by David Beck
EEEEEE!Contributing Editor
Dave, as you will become aware, is passionate on the subject of free agency. He is very interested in your comments, if you have any, especially if they actually have something to do with the subject matter, instead of simply, "Who is this lunatic?" Not that I think he's a lunatic; if I did, he wouldn't be here. -- GP
"What has become of the game?" is a question I have heard from Joe Fan whenever he complains about some displeasing aspect of major league baseball. More and more, however, I'm hearing things like, "Hey, the game of baseball is better now than it has ever been."
The appropriate response to this is obviously, "'Scuze me?"
A few years ago, Joe Fan's retort to that may include some ambivalence, but today he will proudly spew claims that revolve around things like...
Would anyone ever consider doing something about the big dumb neighbor?
Well, that is what free agency is. It is big, it is dumb -- really, really dumb -- and it is very much like your neighbor. In fact, in response to my long, wailing dirges about it to Gregg, he always says something that is very true, but also supremely maddening: "Hey, it's here and it is here to stay. So what are we going to do about it?" It is just like that neighbor.
But like that neighbor who is presumably minding his own business in his own harmless little way, he is actually conspiring to insidiously beset your home with things like artificial turf, domed stadiums, the designated hitter, wild-card teams, and interleague play. And it is done in such a way that we true Giants/baseball fans are like that frog in the pot. As the temperature goes up ever so slightly, eventually the water boils and the frog becomes froggie stew a la oránge.
So yeah, I imagine it is too late for me to do anything about it now. (As if I could at any other time....)
What I can do is write.
And maybe I can get read by someone who reads EEEEEE! and who maybe appreciates some genuine common sense.
Where I start is where I am at as far as my priorities go: What I value. Yeah, sure there's all the standard God-family-country stuff, but at least in the realm of this stuff, my priorities are something along the lines of:
Let's put it plainly. Free agency is what is wrong with virtually everything in sports today. It is also responsible for some of what is wrong with overall society today.
It is.
It just plain is.
Why? Well, I will explain in exhaustive detail. Before I do, it may be asked, how has this "free agency duplicity" been kept from the public's eye?
Think about it. Free agency "benefits" the player, especially the "star" player. Joe Fan likes Joe Starplayer the most. And where does Joe Fan get any and all of his information about Joe Starplayer? From the mainstream media, of course. Joe Mainstream-Media-Guy makes his money from Joe Fan who in turn so adores Joe Starplayer who in turn so revels in his free agency status about which Joe Mainstream-Media-Guy will say nothing bad because then Joe Starplayer will not like Joe Mainstream-Media-Guy and give him nothing to write about and then Joe Fan will be unable to read about Joe Starplayer and then Joe Mainstream-Media-Guy will lose money and will very soon be Joe Bum.
So whatever Joe Starplayer says is okay, it's okay, simply because Joe Mainstream-Media-Guy wants it that way, and Joe Fan simply doesn't know any better. He's just a little froggie in a big pot of very warm water.
I proceed to shred every piece of everything about free agency, bit by bit, and I do so by summarily blasting the moronic claims we have all heard about how it is really-now-not-that-big-a-deal...
"Baseball is a business."
This seems to be the one claim relating to the game that is used the most often.
What people do not realize is that there are different kinds of businesses, indeed different whole forms of business-like things. Let's look at baseball.
It is like your average Mom-and-Pop store, or even your average Gigantico Corporation in the following ways: It intends to make a profit. It wants to maximize its profits. It must do that by keeping costs down and producing a quality product. Usually labor is the most expensive cost for any American business. This is all elementary economics stuff.
Baseball is distinctly not like your run-of-the-mill businesses in this one major way that no one mentions: It is a natural monopoly. A natural monopoly is a monopoly that is good and actually works better as a monopoly. That is, it benefits people -- yes, consumers too -- by being a monopoly.
I have never heard a bad word said about Congress and its attempts to terminate the antitrust exemption of major league baseball. You'll hear one here. Baseball must be a monopoly because it must, by its nature, operate with all the ballclubs administrated with some measure of parity, not of play but of business operations.
