The so-called “have-nots” have become the “why nots” to the delight of baseball’s executive hierarchy, which has fired the first salvo in the battle for a new labor deal without the use of a bargaining table.

Commissioner Bud Selig glances at the American League playoffs and sees rhetoric becoming reality.

“Seeing Detroit, an old-town baseball city, back in the playoffs is like a dream come true for me,” Selig said Monday. “I believe that the Tigers are the perfect manifestation of our improved economic climate. I have no doubt that this would not have been attainable a decade ago without our system of revenue sharing.”

Selig wouldn’t specify how much the Tigers have received from the revenue-sharing equation in the collective bargaining agreement. When asked for a ballpark figure, he said only that the Tigers’ take was “considerable.”

Selig considers the Tigers the model for a competitive renaissance because they wisely invested in their scouting department.

“They’ve done it the right way,” he said. “They’ve added to payroll while also beefing up their farm system. Teams that have struggled continually over the last 10 years or longer have to look at what’s happening in Detroit as a sign that competitiveness is possible, and that grows the game even more.”

Baseball’s postseason isn’t the exclusive playground of the financially well-endowed.

Sure, you still have the Yankees and their oversized wallet dominating the stage. That shouldn’t surprise. You still need the big boys. This remains a business, and if there were a postseason without the Yankees or the Red Sox, Fox and ESPN might demand rebates on their rights fees.

But Minnesota was ticketed for extinction around the time of the last collective bargaining negotiations in 2002. Those “Moneyball” maniacs in Oakland return to the playoffs only a year after parting with half of their magnificent starting rotation because free agency would have irrationally stretched the payroll.

And weren’t the Tigers once one of the poster children for low-revenue inertia?

“I use the Labor Day standings as a gauge of parity,” Selig said. “And you could argue that Labor Day we had 18 or 19 teams in postseason contention. That’s more parity than you’ll find in any sport.”

What’s intriguing is that there are as many playoff teams from the top 10 payrolls (three) as there are from teams from the bottom half.

On Opening Day, the Yankees had a payroll of $198.7 million, which naturally topped ’em all. But the Tigers were next among AL playoff participants, ranked 14th at $82.3 million. Next comes Minnesota ranked 19th ($63.8 million) and Oakland ranked 21st ($62.3 million).

Perhaps even more revealing are the teams that significantly lowered their payrolls from 2005. Two of the three teams that shrank their salaries the most were still in wild-card contention until the season’s closing days-Florida (a $45-million drop from last year) and Philadelphia (a $7-million reduction).

Three of the top four payrolls qualified for the AL playoffs last season, but it was the team in the middle of the pack – the Chicago White Sox ranked 13th overall with $75.2 million in salaries – that captured the World Series.

And their opponent on the grand stage, Houston, doled out only $1.6 million more.

“I do believe that these playoffs will go even further in promoting the concept of competitive parity,” Selig said. “And that can only further build our product.”