By Anthony Bosco
I have completely lost my patience with baseball. Wait a minute, that’s not entirely correct. I love baseball. Down to the marrow in my bones, I love it. It’s professional baseball in this country that I have grown to despise.
For the better part of two years I have listened to sports talk radio and heard the ranting of more than a few in the know predicting an imminent walkout by the players, a strike, in other words, or a lockout, if the owners beat them to the punch.
And, the way things are progressing, a work stoppage is more than likely before the baseball season winds to a close in October. That means another season would be lost, like the second half of 1994, the last time there was no World Series.
Only in America, to quote Don King. In what other nation would professional athletes whose annual salary eclipses the million-dollar mark, strike? I mean, for the love of Pete, what in the world can they possibly have to complain about?
I know there are those out there who could explain it to me in soft tones and understandable language that would not make the players out to be the greediest coupling since Bonnie and Clyde, but that hasn’t happened yet.
Honestly, who has it better than these guys? They may train year-round, they may work really hard, they may be specialists and the best in the world at what they do, but with all the money they get paid, all the perks that go along with being major league players, including the fame, the sex appeal and the snazzy uniforms, how can they justify such a thing?
To be fair, I don’t care to ever hear the answer to that question. There are millions upon millions of Americans who bust their hump every day just to make ends meet, people who have families to support and have to rely on food stamps, people who need baseball to help ground their lives, to give them something to look forward to.
I can’t stomach another baseball strike. The only good thing that would come from such a thing is that the Mets wouldn’t have to suffer through the stretch run, watching the Braves run away with the division yet again and miss out on the wildcard by a game because they lost to a sub .500 team in the final week of the season. That I can do without.
When you get right down to it, there is nothing they can say to someone like me to win my sympathy. I know no one is paying good money to watch a ditch-digger go to town with his shovel on topsoil. In fact, I don’t begrudge the players a penny. They have every right to try and make as much money as possible and if the average salary is more than a cool million, more power to them. That’s what the market will bear.
Or will it? Contraction may have been taken off the shelf during the past off-season, but it is inevitable, at this rate, that some teams will fold. The Montreal Expos are being run by Major League Baseball and are expected to fold after this season. Another team will most likely go with them, be it the Florida Marlins, the Kansas City Royals, the Minnesota Twins, whichever.
These teams are going to fold for several reasons, but by in large the reason can be chalked up to economics and the team’s ability to compete with the New York Yankees of the world.
My father, who lives in south Florida, recently said to me that the Yankees and Mets were ruining baseball because it just isn’t fair anymore with the amount of money both teams can spend on salary. I’m sure he wouldn’t have said that had he not left the five boroughs for a warmer climate, but he does have a point.
My father’s team, the Marlins, a team with a better record than the Mets and just behind the Expos in the standings as of Monday, were poised to send their best player, outfielder Cliff Floyd, packing. Teams trying to reach the playoffs don’t do that. Teams that are trying to lose salary and stay in the black do.
The economics of baseball are insane. The Texas Rangers signed Alex Rodriguez, who arguably is one of the top three ballplayers in the game today, to an obscene $25 million a year contract. That’s almost as much as some ball clubs spend on an entire roster. Is it really any surprise that the Rangers stink because they can’t afford pitching?
And what about the recent controversy regarding Sammy Sosa and one journalist proposing the Chicago Cubs slugger take a steroid test to clear himself of all the rumors surrounding not just him, but all of baseball. Sosa, acting like a spoiled brat, tossed a couple of four-letter bombs at the reporter and called a quick halt to an interview.
What a shocker. Multimillionaires don’t like to answer tough questions, don’t like to be told what to do and certainly don’t feel like they have to prove anything to anybody.
I’ve just had it with these guys. They can take their millions and jump off a cliff. That’s what they are doing to the game. Slowly and certainly they are draining pro baseball of everything that once meant something to all of us.
If they strike, if they continue to strangle the game, I’m giving up on baseball, unless, of course, the Mets turn it around next year. Then, maybe, just maybe, I can put up with it.
Reach Sports Editor Anthony Bosco by e-mail at TimesLedger@aol.com or call 229-0300, Ext. 130.
