by David Beck
EEEEEE!Contributing Editor
This is part two of Part II. Click here for part one. -- GP
So why would anyone then want to be an owner? One answer is that someone has to be. That may sound flip, but there is significance here. Everyone seems to have the perception that the owners are really a bunch of goofs with Bud Selig as the top goof. But the fact is, if you got rid of all the owners that are there now, and replaced them with other people just like you or me, even if they were the wisest, most brilliant, most astute business experts and baseball lovers among us, the same problems would exist. The owners are just human beings trying to do a good job. They love baseball just like you and me. (Though I know many would disagree regarding owners like Reinsdorf and Selig and Schott et al....) As businesspeople they want to provide a quality product and make ends meet, and any owner would be doing that, even if the players of the teams themselves were the owners. (They'd probably look at how much they were paying themselves and scream, "Good gosh, something must be done about this!")
I firmly believe that most of the people who make it a hobby to glibly bash the owners have never run a business and have no idea what that is like. And if they do run a business, they cringe to think of what would happen if their employees started making outrageous demands for 500% pay increases or else they'd sue or strike or whatever.
It must be kept in mind, however, that one of the only reasons that owners are owners is, again, because these teams are their playthings. Certainly that has a lot to do with the animosity many fans have towards them in their understandable dread about what they'll do with the game of baseball while playing with their "toys."
The one great evidence that many fans don't use the tiny bit of intelligence they do have is always exhibited in the All-Star balloting results. Every year some once-great star who's years past his prime gets voted in while deserving players get left out, simply because too many people are punching ballots when they just aren't paying any attention.
I've softened quite a bit on this, though I still firmly feel that along with the fans' voting, there should be three other votes, all weighted evenly. The other three: (1) the vote of the managers and coaches in each league, (2) the vote of the all the players in each league, and (3) the vote of me, David Beck. As far as I can tell, I'm really the only one who has wisely selected the correct team every year I have voted, so it clearly follows that I am the one most qualified to select each year's All-Stars. But because of my magnanimity, I propose letting the other three vote totals count with the same weight as mine, however misguided those votes may be.
Seriously, I try to be much more charitable about fans who just plain like to come to the game every once in a lifetime. I think we all have this idea that it is that one fan who is at the core of all of baseball's problems because he doesn't know any better. You know who he is, he does the whole tourist bit at the ballpark -- he buys the team pennant and waves it around, he gets a bag of peanuts by hollering as loudly as the vendor does, he even really enjoys doing the wave. You know the one, he has that really annoying grin on his face as if he has no idea what he is enjoying but he does anyway. He even cheers good plays by the other team. Makes you want to punch him, doesn't it? WE'RE supposed to be the bearers of what is right with the game! We -- THE CHOSEN! And DAMN IT you CAN'T ENJOY SOMETHING UNLESS WE HAPPY CHEERFUL REAL BASEBALL PEOPLE TELL YOU WHAT TO ENJOY!!!
Anyway, I pretty much lightened up a lot when I realized that I went to the opera once, once in my lifetime. I had no idea what I was supposed to enjoy or what the heck any of the singer's words were. But I had a great time. For all I know there could have been a mass murder at the opera the night before and a call to avoid going to this performance, but I went.
Like me, a lot of baseball fans are going that once in a lifetime, just -- as I said earlier -- to see the game.
This includes things like dot-racing, scoreboards telling you when to cheer, beach balls, obnoxious vendors, and annoying mascots. The greatest mascot of all time was Crazy Crab, the Giants mascot of the mid-1980s, simply because its sole purpose was to make fun of and point out how monumentally stupid mascots are at a baseball game. It was discontinued because the fans just didn't get it. Actually, in a practical sense, it was discontinued because suddenly the guy in the costume began to fear for his life.
What was I saying about stupid fans again?... (And these were Giants fans -- I'm so ashamed....) (To be fair, the Giants stank in the mid-1980s, so they just weren't in the mood. Couldn't blame 'em.)
In this category could go all the fans who are just plain rude, screaming at a billion decibels right in your ear; I know Gregg has a dozen stories about his swell ballpark experiences. I've been with him many of those times, I just don't remember them as well as he does. When I point this out, he always says, "Lucky you."
But the one type of fan worth note is the one who makes incredible demands of ballplayers, most often regarding the flagrantly unreasonable expectations to sign autographs.
Players know they have a certain obligation to acknowledge the fans and most go out of their way to do so. Nowadays many fans have become not only obscenely churlish but greedy as well, demanding players give them autographs that they will turn around and sell. I'm not big on players making money from autographs, but if they can sell 'em, then more power to 'em. But I do think that they have those autograph shows in large part because fans do not take player autographs to keep and to treasure as their own personal mementos. They try to make a buck. It has become a racket, and to me it further points to the fact that the highest principle is not, "Hey, Tim Salmon, thanks, you're a good ballplayer and I enjoy watching you play," but rather, "Hey, Tim Salmon, how much is your signature worth?"