Don't get me wrong. I really could not care less about the Expos, the Marlins, the Rangers, the Padres, the Diamondbacks (especially), the Devil Rays (also especially) or any of these cheesy nobody expansion wannabes. Get 'em outta here. If I can't have the Giants playing some team, then give me the Red Sox and Tigers, or the Cardinals and Pirates. But the fact is that today's major league world cannot thrive, it cannot have the -- eeeEE-YACGH -- Padres vs. Devil Rays, if there is not some measure of parity of operations. This is exactly why there was so much call for the "luxury tax" idea when a salary cap [1] was rejected, because it was obvious that the Pirates and the A's and the Brewers and whatever other tiny-market teams would either have to fold or field minor league quality teams. And why would folding up or accepting a whole lot of losing be their only two options?
DING DING DING! Yes, you got the correct answer!...
Free agency.
Let me make something clear about where I stand on the antitrust exemption. I firmly believe that if some group of people want to develop their own league with their own teams and seek to make it just as good in quality as the major leagues, then by all means they should do it. And the best of luck to them. No, I'm not going to say, "Well, history has shown that rival leagues never do well and blah blah blah..." I mean, hey! This new one might! More power to them! All the best!
But elementary economics does say that for a rival league to do well, it must put a quality product on the field, or, even more importantly, it must put something on the field that will draw. That is where the rub is. All minor league teams are operated independently of major league teams, but most choose to enter into contracts with the big clubs because ultimately they know that is the only way they will truly benefit.
The idea behind rescinding the antitrust exemption is the whole "restraint of trade" thing. Any time the ballplayers have had anything more than an irritable itch they've cried, "Ouch! Restraint of trade! Restraint of trade!" This leads to the next claim to blast:
"Can't ballplayers find their true market value on the open marketplace? Free agency lets them do that."
Let's look at some more economic principles, some history, then some facts.
In a free enterprise economy, one is allowed to -- well, to put it frankly -- get as much money as he can get. It's the American way.
What we must realize, though, is that we do not live in a laissez-faire economy either, which means you can't take a lot of money that someone will give you to go murder someone and then expect not to get seriously prosecuted.
This is easily grasped, but we must also take into account that we don't live in a society that is morally laissez-faire, either. Many people make big bucks providing "escort" services for traveling -- and married -- big shots (many of whom are these rich ballplayers), and no one says anything if they're just getting a little "harmless" pleasure to go with their business. That doesn't make it right, however.
Major league baseball players should get as much money as the market will bear.
But that is it.
Where, for cryin' out loud, did they think they could get more than that? It is simply immoral for them to do the things they have done with their oh-so-reverent free agency. Part of why this is so is the profoundly rudimentary idea that life is not based solely on how much money one can get.
"But what is wrong with what they are getting?" it may be asked. "The players are simply demanding what they deserve."
And what is that?
To begin, I will reiterate what I just said and that -- as a dyed-in-the-wool capitalist -- I will support with my every breath: Every major leaguer should unquestionably seek his value in a free enterprise marketplace.
My question is, what is that value? How is that decided?
This is where our little history lesson will help.
Very-early paid ballplayers were basically given personal services contracts. As the popularity of the game surged, the price of securing a good player was not cheap. Naturally the ballplayer discovered the standard capitalist fancy: "Mmm, here I am, a good ballplayer and -- MMMMmmmmm -- I may actually be worth something... What if I were to -- what if I were to -- say -- shop my services around. Eventually I'll find out what I'm really worth!"
This thinking was clearly not lost on the owners of the ballclubs who were practically always big-business guys who enjoyed the team as a diversion as well as an indirect avenue to give the firm some good press. Along came the idea of the "reserve clause" to give the owners some recourse for the now forming natural monopoly. The reserve clause was the owners agreeing that once a player's rights were claimed, no other team could be entitled to said player for the entirety of that player's playing time in the major leagues. The whole idea of the reserve clause was simply to keep salaries of ballplayers from rocketing out of sight.
Important point: It did not keep ballplayers from getting paid a buttload of money for playing baseball.
