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WEEKLY COLUMN:
JDM vs the WORLD

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FINE PRINT

And the tombstone shall read:

Here lies Major League Baseball
America’s Pastime, Early 1900s - Early 2000s
Died of a bloated ego and a broken heart
“Even in death, a metaphor for life”

And so on.

Well, for those not playing at home, here’s the score: For the second time in less than a decade, baseball players are ready to walk off the field, ready to walk away from the All-American game just to fatten their already weighty wallets. Also for the second time in less than a decade, the perpetually wealthy team owners aren’t willing to give the big-money babies their bottles, but they are willing to let the players take their balls and go home—pun intended.

The end result? For the second time in less than a decade, the players will simply stop playing come August 30th—a scant ten days from this writing, a mere twelve days removed from the one-year anniversary of the September 11th terrorist attacks—unless both sides can somehow strike a deal.

Strike. Now, there’s a funny word.

As in, strike three, baseball, you’re outta here.

So, what’s the noble cause this time? Well, the owners call it revenue sharing, the players call it foul. I call it socialism but you can judge for yourself: Revenue sharing is a practice whereby big market teams essentially flash the cash on behalf of their small market rivals, helping, if you will, those that can’t help themselves—relatively speaking, of course, since no one in this game seems to have trouble helping themselves to their fans’ hard-earned money.

Now, while I do believe the concept of revenue sharing is socialistic at its core, it’s something that truly benefits both the rich (i.e., the baseball players, who earn an average annual salary of $2.38 million) and the poor (i.e., the fans, who earn substantially less in their lifetimes). If baseball evens the financial field, it evens the playing field, allowing the lesser of its 30 teams to compete with behemoths like the Yankees and Braves, teams that make the playoffs—and occasionally make the playoffs repetitive—each and every single year.

Why is this a good thing?

First and foremost, a leveled playing field means every player has a reasonable shot at making the World Series at some point in his career. This, we’re told, is every player’s ultimate goal (the expression “In an ideal world...” comes to mind).

Secondly, if baseball absolutely must have teams in markets with negligible interest in the game of baseball, then it’s only fair that baseball protects the interests of those markets’ fans. Though perhaps few in number, there are, indeed, people that buy Montreal Expos caps and Minnesota Twins t-shirts; their dollar is just as good as that of a Red Sox or Dodgers fan, and it deserves to be treated as such.

So, the solutions from which baseball can choose are twofold. Either: (1) Eliminate a number of baseball’s 30 teams, since there are ten too many; or (2) Impose measures like revenue sharing.

Problem is, the players aren’t buying either solution.

Actually, the players are claiming that the owners want to dramatically limit their ability to buy just about anything, and they point to revenue sharing as a sign of decreased paychecks to come. But when guys making an average annual salary of $2.38 million are screaming poverty, they’ve got to be kidding themselves, because, Lord knows, they’re fooling no one else.

This is why baseball is about to die.

Back in 1994, when the players last suspended the games on account of matters fiscal, their sport suffered immeasurably in the eyes of fans. When the players belatedly returned in the spring of ‘95, the higher salaries for which they’d struck seemed less deserved than ever; in empty stadiums near and far, the ghosts of former fans silently echoed this fact.

It took several years and the homerun chase of ‘98 to mend the wounds and bring the magic back. Baseball was lucky it had guys like Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa to fall back on, but, short of something similarly spectacular happening, baseball’s going to need a real miracle to dig its way out of the upcoming strike.

If the sport thinks it can get away with the same shtick yet again, it ought to know that, in this young era of perspective and introspection, fans are singing a different tune. It’s composed by Pete Townshend and it’s called, Won’t Get Fooled Again.

You see, the reason that baseball—and all sports, really—are able to rake in millions of dollars at all is because the average Joe and Jane look up to the players, even identify with them in some instances. People see athletic accomplishments as acutely inspirational. They see a grand slam as proof that “anything is possible” or a triple play as a reaffirmation that there’s “no ‘I’ in team.”

But people also realize that pro sports serve no societal function other than to entertain. While entertainment is an undeniably important factor in a country or culture’s morale, America offers a half-dozen sports alternatives at least as popular as baseball; none come close to equaling baseball’s history of strike-shortened seasons and work stoppages, and, rest assured, many of the game’s remaining fans will keep this in mind if and when baseball returns next spring.

So, baseball’s about to shoot itself in the foot again, and, short of single-handedly handcuffing several hundred steroid freaks to their respective dugouts, there’s nothing that you or I or anyone can do to stop it. We can’t stop the bleeding, can’t stave off the forthcoming fatality, and, in a strange way, it’s a good thing. Here we’ve got an ugly monster that’s content to devour itself, and it’s a far more enthralling prospect than, say, a pennant race between the perennial—if not predictable—contenders or another record chase inflated by juiced baseballs and forearms.

It’s funny, though, that there are four sets of irreconcilable differences in the news nowadays, three of which include Israel versus Palestine, India versus Pakistan, and America versus Iraq, and the fourth of which pits baseball players against baseball owners. When you compare the fourth such set to the former three, it’s clear that the battle over baseball is a less-than-epic, even frivolous struggle.

Only in baseball do opposing forces walk away from war. Only in baseball is that not what we want. Though the principals of the above-mentioned conflicts should theoretically learn this lesson, it’s obvious that baseball has yet to learn from its own errors.

And if the fans accept it back someday? Then the fans haven’t learned a whole lot, either.

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