"Championship-Caliber"

In this week's Sports Illustrated, there is a feature where they list what the GM of each major league team said when asked to describe his team in one word. Guess what The Big O said?

"Championship-caliber."

First off, I don't really think that's one word. I guess if you use championship-caliber as an adjective, that makes it one. But that's not really fair: Omar clearly cheated, here, in his haste to portray the Mets as a top-rate franchise.
Minaya was the only general manager that failed to meet the very basic requirements set up by the interviewer. Any word would have done, really. Cheese. Jelly. Frankenstein. Golden. Square. Not "championship-caliber."

(Second prize: Jim Bowden answered with "progress." Which doesn't really make sense, when you think about it as a one-word assessment of a club. Would you like to buy an infinitive, Jim? They're cheaper than Lo Ducas.)

Secondly, and arguably more important than our grammatical diversion: is Omar's assessment accurate? For reasons we've discussed earlier, the answer is no.

Clubs that can arrogantly answer "championship-caliber" when asked for a one-word assessment of themselves, thus by flouting the basic conventions of the simple task proving that they have to look down on no other club, that they are first-rate franchises that will answer to no one: Boston, Cleveland, Detroit, Los Angeles of Anaheim, possibly New York American... and no National League club. None. Zero of 16.