in a zoom call on Wednesday that included a panel discussion about the organizations. Andy Bessette, the executive vice president and chief administrative officer for Travelers, praised what both organizations are doing for the community.
So Tuesday, when the Rays played Game 1 against the Dodgers in Arlington, it had to burn a little more that the Rays have done what the Yankees have failed to do for the last 11 years: They are playing in the World Series.
And they’ve done it at almost a quarter the price, but the Yankees say they’re not focusing on that.
“I don’t think it’s a payroll comparison in any way, shape or form,” Yankees GM Brian Cashman said last week in the postmortem for his team that had a $109 million (prorated for 60 games, according to Spotrac) payroll on Opening Day. “They’re forced to operate a certain way because of the market they are in, and we are permitted to operate in a different way because of the market we’re in, and both ways can have success.”
The Rays have done it by always being one of the best teams at exploiting market inefficiencies.
Last year, going toe-to-toe with the Astros in the AL Division Series was a warning to the rest of baseball that they were on the verge. In this unusual coronavirus pandemic-shortened season, the Rays were the perfect team to pivot and adapt to the unusual circumstances. They have a “stable” full of relievers who throw hard to back up three solid starters.
They have position players who may not be the household names of an Aaron Judge or Giancarlo Stanton, but play solid, consistent baseball. They also have a group of position players who are versatile on defense — think a couple of poor man’s DJ LeMahieus — and give their manager Kevin Cash flexibility.
“They’re a really good team. Obviously, they’ve been very good at run prevention now for a few years. They have a few high-end starting pitchers to go along with a lot of big arms out of the bullpen that they’re good at matching up,” Yankees manager Aaron Boone
said. “Then they’ve built a real versatile roster, as far as position players go, which they’ve kind of tweaked over the last few years to kind of have a lot of complementary parts. They got 14-15 guys that kind of complement one another with the different skill sets that they possess. So it’s just a well-built team and a team that does a lot of things well.”
But the Yankees are not the only big-market team the Rays have slayed this season. It took seven games, but they also dismissed the team with the fourth highest payroll in the Astros ($82 million). They face the Dodgers, who have the second highest payroll ($108 million), in the World Series.
Yankees managing partner Hal Steinbrenner, who lives in the Tampa Bay area and will have to hear about the Rays’ success (and likely the Yankees’ failures) this winter, also dismissed the payroll comparisons. Still, he made it a point to remind people that the Rays did it with the help of money from teams like the Yankees who pay a luxury tax.
“I’m glad you brought it up because you can’t take anything away from the Tampa Bay Rays. They were a very very good team with a very deep roster and very good baseball operations people, like we have very good operation baseball operations people,” Steinbrenner said last week on The Michael Kay Show. “No, I haven’t pondered (the payroll differences). I know that’s been a theme in the newspapers or wherever else but I have not pondered that. I only see the team, a very very good team. And they’ve used the revenue sharing money well throughout the years and draft picks and everything else.
“Did I feel we were better than them? Yes,” Steinbrenner said. “Yes, but it just didn’t end up that way.”