They are killing this game, and Tuesday’s unresolved All-Star extravaganza is the latest example.
They are doing it on the field and off. Individually and in groups. Through designated hitters and designated sitters, money and myopia, checks, flies and videotape.
Labor talks are stagnating, a strike looms. When the All-Star Game ended without a winner, some said it was an omen, the national pastime becoming past time.
They are killing this game. They are not trying to. But they are. That’s why they have a spot on baseball’s Most Wanted List. They are baseball’s new Murderer’s Row.
Bud Selig: The commissioner of baseball is a former owner. He is the front man for the latest round of collective bargaining talks with the players association. He brings with him many years of experience as a member of a group that never has won a labor battle with its players.
Think about that. It is their game, and they still never have won. Not only are the owners 0-for-forever, they were convicted of colluding to restrict player movement and hold down salaries in the 1980s.
But wait, there’s more. Selig told Congress that only five teams made money in 2001. Forbes magazine said 20 teams made money, starting with Selig’s Brewers at more than $18 million.
Tip to Selig: This is not the time to ask Americans for blind acceptance of rich people’s accounting practices.
Selig acts as if his wonks have an inalienable right to own a profitable baseball team. They don’t, not anymore than they have an inalienable right to own a profitable Dairy Queen.
The owners say they can’t afford the current economic system, one they helped create. These guys should go back to the capitalist world where they came from and see how that flies in the pit.
What the owners really can’t afford is to force another strike or impose another lockout.
“Small, medium or large on that Blizzard, sir?”
Devil Rays mascot: No one knew what a Devil Ray was. No one knows why they are still around.
The expansion novelty is over, and the novelty lost. Same goes for Colorado, Florida and Arizona.
Colorado can’t win. Florida can’t draw. Tampa Bay can’t win and can’t draw. Arizona can win and can draw, but can’t afford to pay for it.
Baseball owners couldn’t wait to expand. Now they can’t wait to contract. Both times it was for money, not quality of talent.
They charged the new teams hundreds of millions of dollars, which fed the cash addiction of owners short term as they split their newfound profit. But it created long-term problems the way pyramid schemes usually do.
Some would say there is enough legitimate talent for 16 teams. Some would say the same goes for owners.
Barry Bonds: Many people want to paint union chief Donald Fehr as the bad guy in this regularly scheduled talk of economic Armageddon. But Fehr is just doing his job: protecting the interests of players who pay him to do exactly that.
Protecting players from themselves, however, is something else, something that makes Bonds the poster child for player belligerence, arrogance and a number of other unsavory traits that can make fans turn off a broadcast quicker than a Tom Arnold sitcom.
In a recent interview with the Washington Post, Bonds was quoted as saying the game could survive another strike, sounding as if one were going to happen and the fans will learn to live with it and come back for more.
“It’s entertainment,” Bonds said. “It will come back. A lot of companies go on strike, not just baseball. And people still ride the bus.”
But Bonds wasn’t done. When asked if he felt fans could empathize with players who are making an average of $2.4 million, Bonds empathetically replied, “It’s not my fault you don’t play baseball.”
Ladies and gentlemen, your emcee for Fan Appreciation Day.
Sammy Sosa: This could be Bonds’ picture, or Juan Gonzalez’s, or any one of maybe 300 major-league players suspected of using steroids.
But it was Sosa who hit a 524-foot home run in the All-Star Home Run Derby, and it was Sosa who hit six farther than 500 feet, and it was Sosa who hit one onto the street in a domed stadium right after a sports publication called his bluff about being first in line to take a test to prove he’s not on the juice.
Jose Canseco said 85 percent of the players are on steroids. Ken Caminiti said it was 50 percent. Either way, 100 percent of the home run records are under suspicion.
Owners like home runs because home runs brought people back to the game after the 1994 strike. Taking a moral stand on the juice might affect the game’s popularity and attendance is already down.
Players like home runs because power means money, but they don’t believe the results of steroid tests will remain confidential. After all, if they don’t think they can believe the owners about how much money they’re making, the players certainly won’t trust them on tests that will affect how much money they might make.