What gets me is the story about how a man with his kid will reach a ballplayer, and when the player simply cannot give an autograph, the man lights into the player with whatever abuse he can dish, usually along the lines of, "You were my kid's hero, now you're dirt, you creep." If anything, this goes a heckuva way in showing how far away Bozo the Dad is from being a hero to his kid.
Without question this is one of the sadder legacies of the sport, and it can be tied to free agency with respect to the expectations people have: "You make a zillion dollars a year and you can't take another minute of the 15 hours you've been out here at the park and sign my kid's program?!
We'll all certainly agree, however, that this has less to do with free agency and more to do with the plain major league jerkitude of some people.
While I zealously advocate a boycott of major league games, calling for those who protest all these things to put their money where their mouth is by staying out of the ballpark, I recently read about fans in Seattle shaving their heads on "Jay Buhner Day" for free tickets to get into the ball game. Now, this may not be any big deal, for free tickets and all, except that of the 3,000-plus fans who did this, 46 were women.
What is this world coming to?
The salary cap has not been implemented in the major leagues and thank goodness. It is symptomatic of the thinking that something must be done about skyrocketing salaries, and all kinds of goofy ideas are considered and even carried out, such as:
New collective bargaining agreement or not, both the owners and the Players' Union are still acting like babies and cannot negotiate like men. I addressed this in my first essay. Why do they need arbitrators, negotiators, mediators, independent mugwumpers, the President of the United States, or whoever there is in order for them to get an agreement?
It's because of what free agency has done.
In all of what I've written about, I've tallied all the things that are wrong with the major leagues. I'm not, however, only going to cry and moan about it all. I do have a solution. I do put my money where my mouth is, so to speak. I will impart my plan to save the major leagues later.
But first, the players and owners should get off their rear ends and behave like dignified men and agree. They should be coming to a compromise, and without question the players are the ones who should be doing the most compromising by admitting that they are wrecking the game by demanding that they get paid far too much money. It is absolutely ludicrous for them -- both players and owners -- to continue to act like babies in handling the national pastime like it were a rag doll, simply because of their collective shallow petulance.
But if they don't behave like men, then they should go to Plan B, my plan.
Again, that's later.
This relates to the issue of funding sports franchise ventures. There is the idea that since a pro baseball team means so much to a community, then the city should invest a healthy chunk of its budget to build a stadium and give the team whatever else that that the owner needs to make the city a "viable location."
One of the reasons that owners have major league franchises is to provide a community service. For those of you who laugh at this when you think of owners who have left their communities in the lurch by splitting, from the baseball Giants and Dodgers in '58 to the Art Modells and Georgia Frontieres of pro football, the fact is, owners keep their teams in their respective cities because they know that a team can be a beneficial enterprise to help communities. This also entails the civic pride factor that is very rewarding, going beyond any measurable financial return.
I think that the value of a team to a community is blown way out of proportion, however, which is why I don't think owners should be swindling taxpayers to subsidize their ballclubs with stadiums and whatever other outrageous eccentricities that they demand. On the other hand I firmly believe that unless there is some mind-bogglingly compelling reason for an owner to move a team out of a community, then he should do all he can to keep it there. I'm not going into a bunch of examples and treat them all, because this is a whole other topic. But please understand that I am an equal opportunity free agency hater: I dislike owner free agency almost as much as player free agency.
What has happened is that there is so much money needed and therefore expected -- yes, in large part because of free agency -- that all of pro sports has essentially become a rich man's pleasure.
Not only is taxpayer money being used to fund baseball stuff, but schemes are being designed so that teams can generate as much cash flow as possible for its lavish expenses, one of which is, yes, you guessed it, its demanding ballplayers. The most widely publicized scheme is the idea of "personal seat licenses" costing upwards of thousands of dollars just to have the privilege of buying tickets to the game.
What is this? Paying a whole bunch of money for nothing once, in order to be able to pay a whole bunch of money for tickets later?
Don't tell me that this attempt to make Joe Fan believe that he must pay out of his ears so that he can see a simple ball game is a scheme to line the owner's pockets. What about the indispensable ballplayer gods who are most worthy of our money? Oh, but since they are most worthy, it is of no issue that Joe Fan must pay a thousand-dollar veneration fee to be one of the anointed.
And what is so amazing is that in one way or another it is Joe Taxpayer -- one who may never see or even care to see the ballplayer gods -- who also must foot the bill.
The cost to the fan goes way beyond the ticket price, and that, of course leads to the next thing...