With that in mind, what I am now going to say may initially be shocking, but remember, you have been brainwashed by a bunch of kowtowing media toadies who've always had little strings in that backs of their necks yanked as it looks like they are telling you, "The reserve clause is the greatest evil ever in the history of all of history." (The ballplayers are very good at not moving their lips.)
The truth: The reserve clause is a good thing.
Keep in mind there is still a prominent remnant in the reserve clause today in the form of restrictions on total free agency: the amateur draft and club rights to a player up to a certain time are examples.
Before elaborating on more mind-boggling truth, let's continue our history lesson.
Everyone seems to think that free agency was started by Curt Flood. It wasn't. He was, however, the first to challenge the reserve clause, and in a sense kind of got the ball rolling. Flood was traded from the Cardinals to the Phillies in 1969, and he was really ticked off. Essentially he said, "Look, I want to play in St. Louis. I've got a lot of stuff going on here, commitments I've made and so forth. And I'm a good player who's been here a while. Why don't I have any say in where I work? For cryin' out loud every American has the right to choose where he wants to work!"
In and of itself, there is really nothing wrong with what Flood claimed. It is most ironic, too, that this first cry for some consideration of free agency was about a player wanting to stay with his team.
In 1970 Flood eventually lost his challenge in court and the reserve clause was upheld. It was only a few years later, however, that pitchers Andy Messersmith and Dave McNally won their challenges in court and were declared -- tah-da-da-DAA! -- free agents. The aspect of the reserve clause that says an owner has the rights to a player forever was struck down. With some modifications to the collective bargaining agreement, basically a player was allowed to be a free agent after six years of service to a ball club.
What happened? We all know what happened. It hit like a 108 mile-an-hour fastball slamming into the side of your face causing all kinds of teeth and bone fragm -- okay, I'll spare you....
Anyway, the point is, salaries of players went through the roof, indeed traveling all the way to the Andromeda Galaxy. No wonder they're called baseball "stars."
So what does that have to do with us, the baseball fans?
Examining what Flood said will give us a better idea. Remember that what he said is a fundamental part of the justification for free agency. Again, he basically said:
"I should be able to have a say in where I play baseball just like any other American has a say in where they want to work."
This is all fine and wonderful, except that Flood had a serious misconception about the nature of the business of baseball. Again it comes back around to an accurate understanding of that.
When a player goes to work for a team, he does not as much go to work for the team as he goes to work for professional baseball. Of course, the team pays him and he works very hard to play winning baseball for the team, and that is the way it should be. But here is the difference. Because of the inherent natural monopoly nature of the game, a player is not choosing between playing for the Reds and the Cubs....
He is choosing between playing major league baseball or not playing major league baseball.
Any and every time a player has whined that he is not getting paid enough, he will almost always say he is a slave to the owners or the system or his own contract. He says it with the assumption that he is somehow ordained to be playing the game, that he is somehow being forced against his will to be playing where he is.
As far as I know, there has never, ever been a case in which a player was put in manacles and chains and pulled up to the plate by two huge hairy large-bellied men wearing black tank-top leotards with matching skull caps and who scream at the player, "Yoo bedder gat up an' hit da ball or else!"
In fact I do know: This has never happened. Call me the all-knowing omniscient seer of all things if you must, I can take it. It has just never happened. So who has made the decision to play baseball in any given at-bat or inning in any given baseball game, ever?
The ballplayer has.
It galls me to no end that we are supposed to feel sympathy for someone whose only real assertion is, "Okay. Okay. I'll play. But just you know that I do it under the sternest of protests. It is easy to see that a player of my caliber should be making X million dollars and not this measly Y million dollars. Ha-rumph."
And Joe Fan just nods his head while actually comprehending diddly-squat.
To restate the question that was asked earlier: How do we know how much a ballplayer is worth?
To be brazenly honest -- think carefully about this -- has anyone been able to answer that question? It is a joke the way it is.
A ballplayer simply looks around at what other guys are making and assumes he is better than so-and-so and says, "Gimme dis much." The owner says, "I'm graciously offering you this obscenely colossal amount of money." The player scoffs, "Take a hike."