Frank Thomas: There is no “I” in team, but there is a “me,” and Thomas has made sure everyone knows it.
A smoldering suspicion suddenly blew up last weekend in the White Sox’s clubhouse. The struggling designated hitter showed up late for a game when he wasn’t in his struggling team’s lineup, admitted he did it regularly and was called out for not being a good teammate or a leader.
For $10 million a year, a guy could be on time, you know? And it wouldn’t hurt if Thomas could cheer on his teammates who are playing.
Thomas immediately became the picture of selfishness, and stuff like this makes it too easy for fans to see all major-leaguers this way. It’s not true, of course, but it is a stain that never seems to get removed.
A generally good guy with generally good intentions, Thomas is not the biggest jerk in baseball. But he comes off looking like the leader in the clubhouse.
Some would say at least he’s a leader in one clubhouse.
Dan Patrick: Oh, we know he didn’t do this all by himself, but the best ESPN “SportsCenter” anchor represents a cool and well-coifed example of where this game has gone:
Home runs, home runs, home runs. Da-da-da, da-da-da. Good video. Bad message.
Players watch “SportsCenter” and “Baseball Tonight.” Do they ever. Just like you, they see the guys getting most of the props are the ones hitting the long balls. Players at all levels see it too. The philosophy appears to be, you get your money and you get your major-league spot by getting your home runs, whatever your flaws with the fundamentals.
Nowadays, hitting behind the runner means trying to pop the ball over the fence in right-center.
And you can blame Fox Sports too, following in a long line of Major League Baseball rights-holders. While the broadcast outlet brought the terrific “Fox Box” to the game, showing the score, inning, count and situation, it also needs late starting times for postseason games to get the biggest audience to make up for its overblown rights fee, making sure the next generation of fans it so ardently pursues has no chance of seeing the conclusion of baseball’s premier events before midnight.
“Following the conclusion of this World Series game will be `Fox Thing in the Morning.'”
Greg Swindell: He is still pitching. In the majors. With a 6.38 ERA. He’s about 73, but he’s left-handed, so that’s where we are with what is supposed to be the best of the best.
Pitching always wins in baseball, and no team ever has enough. But now it looks like too many teams have nothing, period.
Some guy named Jesus Colome has a 9.74 ERA for Tampa Bay and some guy named Brian Fuentes is at 11.25 for Colorado. That’s bad, even for the Rockies.
But even good teams are forced to use guys who average a run an inning. Terry Mulholland, for instance, has a 9.13 ERA for the Dodgers and Rich Garces checks in at 9.00 in Boston.
The White Sox have one starting pitcher with an ERA below 4.57, which means most of them are spotting opponents a grand slam for starters. The Cubs’ bullpen, meanwhile, has an ERA of 5.14. Symmetry, Chicago style.
Jeff Bagwell: And Bonds, Mo Vaughn, Craig Biggio and a bunch of guys who walk up to the plate looking like they hit the Terminator’s yard sale. Wrist guards, forearm shields, elbow pads–are these guys going to face Jon Lieber or Brian Urlacher?
And then they feel invincible, so they lean over the plate and have no respect for the inside pitch because they are wearing all the body armor.
Here’s the rule: If you need to be padded up like the Michelin Man, sit down.
Luis Alicea: He’s hitting .199. Craig Paquette was at .203. Jose Offerman, .231. These are just some of the players who served as designated hitters recently.
To think, some people didn’t want pitchers to bat because they couldn’t hit.
You could debate whether the Luis Aliceas of the world should even be in the game to begin with. Either way, it doesn’t look like they should be hitting for themselves, not to mention someone else.
And then there’s the idea that one league has this cockamamie idea and the other doesn’t.
Old guys hang around and young guys with no other discernible skills bat four times a game. You can make the case that Thomas has been both. Meanwhile, the concept of the game gets ruined exponentially. Here’s the deal: Pitchers can hit if they try and hitters can field if they try. Stop enabling players. Get in the game–the whole game–or get out.
Bobblehead dolls: These dopey things were not a good idea 40 years ago. They are not any better now as a cheesy marketing gimmick.
One mold, different caps. Wake up, people.