I'm not going to go into the list of all the things one must pay for (ticket, parking) or may purchase (hot dog, cap) at exorbitant prices at the ballpark; I've seen it written about several times in the sports pages, always accompanied by a comment about how galling it is.
This is the great fan hypocrisy -- albeit a somewhat unwitting one, and I've brought it up before. It is essentially the story of the two fans talking about the game:
This last bit is in reference to a classic commercial for a drive-thru hamburger place, and it is appropriate to mention here. The cashier of a rival burger place called Pricey's is reviewing the order of a family in their car in the drive-thru lane. After noting each hamburger, order of fries, and soda ordered, the cashier -- a skinny dirty-blond teenage kid -- says "Cha-ching." As the commercial goes on, each "Cha-ching" not only gets louder but is expressed with more elaborate body language denoting cash registers opening and such. In the meantime, the family, headed by the dad in the driver's seat, is busily trying to scrounge up whatever money they have, kid's piggy bank, coins in the ashtray, cashed-in life insurance policy -- no, it doesn't quite go that far. The family is holding a bank vault's worth of cash and, while they look at the drive-thru ordering box, the cashier finishes and says with a smug chuckle, "That'll be $62.75." At the end of the commercial the dad says to the box, "We're a little shy."
This is what is going on with major league baseball. A decent hamburger should cost 99 cents (and many still do), not $2.59. A decent ticket to the ballgame should cost four bucks, not twenty.
I remember what it was like as a fan before there was free agency, and I will use my own personal experience to elaborate big-time on what is wrong with it. In fact, throughout this entire essay I've made one point or another, but by no means do I claim to be an expert. I'm just talking about what I see and what I hear.
With that in mind, here are the key things that personally bother me the most about what free agency has done to the game. Again, the impact of free agency is greater on some things than it is on others. These are my own personal objections, and for as wrong as someone may think I have been about any of the previous items discussed here, the following cannot be contested:
Anyone particularly tuned in to the economic aspect of this discussion may very well be asking, "Okay, Dave, you say that free agency has made player salaries too high; well, isn't that inoperative in a business that is at least holding its own, if not prospering? It shouldn't make a difference if Joe Starplayer were making $900 trillion -- if he earns it, then shouldn't there be no such thing as too high?"
Ah, but there is, if what is happening to baseball is happening.
And it's happening.
A very healthy, growing, productive company can also earn $900 trillion in profits, but if it dumps all kinds of filth into the water and air, then what it is making is too much, in the very real sense that it is profiting excessively from doing really shitty things.
The selling-out of baseball is like pollution.
When I went to the ballpark for the first time as a bright-eyed ten-year-old, I walked into a Candlestick Park that was called Candlestick Park. In games I went to that featured promotions, I remember getting caps and bats that had words and symbols that referred to one thing: The San Francisco Giants. I saw an outfield fence that you could see through, one of those chain-link jobs -- I even remember being able to look out onto the bay beyond right field before they enclosed it. Whenever I watched a game on TV, I saw the batter step up to the plate with determination and the pitcher bear down and deliver the ball leading to the potential telling moment in any contest.
Now what we have is this:
Ballparks being named after companies who can shell out the cash needed to help take care of costs. The first existing stadium onto which this abhorrence was fobbed off was Candlestick Park, renamed 3Com Park. I thought, "Oh, wow, look at this. My own team has sold out," being too stupid to foresee that if one team did it, others would follow suit. They did. To date, parks corporately named include Qualcomm in San Diego, Cinergy in Cincinnati, Coors in Denver, Turner in Atlanta (though I'm sure Ted Turner gets no small ego rush from that), and Miller in Milwaukee -- for what I think is the future Brewers stadium. If there are others, I can't think of them right now, but what difference does it make because more are coming.
I could not care less about the Padres or anything about them (unless of course it involves them being miles behind the Giants in the standings), but it's unthinkable that they took away the honor given to Jack Murphy by naming the stadium after him -- I don't know anything about the guy but I'm sure he was instrumental in bringing sports to San Diego and more importantly was probably some kind of humanitarian: most of the honored-in-such-a-way types are -- and instead slapped on the name of some company who simply paid more. This is abjectly reprehensible. It is the classic example of how the whole basic precept of free agency, "Get the most $ you can get," has shredded the value of honoring people and genuine achievement above all else.
What blows me away is how everyone is expected to speak of their respective stadiums by the new corporate name. I can see how a team's announcers may be asked to do that, but sportscasters? Does a sportscaster feel compelled to call it 3Com just to avoid confusion, as if anyone would wonder what the hell he was talking about if he should accidentally refer to it as Candlestick? [The sportscasters are, I suspect, instructed to so designate these parks, on the following basis: "If we've shelled out good money to change the name, then you will by God use it." -- GP] And what about the fans? Let me ask: do you feel overwhelmingly driven to use "3Com" because if someone were to hear you say "Candlestick" they would surely think of you as an boring old fart who is obsessed with "the old days"?
