Contract This!
Well, I suppose a congratulatory pat on the back should go to the lords of baseball, because they have managed to do something nobody else had managed to do for the past month: knock the war in Afghanistan off the front page of the nation's newspapers. In case you haven't heard, Major League Baseball, just a matter of hours after completing one of the best World Series in recent memory, has already ensured itself that there probably will not be a 2002 season.
Yeah, I know, I've written this column before; in fact, it was only two weeks ago that I had first predicted here that there would not be a 2002 baseball season. However, at the time, I had no idea that it would be something other than the salary cap issue that would cause this. Instead, the baseball owners have managed to once again earn the disrespect of the game's fans, and this time it's through something called "contraction". You may have seen this elsewhere in the country in recent weeks. Some companies call it "downsizing", some call it "rightsizing", what it is, matter of factly, is layoffs, baseball style. However, instead of your local GE or Bethlehem Steel plant closing up shop and leaving town, it could be your cherished baseball franchise.
Here's the plan according to that guru of mismanagement and champion (or so we thought) of downtrodden franchises, Comandant, errr, Commissioner Bud Selig: because baseball just simply cannot operate 30 franchises right now, 2 teams must be eliminated before next season. This despite the fact that Selig was completely for the last expansion four years ago that boosted the number of teams up to 30 and eventually produced this year's world champions, the Arizona Diamondbacks. The teams must cease to exist, says Selig, they cannot be relocated. This despite the fact that Washington, D.C. and Northern Virginia have been pleading for a team for several years now and have had a concrete and ready bid for any struggling franchise for just as long.
The rest of baseball is pretty much pleading for the Montreal Expos and owner Jeffrey Loria to leave the nightmare that is an empty Olympic Stadium and move to the nation's capital. Selig's response to that: Washington is not an "acceptable" location for a major league team. Let me get this straight, Comandant Selig... the 5th-largest media market in the country isn't acceptable enough for a Major League Baseball franchise? Well, geez, in that case, let's just leave the Dodgers, Yankees, Mets, Cubs, White Sox, and Phillies, and "contract" the other 24 teams, because by your definition, their cities aren't "acceptable" either! The more likely reason that Selig is so opposed to moving the Expos to Washington is the fact that he needs Baltimore Orioles owner Peter Angelos (a.k.a. "Steinbrenner Lite") in his corner for the brewing battle with the players union over the next collective bargaining agreement. Angelos has long stated that he will block any attempt to put a team in Washington, because he claims that it will cut into the O's fan base. Last time I checked, Pete, your team drew nearly 3 million fans last year despite the fact that the Orioles were one of the worst teams in baseball and almost lost 100 games. I think your fan base is safe. Besides, I doubt many Orioles fans dare make the trek from Northern Virginia to night games, as they would have to battle all kinds of traffic on the Beltway and elsewhere just to get to Camden Yards. Actually, considering the fact that the Baltimore-Washington area seems to be a haven of late for domineering sports team owners, I'm surprised that Art Modell and Daniel Snyder haven't also threatened lawsuits if baseball comes back to D.C., and the Ravens and Redskins aren't even in the SAME SPORT!
However, I don't think anyone would miss the Expos if they ceased to be, if they were no more, as John Cleese would say. The real problem is the second team that is being targeted for destruction by Osama Bin Selig is the Minnesota Twins. Now, if I may take a moment, I'd like to read for you the American League Central Division standings as of the 2001 All-Star break... *ahem*... "Minnesota Twins, 1st place". Yeah, the Twins, if you didn't know, led their division for most of the first half of this past season, getting off to a start that for a while only rivaled the record-breaking Mariners. They fell off in the second half, a victim of their lack of pennant race experience, but they still had me for one believing in them right to the end, thinking that they might have just one more run in them that would vault them past Cleveland and into the playoffs. They drew 1.8 million fans to the Metrodome last season, as this bunch of plucky young Twins thrilled the Twin Cities like nobody since the days of Homer Hankies. And yet, they may still be destroyed, and let's put it that way, because that is what you're doing, Herr Selig. destroying a cherished part of the Minnesota landscape that has been there for 40 years. And for what, because the state wouldn't cough up oodles of tax dollars to replace a stadium that isn't even 20 years old?!?
I would like to reference history if I may, as I have recently pulled out my copy of Ken Burns' classic miniseries "Baseball" and gave it a viewing. The 1957 New York Giants drew less than 600,000 fans; in fact, it was the second straight year that the Giants had drawn that few people. They, of course, moved to San Francisco and the rest is history. However, consider that the 2001 Expos actually managed to draw more than that, though only a few more, and they are being told they cannot move, their lone option is to take $250 million to give up the ship. I think you see where I'm going with this: I dare say that if Genghis Selig was commissioner in 1957, he would've favored folding the Giants rather than letting them head out West. 44 years and counting of potential history, including Barry Bonds' home run record, down the drain.
This is what we're dealing with, folks, upcoming history books that will never be written. Congressmen are looking to dump baseball's antitrust exemption and get judges to grant restraining orders to prohibit these things from happening, but the damage may already be done. Consider, if you will, the fact that the owners may have already had the public in their corner when it comes to this labor situation. They certainly had my support; after all, how can you justify the players' reasons for not having a salary cap, which is what baseball needs. However, by holding jobs over the union's heads, the owners have lost the support of the public. Tactics like these have been used in past labor negotiations, and they've often led to lawsuits for unfair labor practices. The lawsuits may soon be flying here as well, and soon, more people are going to look at baseball and see just a bunch of greedy morons who can't stop bickering even at a time when most people have put it aside for the good of the country. They won't be seeing Luis Gonzalez ending the mighty Yankee dynasty with a 9th-inning bloop single, that's for sure.