And people claim that it is the owner's fault because the player "certainly did not hold a gun to his head to force him to give him that much money"? If the owner were to then tell the player to take a hike, and then another owner says the same thing, then another, the player then screams "collusion," so what difference does it make if it is a gun or an imbecilic attitude, the player still has his tantrum, gets his way, and provokes all kinds of virulent dissension.
All because of free agency.
Arbitration is symptomatic of this caw-caw. An owner submits the offered salary figure and the player submits the demanded one. An arbitrator picks one. There is no in-between, because then the owner would just say, "I offer 10 cents," and the player would just say, "I demand $65 billion. Now give me the median figure. Glad that's over! I'm happy to be playing for you, very rich dude!"
The fact is that most fans know squat about whether or not what the player makes is really a lot of money or not, relative to what pro athletes are supposed to make. They certainly think that $7 million is a mind-boggling chunk, relative to what they know about their incomes and of those they are generally familiar with, but every single fan has no real clue as to how a ballplayer gets that much, or more importantly, in what ways does he, the fan, contribute to that amount. All that is usually said is, "Those guys are making too damn much money, grumble-grumble-grumble."
What, then, are the ways in which Joe Fan does unwittingly pay for Joe Starplayer's $3 million dollar home complete with six bathrooms each featuring imported hand-tiled gold-inlaid porcelain toilets with kookaburra-feather seat cushions?
The first way is the obvious one: ticket prices. This includes all the other costs that go into the ballpark experience, such as concessions. Some will say that big player salaries have no effect on ticket prices. This is nonsense. Each team, operating as a business, will look to maximize profits. If it makes the most money selling 90,000 seats a game at 25 cents a ticket, then it will do that. If it makes more selling 20 seats at $1,500 a ticket, it will go that route. The fact is, the real challenge is to discover, somewhere in between those two extremes, the best way to make the most money.
The key to this is how the baseball Powers That Be [2] see demand, and ticket sales is a major indicator of demand. Prices are always affected by demand, and vice-versa. If demand goes up and the Powers That Be see that demand will stay the same with no change in the price they charge, then they will continue to ask that price. And in the baseball world today, that price has been either staying the same or going up because those Powers That Be know that demand will stay high or get higher and that they can get away with it, and in turn pay those ballplayers their absurd salaries.
The Powers That Be then work to keep demand high. Certainly there is indeed the consideration that it is the excitement of the game and attractive superstars and whatever other legitimate reason that demand for major league baseball is still very high. (And don't bother with all that nonsense about how attendance and interest is down after the '94 strike. Relative to what is expected, it is still way, way up, no matter what the Powers That Be would have you believe.)
What then is the primary determinant of the rampant demand for major league ball?
It is television.
And not just television, but all the communication-oriented technological advances that very profitably supplement it: cable services, satellite dish services, and computer services get the word and images about the game to anyone anywhere anytime. Plug into that all the exposure given the game by all the sports programming and sports networks themselves. Face it, Andre Agassi was right: Image is everything. And the image of major league baseball is being so spectacularly splashed into your face that if you're a fan, you want it.
The major leagues get beaucoup bucks from television. The fact that big-market teams had the biggest television packages was the crucial issue regarding equity of operations, it wasn't ticket sales.
So how then does Joe Fan foot the bill by simply watching television?
Since image is everything, the image of a nice cool Budweiser will get him to pay 5 clams for a pack of beer that probably cost 38 cents to put on the shelf. The image of a Chevy truck will compel him to pay 471% over what it actually cost GM to make the vehicle. And every time Joe Fan plunks down some bones for any of the advertised goodies, the cash register goes "cha-ching."
It is first heard by the retailer, then by the corporation, then by the advertiser, then by the owner, and then by -- you know who -- the player.
"CHA-CHING!"
In a very real way, Joe Starplayer is out there in right field looking up into the stands at Joe Fan saying, "Awright. That guy drives a Chevy, drinks Budweiser, uses FedEx, probably wears Isotoner gloves in the winter [whoops -- that's just Dan Marino -- sorry]. Cha-ching! -- I make a good living from that guy!"