Well, there won't be any of these problems with the new Giants park. We'll all know it as Pac Bell Park. Wheeee.
Long before this, and shortly after the rise of free agency, there began the practice of putting little advertising logos on the "free" items you could get on promotional days. I used to think little of it. The idea was that the team could save money on these freebies by getting a company to pay for it and allowing them to slap their ad or logo on the little goodie. Whatever happened to the time that the team paid for the give-aways as a genuine expression of thanks for supporting them? (Actually, I'm not sure about that -- I wonder if the promotional items weren't always sponsored by an outside company -- just sans logo.)
Now instead of a nice wool cap you get a cheesy polyester one with "SF" on the front and the name of a tire company on the back. Now instead of a leather glove you get a tiny plastic one with the name of a beer in the webbing. I saw that the Giants' Helmet Day this year was sponsored by three different advertisers, one of which was a waffle company. Was there any room for the "SF" on the helmet anywhere? And never mind all the blatantly stupid little worthless things they give away now, such as the "Interleague Commemorative Pin." Errrrrglgh.... What is most disturbing is when a T-shirt is given away with a soft-drink name splattered across it, kids wear it around, and essentially the company gets endless advertising for practically nothing. The company makes millions, the kid gets zip.
Then we got what's on the fences. I always thought that in the major leagues, the fences were off-limits. A few years ago, the Giants put the word "Gap" on the right-center and left-center field fences. Just that. Just that one word in those two places. Even though it was advertising -- the Gap is a contemporary clothing chain -- it was kind of a neat little touch. Some other teams followed suit.
Just so long as it didn't go past that.
The intense laughter that is occurring in my gut -- and perhaps yours -- because of my vapid inability to foresee that it surely would is giving me an ulcer. What was once the unsightly sole dominion of minor league parks, is now the bounty of many major league parks. (Note the word "once" -- I do know that many years ago, major league parks used to have ads on the fences, too and I'm not pretending they haven't had billboards outside the actual playing area all this time.) Advertising is splashed across the outfield fences everywhere, and if it's not there in some parks, then it's along the fences in foul ground in most every park, if not every one. (I qualify that because I just don't know; I haven't been in every park.)
Yes, I know ads have been up on billboards around the stadium since the days of Cobb and those guys, but this is the field level, the place I thought was sacred. I was watching the Angels play the Brewers for a few minutes the other day and saw advertising covering every inch of the walls behind the players in both dugouts.
Which leads to the place where this plague has reached its worst point:
Behind home plate.
I first saw this blight when watching a Mariners-Angels game at the Kingdome shortly after the strike. Right there, to my dismay, right there on the field-level fence in the space the TV viewer sees between the pitcher and batter in that camera shot from centerfield, was...
A billboard.
I couldn't believe it.
I really think it was at that point that I understood the magnitude of what free agency and the strike did to baseball and decided not to attend another game in person.
I mean, did no one else notice this? Does this not chafe the hide right off anybody else? Is it just not that big a deal to anyone else? Does anyone else simply refuse to see that -- the spiffy little advertisement aside -- this is an explicit example of how baseball is selling out?
Many will respond, "Hey, it's just a sign. Who cares?"
For one thing, some of the ads are bright white, spread across from pitcher to batter. I have literally been unable to tell what the hell is going on with the pitch and what happens after the batter hits it. Or doesn't hit it, but how would I know.
Secondly, I don't want to have to see the word "Budweiser" across my TV when I've turned it on to watch baseball. When someone watches ER or Seinfeld, they don't have to look at advertisements posted all over the walls behind the actors.
What is amazing is that if they don't get the ads directly onto the fence, then they put them on with computer graphics so it looks to the TV viewer like there is an ad there (while preserving "integrity" for the fans actually in attendance).
The only thing that touched me in even the tiniest positive way on this was when, shortly after the strike, the Giants, my Giants, were the only ones I saw, anyway, putting up behind home plate a phone number to call for tickets and the statement, "Kids get in free."
The Giants offered to let kids in free.
The Mariners wanted me to buy their beer.
Is this not the most putrid pile of manure or what? When are we going to start seeing ads on the player's uniforms, and they all start looking like NASCAR race drivers? Don't put it past them; I think those ugly little All-Star and World Series emblems they put on the caps nowadays is a precursor. (We're already seeing Nike's logo on NFL uniforms. The hideous new uniforms of the Denver Broncos, in fact, incorporate the "swoosh.")
