Maybe it was watching CC Sabathia going against Cliff Lee in the first game of the World Series and realizing that once upon a time they were teammates in Cleveland, until the Indians no longer could afford them.

Maybe it was watching the Red Sox trade for Victor Martinez during the season, because the Indians couldn’t afford him either.

Maybe it was the Sox getting reliever Billy Wagner for the simple reason that they could.

Maybe it was the acknowledgment that the Rays will not be able to keep Carl Crawford, the same Rays that a year ago were being billed as a young, talented team poised to challenge the Sox and Yankees.

But somewhere along the way the inequity of Major League Baseball, the decided sense that to the victor belongs the spoils and everyone else eats cake, has gotten to me.

None of this is a surprise, of course.

The fact that the deck has long been stacked is nothing new, of course.

What is surprising, though, is how inured we are about it, the sense that it’s just the way it is and so be it.

And all those fans out there in Kansas City, or Pittsburgh, or Cincinnati, or the Florida Marlins, or any of the bottom fish franchises? Let them watch the NFL in October, right?

In other words, that’s not our problem.

That’s the issue, at least around here anyway. We are the haves, and everything’s great. Big crowds. Big interest. The team always in the hunt. Put on your pink hat, sing “Sweet Caroline,” and join the party, the nightly love fest.

But is it good for the game?

That’s another question.

For there’s really no mystery to this. Of the four teams in the American League playoffs, three of them were in the top six based on salary. The only aberration was the Minnesota Twins, who upset the high-salaried Detroit Tigers, and now have to hope that homegrown superstar Joe Mauer takes the local discount, or else it’s back to reality for them, too.

Of the eight teams in the playoffs six were among the top-nine payrolls in the league.

Coincidence?

Please.

And don’t misunderstand. This is not meant as an attack on the Yankees, even if their $201 million payroll at the beginning of the year was $70 million more than the Mets, who began the season with the second highest payroll in the game. The Yankees don’t make the rules. They just use them better than anyone else, given the nature of the city they live in and the amount of resources at their disposal.

Nor does having a big, fat payroll necessarily guarantee success. The Mets are an example of that. Last year’s Yankees are, too, a team that failed to make the playoffs. So are the Astros, who never seem to be any good, even though they began this season with the eighth highest payroll in the game. Mismanagement is always part of the equation, just as it is in football and basketball, two sports that have salary caps, two sports where everyone is playing by the same rules.

What it does, however, is provide incredible advantages.

What is does is turn major league baseball into a professional version of college football and college basketball, two sports where the usual suspects usually are playing for the spoils.

What it does, however, is provide an incredible advantage. It enables rich teams to make mistakes and not be crushed by them. It allows them a chance to be in the hunt for the big-time free agents in ways the others are not. It enables them a cushion in ways the others don’t.

There’s no overestimating this.

Even though people constantly try.

The ones trying to defend what should be indefensible love to point out the aberrations, whether it was the Colorado Rockies in this year’s playoffs, or of Billy Beane and the A’s in years past. They use these examples to justify a flawed system, their premise being that if you are shrewd, smart, and manage their resources well, then anyone can compete with the big boys.

Sorry.

It doesn’t hold up.

It’s like saying that we shouldn’t try to fix inferior schools because they have occasional success stories.

All teams should have a level playing field, at least in theory. The Indians shouldn’t have to lose Sabathia, Lee and Martinez because they can’t win the free-agent wars. The Rays shouldn’t have to see all their young stars go off somewhere else when they reach free agency. The bottom third of teams on the salary list shouldn’t be all but irrelevant.

And maybe the system has been in place for so long now that it’s just the way it is, the teams with the money fight for the postseason berths, everyone else fights to stay relevant. Maybe my little rant is much ado about nothing, a lament for what should be a better baseball world.

But I suspect that we all would feel differently around here if the Red Sox were one of the have-nots, one of those teams that were rarely in the postseason chase, one of those teams that can’t keep their free agents. Suspect that we would feel a lot differently if we were on the wrong side of this flawed system.

breynol@projo.com