Certainly, there is nothing wrong with that. We all make our livings from people who pay for whatever good or service we provide, and a ballplayer is just providing entertainment. And it is not just Joe Fan who pays for it, but it is thousands of Joe Fans who all together enable Joe Starplayer to have his prized collection of 17th-century bronze melon-ballers.
The point is, for Joe Starplayer to get so much money, Joe Fan does have to shell out an inordinate amount -- even if it is his own little inordinate amount -- to give Joe Starplayer what he wants. The Powers That Be also assume that Joe Starplayer's prosperity will have a trickle-down effect, so that if he gets all that cash, then they'll get some, too.
What, then, is the immoral aspect of making that money, if Joe Fan so willingly gives it to him?
For one thing, it is the deceitfulness involved. I just don't think Joe Fan knows half of what this free agency stuff is really about. Some fans do know, and indeed they just go right on ahead with paying for the game because they gotta have it. The all-too-common attitude is, "Hey, don't bother me with all that confusion. I just need to see my batters get hits and my pitchers throw strikes." I understand the feeling. I've been addicted to the game and to the Giants, too. I know, trust me. I could put my head in the sand with the best of them and see only black 'n' orange.
The thing that pushed my disgust past the limit was watching that Baseball documentary by Ken Burns. It was a wonderful piece about the history of the game, but when it began its political commentary about how screwed the players had been by the owners I wanted to hurl my lungs.
At one point the narrator sanctimoniously shared this neat little fact: "When the first ballplayers were paid in the late 1800s, they made about eight times what the average American made. Just before the advent of free agency in the early '70s, the players still made only eight times what the average American made."
The abjectly ludicrous audacity of this statement should not be beyond even the most simple-minded fan to see. No viewer in their right mind would say to themselves, "Oooo it is so aggravating that they made only eight times what I make! It's such a good thing they now make 100 times what I make. My life is so much better now..."
The deceit that magnifies the immorality is simply what happened in 1981 and again in 1994: The strikes. No, not the pitching kind, but the contemptibly greedy kind. Each one of these travesties was wholly, absolutely, reprehensibly inexcusable. It wasn't just that they happened to begin with, which was bad enough, but after each one, the players said nothing about how wrong they were, much less how sorry they were. That, to me, is immoral.
They provided something we paid for. Paid a lot for. Spent a good part of our lives cheering for -- win or lose. Then they turn around and say, for all intents and purposes, "Screw you." And then they act as if nothing happened when Joe Fan mindlessly embraces them all over again.
It may also be said that the players simply aren't angels. "They have their vices just like we all do!" Agreed. The point is that for them to have the privilege of playing the game, there are just some things they do not do. On the field they can get away with jawing with an ump; they cannot, however, repeatedly jam their spikes into the face of a runner finishing his slide into the base. Off the field they can get away with refusing to sign autographs; they can't, however, drop their pants and moon a fan. Certainly we may deplore some of the more "acceptable" acts of misbehavior, the point is that there are just some things that are non-negotiable wrongs. You just don't do them. Period.
Going on strike is unequivocally one of those things.
Another cry heard quite often is:
"But what about the owner's part in all of it?"
The reason why I blame the owners not at all gets back to what my priorities are, and they indeed may be particular to me, so it should be understandable why at least I feel so strongly about this.
My priority lies with my team.
There it is. That's it. The end.
The Giants are it. They're Our Boys.
If the Giants for some reason had a team that consisted of Ken Griffey, Jeff Bagwell, Greg Maddux, Randy Johnson, Mike Mussina, Mike Piazza, Juan Gonzalez, Larry Walker, Kevin Brown, and Alex Rodriguez, and they were all traded for Darnell Coles, Ruben Amaro, Mike Kelly, Dale Sveum, Sean Berry, Jerry DiPoto, Norm Charlton, Rob Ducey, Bruce Ruffin and Heathcliff Slocumb, I would be pulling valiantly for my new team to win. Even if they went from a 127-35 record to a 16-146 record as a direct result of the trade, I would be a fan of the Giants. Period.