ESPN's Rob Neyer, in his online Chin Muzak column, responds to a letter in which the writer points out that the owners will always be seeking more money in order to continue to pay the players escalating salaries. Neyer brings up two things, (1) salaries are going up because the owners give it to them (a point I've exhaustively contested), and (2) I quote, "What do you think happens when the teams make more money? The players simply demand more of it."
That is a great point. What this means, however, is that the only possible subsequent development is the most depressing one -- that no matter how much the owners attempt to get the "equalizing" amount of revenue, they're only spinning their wheels and we'll only have more of the same garbage.
More of the selling-out of baseball. Where will it lead next? The people who just look at this and shrug and say, "Eh, I buy that beer anyway, so what," are just like those little froggies in the pot. Nice and comfy, is it?
Not going to spend a lot of time on this one because I went over it in great detail in my first essay. I will restate though, that there is no excuse in the world the players could give to justify the action of striking. None. Not, "Oh but the owners did this illegal thing." Not, "Oh but we're doing this out of principle." Not, "Oh but what the owners want to destroy all we've worked for." Not, "Oh but we're doing this for the all those players to come." Not, "Oh but we are the indispensable Gods of Baseball and as fans you must lick our feet raw."
To add a brief note, I don't think that the owners should stage a lockout, either. But in my view, as much as the players will incorrectly blame the owners for any strike on their part, I wholly and fully blame the players for any lockout on the owners part.
The reason is, again, simple economics. The owners should decide what to pay a player. If the market says he should get paid X, then that it what he should get paid. If the player doesn't want to play for X, then he can go work somewhere else. If the owner then wants to keep him from playing with a "lockout," then the owner is simply saying, "Fine, don't play in this league. Go to another one or form your own." I know the owners have not exactly followed through with this sentiment, which is unfortunate. I admit that if they were much more firm with what they wanted, even though the collusion threat will always hinder them, then things would not be as bad as they've been.
What do I think of strikes in general? I am a teacher, but I am not a big union guy. In fact I'm not even a member, mostly because of the irrelevant political posturing it does. But I do know that being organized and having the "tool" of the threat of a strike is a form of getting reasonable requests considered and acted upon. But on the whole, strikes stink. Most people think so, but perhaps I feel a little more strongly about it. If the teachers in my district suddenly decided to go on strike, I would be very much against it. I make a fine income now, and if we went on strike for 1% of this or that, I'd be pretty ticked off. Would I actually join a strike? In theory, no, but it is a grimly unpleasant prospect to have to ponder what would be thought of as taking a great big dump all over my colleagues should I refuse. Thank goodness I don't foresee having to make that decision any time soon.
Ah, but the players did, yes. And I still feel it was wholly wrong for them to have done so. It may be said that their work situation is to me like mine is to an Ethiopian farmer who has nothing and practically eats dirt. If the farmer thought I was going to strike, he'd be as appalled as I am about the major leaguers striking. I will emphasize again that I still think striking is not right in any instance in which a good living is made, whether it is ballplayers or teachers. (And "good living" here also includes good working conditions.) I will also reiterate something I said earlier: whatever value the market sets is the one that should stand. For the best ballplayers it may be a couple million dollars a year. For public schoolteachers it is about $30,000 to $50,000. For Ethiopian farmers it is squat.
It is not a nice system at times, indeed it can be very cruel. That's the way it is though, and it is a good system that benefits the most people. When it doesn't, it's mostly because people do horribly wicked things. That farmer in Ethiopia? He's most likely in his situation because a bunch of chuckleheaded power-craving goons have guns and are engaged in some 28-year-long civil war. It'd be the same here for us if that were the case, but it isn't, and I am very fortunate to have what I have. I don't go around complaining that because there is a minimum wage as an attempt to even things out then there should be a minimum teacher's wage of a million dollars a year to better reflect how much more valuable we are than ballplayers. I know that most players are appreciative of what they have, too, I won't deny that. They just have a funny way of showing it.
One of the other aggravating things about the player's attitude is that the real history of labor in the American industrial age was unbelievably contentious and bloody; people were boldly fighting against the inequities industrialism brought about, and many times they sacrificed their very lives to assure their families had even barely enough bread and milk.
The million-dollar ballplayers think they have any part of that legacy?
I've ralphed my cookies long ago, which is good as I mercifully address the last of the things drastically wrong with the major leagues....
Right away I hear the statement, "It's always been this way. These guys are expected to hit a baseball, not lead the church choir. Never has a ballplayer's character -- at least for most of 'em anyway -- been the most exemplary."
I don't disagree with this. Scandals that expose the foolishness or even the wickedness of the baseball professional -- owners and players alike -- have littered the game since the late-1800s. The litany of those guilty of "unsuitable behavior" fills volumes, and many of the worst were some of the game's greats. Ty Cobb was violently belligerent. Babe Ruth was a drunken philanderer. Pete Rose was an impenitent gambler. Cap Anson was racist to the core, as were more than half of all the players up to the time of Jackie Robinson, and a lot were past that time.