Yeah, I know, I've written this column before; in fact, it was only two weeks ago that I had first predicted here that there would not be a 2002 baseball season. However, at the time, I had no idea that it would be something other than the salary cap issue that would cause this. Instead, the baseball owners have managed to once again earn the disrespect of the game's fans, and this time it's through something called "contraction". You may have seen this elsewhere in the country in recent weeks. Some companies call it "downsizing", some call it "rightsizing", what it is, matter of factly, is layoffs, baseball style. However, instead of your local GE or Bethlehem Steel plant closing up shop and leaving town, it could be your cherished baseball franchise.
Here's the plan according to that guru of mismanagement and champion (or so we thought) of downtrodden franchises, Comandant, errr, Commissioner Bud Selig: because baseball just simply cannot operate 30 franchises right now, 2 teams must be eliminated before next season. This despite the fact that Selig was completely for the last expansion four years ago that boosted the number of teams up to 30 and eventually produced this year's world champions, the Arizona Diamondbacks. The teams must cease to exist, says Selig, they cannot be relocated. This despite the fact that Washington, D.C. and Northern Virginia have been pleading for a team for several years now and have had a concrete and ready bid for any struggling franchise for just as long.
The rest of baseball is pretty much pleading for the Montreal Expos and owner Jeffrey Loria to leave the nightmare that is an empty Olympic Stadium and move to the nation's capital. Selig's response to that: Washington is not an "acceptable" location for a major league team. Let me get this straight, Comandant Selig... the 5th-largest media market in the country isn't acceptable enough for a Major League Baseball franchise? Well, geez, in that case, let's just leave the Dodgers, Yankees, Mets, Cubs, White Sox, and Phillies, and "contract" the other 24 teams, because by your definition, their cities aren't "acceptable" either! The more likely reason that Selig is so opposed to moving the Expos to Washington is the fact that he needs Baltimore Orioles owner Peter Angelos (a.k.a. "Steinbrenner Lite") in his corner for the brewing battle with the players union over the next collective bargaining agreement. Angelos has long stated that he will block any attempt to put a team in Washington, because he claims that it will cut into the O's fan base. Last time I checked, Pete, your team drew nearly 3 million fans last year despite the fact that the Orioles were one of the worst teams in baseball and almost lost 100 games. I think your fan base is safe. Besides, I doubt many Orioles fans dare make the trek from Northern Virginia to night games, as they would have to battle all kinds of traffic on the Beltway and elsewhere just to get to Camden Yards. Actually, considering the fact that the Baltimore-Washington area seems to be a haven of late for domineering sports team owners, I'm surprised that Art Modell and Daniel Snyder haven't also threatened lawsuits if baseball comes back to D.C., and the Ravens and Redskins aren't even in the SAME SPORT!
However, I don't think anyone would miss the Expos if they ceased to be, if they were no more, as John Cleese would say. The real problem is the second team that is being targeted for destruction by Osama Bin Selig is the Minnesota Twins. Now, if I may take a moment, I'd like to read for you the American League Central Division standings as of the 2001 All-Star break... *ahem*... "Minnesota Twins, 1st place". Yeah, the Twins, if you didn't know, led their division for most of the first half of this past season, getting off to a start that for a while only rivaled the record-breaking Mariners. They fell off in the second half, a victim of their lack of pennant race experience, but they still had me for one believing in them right to the end, thinking that they might have just one more run in them that would vault them past Cleveland and into the playoffs. They drew 1.8 million fans to the Metrodome last season, as this bunch of plucky young Twins thrilled the Twin Cities like nobody since the days of Homer Hankies. And yet, they may still be destroyed, and let's put it that way, because that is what you're doing, Herr Selig. destroying a cherished part of the Minnesota landscape that has been there for 40 years. And for what, because the state wouldn't cough up oodles of tax dollars to replace a stadium that isn't even 20 years old?!?
I would like to reference history if I may, as I have recently pulled out my copy of Ken Burns' classic miniseries "Baseball" and gave it a viewing. The 1957 New York Giants drew less than 600,000 fans; in fact, it was the second straight year that the Giants had drawn that few people. They, of course, moved to San Francisco and the rest is history. However, consider that the 2001 Expos actually managed to draw more than that, though only a few more, and they are being told they cannot move, their lone option is to take $250 million to give up the ship. I think you see where I'm going with this: I dare say that if Genghis Selig was commissioner in 1957, he would've favored folding the Giants rather than letting them head out West. 44 years and counting of potential history, including Barry Bonds' home run record, down the drain.
This is what we're dealing with, folks, upcoming history books that will never be written. Congressmen are looking to dump baseball's antitrust exemption and get judges to grant restraining orders to prohibit these things from happening, but the damage may already be done. Consider, if you will, the fact that the owners may have already had the public in their corner when it comes to this labor situation. They certainly had my support; after all, how can you justify the players' reasons for not having a salary cap, which is what baseball needs. However, by holding jobs over the union's heads, the owners have lost the support of the public. Tactics like these have been used in past labor negotiations, and they've often led to lawsuits for unfair labor practices. The lawsuits may soon be flying here as well, and soon, more people are going to look at baseball and see just a bunch of greedy morons who can't stop bickering even at a time when most people have put it aside for the good of the country. They won't be seeing Luis Gonzalez ending the mighty Yankee dynasty with a 9th-inning bloop single, that's for sure.
Labels: baseball
posted by Dave | 11:23 PM
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