This is why I want reserve clause. In full effect. In all its power and glory. I do not want my players leaving to go anywhere unless the team decides so. I am no fan of any player except Giants players. To me the mark of a real team is one that can draft and develop the right players and trade shrewdly. I am simply one who values loyalty and fidelity tremendously [I am going to ask this before anyone else does: What about loyalty and fidelity from owners? -- GP] and as such I loathe the very thought of bandwagon-jumping -- unless the bandwagon is the Giants and those jumping on it are seeing the light.
Which leads to another question that may be brought up...
"What about your Giants players? They are part of this free agency thing too!"
For one thing, I like to think (yes, I know, read: delude myself into thinking) that the Giants by their very inherent virtuous nature are above that stuff and that truly in their hearts they would never intend to defile the sanctity of the game or the Giants.
But, yes, I know better. The fact is, "the Giants" are not necessarily "the players," a point I just made. They're just the Giants. The Giants are above the individual players, they are -- nah, I'm not going to go into the entire maudlin recital.
And yes I also know that Barry Bonds signed with the Giants as a free agent. I think Barry Bonds is great; I know that it is in large part because of the gidzillion dollars he is getting, but Bonds has clearly said that he wants to play for San Francisco. But I'll give up Barry Bonds in a heartbeat if you just give me a world of no free agency. I'll take our home-grown boys and traded-for players any day.
This makes me think of another cry the pro-free-agency bozos have:
"What about just paying for the ones who draw the fans, like the Ken Griffey's and the Frank Thomas's, and then just pay the minimum amount to all the other players who aren't the true 'draws'?"
Gregg accurately foresaw exactly what would happen four or five years ago when he said, "Look to see a bunch of teams with the make-up of one Barry Bonds and a bunch of Mike Benjamins."
The point is that teams, especially small-market teams, will pay a Barry Bonds $11 million a year and pay everybody else $150,000 or close to whatever the minimum is. The problem is easy to see, at least it is when Joe Fan decides to take his blinders off.
How many batters is Barry Bonds going to get out?
How many double plays is he going to turn?
How many times once through the order is he going to get to hit?
Maybe in NBA basketball Michael Jordan and four stiffs can win a lot of games, but in the major leagues opposing batters can most times avoid hitting it to Bonds and they can walk him virtually every time he is up (which is indeed what they do).
This is a reason that big-market clubs will always win much more often under a free agency system. It is because they can afford to fill the rest of the team with good players to complement the Barry Bondses of the world. Last year, 1996, the four teams that made their respective League Championship Series had the first, second, fourth, and fifth highest payrolls in all of pro baseball last year. You never hear about that because the media isn't complaining. You also don't hear about it because it totally destroys the pathetic claim you hear about once every other year or so: "Look at the Montreal Expos! They're always competitive and they don't have a big payroll!"
For one thing, the Expos have never even been close to the World Series (forget about '81: it was an aberration) and for another thing, they should have been in the World Series a lot except they are always forced to do the small-market hat dance: trade your best players away or watch them take off. Look throughout the majors and you'll discover that good teams are populated with ex-Expos (I wonder if that then just makes them 'Po's? -- never mind.)
"But haven't the owners brought this all upon themselves?"
To get back to the animosity between the owners and the players, the case for blaming the owners lies with claims that the buck really stops at their desk, and that if they just did what the players demanded then there would be no strikes. Many times the argument is that if the owners just did not pay them so much to begin with then there would be no problem. The speciousness of that argument is that giving the players reasonable salaries is exactly what the owners did to begin with -- another point in the case for Joe Fan's naïveté. Furthermore, the owners are always charged with a lot of technicality violations, such as collusion involvement or labor agreement infractions.
What it really comes down to is this:
The owners have always said to the players, "Here, I am offering you an ungodly sum of money to play a boy's game." The great iconoclasm continues to obliterate those firmly-held media-shoved-in-your-face perceptions; the truth is: players got ungodly sums of money even in the days of the oh-so-horribly-baneful reserve clause. The owners may have poorly handled the way they negotiated and treated the players, and I do not argue against the assertion that they certainly could have been more civil or even more fair in their dealings with them. But they still have been in charge of their teams and thus have the power to make whatever decisions they want, they still ultimately accept all responsibility and liability-in success and in failure (a very prominent characteristic of the capitalist system to which the players so fervently appeal), and they have always had the welfare of the team first and foremost (most times, anyway).