My gosh, compared to that, we're living in an angelic age of ballplayer behavior.
The thing that gets me is simply the way in which we feel about what we see out there now. The fact that every year there seems to be more and more of the "macho posturing" is indicative of this attitude. It's one we all share to a certain degree; as a society it is almost pathological.
It is simply the tried-and-true attitude, "Get yours."
Its forms include, "Me first," "Get out of my way," "If it feels good," and specifically with big-time sports, "Winning is everything."
This is why, at the beginning of my first essay I stated that free agency is what is wrong with a lot of society today. Joe Ballplayer boasts, "Winning is everything, Mr. Rich Owner," (to which Mr. Rich Owner heartily agrees) "so you need to pay me" (said like Audrey II, the plant in Little Shop of Horrors: "Feeeed me!")
So what do our Little Leaguers grow up to think and say and do, those small children, our small children, who don't know their left cleat from their right?
"Get me mine."
And we supposedly mature responsible adults follow with a bombastic, "That's my boy (or girl)!" with laughter all around.
A classic example of this kind of dominantly prevalent mentality is found in the recent Tony Phillips case. The Anaheim Angels utility player was arrested for buying drugs from an undercover police officer. What happened was the Angels said, "This is unfortunate, but we'll see what happens and expect Tony to return." The American League said, "This is unfortunate; we expect him to return." The rest of the world said, "How unfortunate; can't wait till he returns."
Where was Judge Landis here? To be honest, he should have been around 20 years ago when all this garbage started -- which was about the same time when that other thing started in major league baseball, what was it again, ummm, couldn't have been something about agents and free or something?...
To refresh your memory, Landis was the baseball commissioner who banned the players involved in the 1919 Black Sox scandal for life. Read carefully: Landis banned them for life, and they were even ACQUITTED of the charges against them.
They were found not guilty.
And they were kicked out of baseball. For good.
Some of them were great players, in their primes. (Shoeless Joe Jackson was the Tony Gwynn of his time, probably even better. Eddie Cicotte was comparable to a Tom Glavine or a Curt Schilling.)
"Oh, but those were the old days," I hear. "That was for gambling, not for something like drugs," I hear.
So the good old current days are better, and because they are, it's okay to do rotten things, and be able to play major league baseball? And serious drug abuse is not as bad as putting a bet on a worthless game (even if it is a player)?
What should be happening is for the Angels, the American League, and any other of the Powers-That-Be to announce firmly that Tony Phillips is to be suspended from major league for the remainder of the year, if not for the rest of his career. This is not something I say lightly as one who is an Angels fan and is well aware of the value Phillips has to this team.
Why are we pussyfooting around with this when these very values are the ones that our kids adopt? It is not just the values of Phillips but those of the Powers-That-Be that let it happen. No wonder drug abuse simply will not abate in this country. We go around saying "Drugs are baaaaad..." and then do nothing to show we mean it.
Yes, I know Tony Phillips needs help, and that is fine. Get him help. Have him visit his doctors. Get him into rehab. I pray he gets better. I hope he gets all the support in the world from his family, his friends, and his fans. But he should not be playing baseball. Yes, I know he is innocent until proven guilty, and I sincerely hope they are wrong and he is acquitted. I like Tony Phillips, I'm a big fan of his. But he should not be playing baseball.
What was that? Oh? They don't have any particular official drug policy?
Why the hell do they NEED one? A player breaks into a federal military institution and programs a nuclear bomb attack that destroys Ecuador and they continue to let him play because they don't have an official nuclear-bomb-dropping policy?
Why isn't there, then, an official drug policy of some kind anyway? A policy for any kind of serious misconduct? Why can't we simply re-draw the line and hold to it?
A lot of this has to do with the wonderful beloved Players' Union. Good major leaguers have somehow been granted a kind of unconditional immunity. Because we don't stand up to these fools it becomes almost impossible to change the free agency-instigated mindset that one can commit whatever impropriety he wants, but as long as he is good enough then he should still "Get his." Whether it's money or wins -- "Hey, I'm good enough, I deserve it...." Remember Steve Howe and his seven chances?
Another reason it'll never happen is because of the wide expansive landscape of fans who themselves demand theirs, and they pretty much get what they want -- or if they don't, they certainly aim to even if it means stomping over others and compromising principle in the attempt. They feign concern over a Tony Phillips, but if it means his stupidity yanks away the pennant, then they'd rather sugar-coat the stupidity so their player can return and their team can kick butt.
They express disapproval of fights and threats and posturing by players, but when it comes down to it, that's really what they want. When was the last time you saw a sportscaster on TV announce that in the big game there'd been a huge brawl with eight players ejected, and then decline to show any of it and run only the game highlights? It never happens because the station would get calls up-the-wazoo from irritated fans who didn't get to witness the carnage.
They just give 'em what they want.
The catalogue of current player behavior includes on-field crimes like corked bats, charging the mound, spitting at/flipping off fans, and the off-field crimes like beating up wives, girlfriends, taxi-cab drivers, nude dancers, whoever. It's been going on ever since baseball started, and many fans like it in a twisted kind of way.
We still go watch 'em. They're not supposed to be archangels, just monster home-run hitters. In fact, nowadays, I don't think we really know where the line is anymore, and most of us are too chicken to find out. Or just don't care a whole lot. But I'll tell you this for sure:
The free agency mentality hasn't made it any better.
I read a story the other day of how a sports ticket-broker couldn't fill his orders because some scheme he had going went bad. He ended up killing himself because he knew he'd be found out. We laugh at the guy in Jerry McGuire who gets his agent to scream, "Show me the money!" and we do nothing about this nonsense that brings people to wreck their lives in the name of profiting from big-time sports.
It may be asked, "If you so cherish the determinants of the market system, why are you so against the 'negatives' it brings? You say that the market should determine salaries, but then chide it for making salaries too high and promoting ill-mannered, even destructive behavior! Which do you want?"
I want both. I know of the tremendous benefits of the free market, but I also know of the devastating problems it brings unless wisdom and common sense prevail in how it is handled. The market system is a great tool, like a hammer that nails roofs and walls together -- pretty good thing. A hammer can also crack someone's skull open. It is important how it is used.
I firmly feel that free agency is using the tool wrongly, and destructively.
By all means, someone come up with a better way! In fact, someone come up with a way that makes free agency itself a workable tool. That'd be great.
But since that seems impossible, I now reveal to the world my plan for making the major leagues work without all the animosity and skyrocketing salary costs.
Here it is -- Plan B. (Nah, not "Plan B," sounds too much like "Plan B free agency," a goofy thing the NFL had several years ago. How about simply, "Plan Dave." Yeah, that's it....) Here it is -- Plan Dave:
Appoint a special independent accountancy panel to monitor all of the revenues generated by the game and pool it all together in one lump sum. Decide on a percentage of that money that will go to the owners, and a percentage that will go to the players.
Then they can decide how they want to use it, each in their own way.
The end. There's the plan.
Oh, and the second key part of the plan alleviates the problem of any unwilling participants. What we do is get them all together at a big meeting -- players and owners -- and have them sign this agreement at gunpoint.
Stipulations will be drawn up so teams will draft players and they will again get to keep them for the duration of their careers if they so choose, but because there is no "reserve clause" in the historical sense, teams can't keep salaries artificially low. Teams can still trade players to make the TEAM better with what they get. Free agency gets chucked altogether or modified severely so that players cannot just take off from the team that had invested so much in him.
Now after you've finished clutching your sides and wiping away the tears of laughter, please note that I am dead serious about this plan. Yes, I know, you may think there is more to the "dead" part than the "serious" part. But really, carefully consider it.
What is good about it?
Ahhh. Paradise.
Several things would have to happen, though. There would have to be a renewed commitment to the natural monopoly concept of major league baseball, the idea that what benefits all teams benefits everyone. It is from that idea that this proposal comes. If the Yankees join with the Pirates, agree to lay all the battling on the field and leave it there, then it will work. But if they continue to do battle as business competitors fighting tooth and nail to best the other economically, then we're in for more of the same old stuff.
What'll keep Plan Dave from happening? One simple thing.
Neither the players nor the owners will want to give up their little power grabs and all the little power grabbing games that go with them. Which ultimately gets back around to why Plan Dave was recommended: because these people cannot be civilized.
So here it is, a great plan, doomed because of the egos the plan was designed to do away with.
And I then vow to continue to stay away from the park.
Believe me, I'm not into self-flagellation for a cause. It really is no big thing that I'm not there. I feel much better outside saying my piece, than inside screaming, "Come on, you rich bastard -- I paid forty bucks for this so you better come through." Yes, I still watch bits of ballgames on TV every now and then. The Giants are only on when they play the Dodgers, and I'll catch some Angels action occasionally. I follow what is going on in the sports pages, in EEEEEE!, and with my talks with Gregg.
And I will always root for Our Boys.
What'll it take for me to go back?
If it's not clear enough in what I've shared, I'll simply crystallize it all here.
Restore baseball to its rightful throne. People do lip service to this but they don't mean it anymore. Even the fans seem to think that they know what is best for major league baseball and demand that their voice be heard. Since when was it decided what happens to baseball be decided by democratic "vote?" Or what will soon be aristocratic vote: On a radio show the other day, Peter Magowan said he was going to ask the private seat license people to tell him what they wanted. Ah, but of course, they are the anointed.