When free agency came around, the players said to the owners and all that money, "Nuh-uh. Not good enough." They may have reasonably negotiated some very deserved things with free agency, but when 1981 came around, they said, "You are not giving us all we want, so we are going to strike." In 1994, granted, they may have been striking because of the threatened implementation of a salary cap. I hate the salary cap -- I agree: Don't have it! But why did the owners plan to put in a cap? It was because of the selfish, intolerant, grudging way the players treated free agency.
The simple carrying-out of any extended strike was the first thing that made it so immoral, for the simple reason that they already were getting much more than enough for them to do astoundingly well in making a living from their job.
It is one thing for people living in tenements working 14 hours a day in pollution-filled factories to form unions in order to ask for conditions and wages so they can live long enough to enjoy watching their children grow up and they can afford giving them a decent meal once a week. It is an entirely different thing to go on strike when an individual is making $2 million a year and feels he must make $3 million. Again, what has been so appalling is that during and after the strikes, the players have never in the slightest shown any remorse nor any sense of contrition at all. That, to me, is what makes it that much more immoral.
It is as if Joe Starplayer looked up into the stands on that balmy August 12 night in 1994, looked at Joe Fan and said to him, "Ya know? You and your Chevy and your Budweiser are simply not doin' it for me. I need more. And to make my point, I'm not comin' out here tomorrow unless I get more -- from you, Joe Fan."
And all the other players joined Joe Starplayer and said, "Those #*@&%#! owners! We are really disappointed, for you poor fans -- boo hoo -- but, well, it's those #&%@*&! owners!"
And what happens today? Thoroughly oblivious and unwitting Joe Fan just keeps going on into the ballpark plunking down his 60 bones for four tickets to this family affair and he and his loved ones all cheer for the guys who care only about whether or not they are buying enough hot dogs and baseball caps and Cokes and Budweisers and Chevys.
If this is not the way you see it, you, the reader, reading this right now, let me know. If you think I am five thousand light years off base, say so. I don't mind. Give me your take.
It just makes me want to vomit my guts. I love this game too much, and it sickens me to even think about paying a dime to these people. By principle I have not attended one major league baseball game since 1994, just before the strike, when I saw the Giants down the Dodgers (at least there was that). Yes, I have since watched parts of major league games on television, and if I bought a soda that was advertised on an Indians game then I imagine I am guilty of breaching those principles. I know also, though, that to avoid that I'd have to live in a cave in Siberia, so I don't give myself grief over it.
I just want to make the statement. By avoiding the ballpark and by writing about it here. I would love it if everyone just refused to go to the park. Made the statement. I could do with the players -- well, just one player for that matter -- simply getting the clue and just turning around and saying, "Look. I'm thankful for what I have made. I can't believe how fortunate I have been, and how misguided I was to refuse to play this game. If we never went on strike I would still be a zillionaire.
"I'm sorry."
Not one, not one player has ever had the guts or the character to say anything like that. If I were to see it, then I would believe again in the verity of that top priority of mine: Anything in the game that demonstrates true honor and virtue.
And I firmly believe that if the players -- and the owners for that matter -- really held those things in the absolute highest regard, much higher than they do now, then there would be no need to keep calling for a commissioner. To me all those cries are just like those of babies who can't do without a daddy-like commissioner to spank them. Or of simps who refuse to choose to proudly live by that honor and virtue, themselves, as dignified men.
In a sense then, what Gregg has said about what has happened to the game is more true than anything else. He pointed out that it is not necessarily the free agency that has destroyed our game, it is simply what has been done with it.
When they do right with it, in a major way -- I'm talking in a revolutionary way -- then maybe we'll see that honor and virtue in a game that deserves to be treated with nothing less. What is so saddening is that there is so much more talk about interleague play and expansion and the designated hitter than there is about this.
So maybe Joe Fan has exactly what he wants.
EEEEEE! Contributing Editor David Beck is a social studies teacher based in Southern California. He has also taught history, math, government, and economics, as well as earwig taxidermy. Sorry, girls, he's married.