Two things about this. Democracy is not always the greatest thing. It can easily turn into mob rule. Give fans their choice, and maybe we'd see fences 160 away from home plate. Secondly, if you as a fan really do want to have a say about what you want done with baseball, then by all means, use your vote.
It's called a dollar.
If you don't like what you see, then don't go. I hear so much wailing and moaning about realignment and the DH and Pete Rose not being in the Hall of Fame that I'm surprised anyone is at the ballpark.
But there they are.
And as long as they go, no matter what goofball thing they do to the game, it'll still go on in some form or another. This is the inverse question to the one mentioned earlier, "If the proposed such-and-such change won't help things, then why do it?" This question goes, "If they do go ahead with this supposedly horrific thing, will the major leagues crash and burn?" I just don't think so.
Because there they all will be, filling the seats.
Do I need major league baseball to move up to some idyllic, splendidly pastoral, ball-field-in-the-Iowa-corn level?
Nah.
I just need to really see where the players and owners and whatever other Powers-That-Be come around to being concretely committed to a philosophy of "Baseball is more important than $$$."
I want my team's ability to play well determined by shrewd drafts, commitment to player development, and wise front office decisions, not by how much more money they can stuff into a ballplayer's wallet than the other guy.
I need to see an understanding that the mentality of "Let's see how much more $$$ I can get from you" is really rotten, actually, and that one of "I simply don't have to be making a gidzillion dollars to give you the best game I've got" is much more fan-friendly.
I would just like to witness an immersion into the conception that honor, integrity, character, temperance, fidelity, gratitude and a whole bunch of other virtues are not only most important, but worth championing in real, demonstrative ways.
I'm certain that most owners and players do consider these things, at least a bit. I guess I just need to see more of it in action, and whether or not that happens I just don't know.
Sure, I may be way over the top with all this. What I really need ask then is simply...
Would someone please, then, just bring major league baseball back from what free agency has done to it?
What is reassuring in it all is that the worst of free agency can't touch baseball.
What matters is what lasts. As much as that game-winning homer is recorded in the books and in our memories, it is what an individual does from his heart, with people, with respect, and with love that counts the most. That will be his true legacy. Ernie Banks' "Let's play two" will be remembered centuries after the last salary demands have been bleated. The curveballs, the base hits, the money, and all that is said and written about it all will one day be dust -- including this very writing.
It is what one does, in action, with that which fills one's heart, that will last.
Baseball is actually a magnificent arena for the most wonderful of those expressions, really. Baseball at its purest is about father and son, even father and daughter.
The whole playing catch thing.
Don't need the major leagues or a contract to do that.
It has been reported that the Angels have officially suspended Tony Phillips indefinitely. Naturally the Player's Union is having a cow and will protest.
Kudos to the Angels for standing up and making the firm statement, and kudos to Los Angeles Times sports editor Bill Plaschke for his column this morning praising this move and -- hallelujah! -- blasting the Players' Union.
In fact, his closing could encapsulate my entire point in all this:
"Steel workers need unions. Workers dropped in mine shafts every morning need unions.
"Baseball players need perspective.
"And what about their labor leaders? So when does somebody file a grievance against them?"
Dumb, dumb me, yet again.
Today an arbitrator's hearing was held in the Tony Phillips case. It is so damn important for him to be back playing baseball that his case was bumped right to the front of the docket.
The arbitrator ruled in favor of the Players' Union and demanded that the Angels reinstate Phillips immediately. The amazing thing is that the management council sided with the Players' Union in seeking the ruling, calling upon the Angels ot use the policy and process laid out by the major leagues to handle the situation.
What policy?
Furthermore, there was talk of Michael Eisner, chairman of Disney, being assessed a heavy fine for having the nerve to ask a player to sit down because of such a chintzy violation as buying and smoking crack cocaine.
If Disney should simply release Phillips, then another American League team would just snatch him up as if nothing had happened. Wil Cordero beats the tar out of his wife, but because the Red Sox certainly don't want to lose him, they plug him back into the lineup after the Players' Union forces the Red Sox to stroke him.
Due process in these cases? Of course they should get due process! In the courts.
But they should not be on the baseball field.
Dumb me. Dumb dumb me to think that something positive was going to happen because of Disney's decision.
Money is God. It is all-powerful.
Respectable-appearing adult human beings filling the temple, bowing to their God.
And we all watch it happen, including very dumb, very ashamed me.
What is most appalling is that we watch it with our children.
This is just too much.
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 banana-peel lamination. He has successfully constructed a 1:18 replica of a 2X4j Corantial Traxelener.