The owners aren't blameless
08/29/2002
Codding Home / Sports Channel / Bullz-Eye Home
I told myself I wasn't going to do it. Honestly I did. I was tired of reading about it, tired of hearing about it, tired of thinking about it and, most of all, tired of writing about it. I didn't want to put myself or my readers through it again, but alas, I wasn't strong enough to avoid it.
I just have to talk about the potential baseball strike one more time.
If you notice, I usually get my Bullz-Eye columns done on Wednesdays but this week, because I was wrestling with my desires to ignore this entire labor situation, I'm a day late. I tried like hell to come up with a better topic, something more interesting, something much less enraging.
I drew a blank.
Football season is nearly upon us and there are certainly some points of interest that I could've touched on but nothing seemed to hit the right note with me. Sure, I could have written about Jacksonville's Jimmy Smith, an All-Pro receiver who hasn't even reported to camp yet because he's not happy with his current contract. Same with Kansas City's Tony Gonzalez, the best tight end on the planet.
But then I thought, "Hmmm... athletes complaining about money... . I know I've heard that one before." Then, just like that, I found myself thinking about this stupid baseball strike again.
It's impossible to avoid. Last night I was watching SportsCenter and in the bottom right hand corner of the screen our friends at ESPN proudly displayed the "Strike Clock," a cute little graphic that showed how much time remained before MLB's ominous strike date. At the time the countdown stood at right around 40 hours plus a handful of minutes and seconds. Of course, this wasn't really your typical countdown -- they weren't counting down the final seconds of a space shuttle launch or the start of another New Year.
Instead, this was an up-to-the-second mortality countdown for baseball, the game's "Final Countdown," if you will -- cue the synthesizers and the 1980s hair band, Europe. Baseball fans around the world are on death watch right now, many of them knowing that if ESPN's handy dandy clock runs down to 00:00:00, they'll give up the game for good.
As I'm writing this, we're about 27 hours from flatline.
But apparently there's reason for some optimism right now. Several reporters who are covering the negotiations in New York have recently said the two sides are painfully close to an agreement, adding that with just a few millions of dollars separating the owners and the players -- and let's face it, with how much money's at stake here, a few millions of dollars is chump change -- they'd be foolish to let this thing slip into another strike.
Figuratively speaking, they'd be slitting their own throats just to save what, in this delusional situation, boils down to Monopoly money.
But some fans have had it already. Some fans are pissed that this situation's gotten as ugly as it's gotten to this point and, no matter what the final outcome, they've already canceled their season tickets and hocked all of their MLB memorabilia. They're done, supposedly for good. And that's fine -- hey, everybody has the right to take a stance on something they believe in, right?
But from what I've been hearing, seeing and reading from the Common Fan, all of the public blame is being placed on the players, which was the chance they took when they set the strike date a couple weeks ago. But is that blame properly placed?
I received this e-mail from a buddy of mine earlier today and I thought I'd share some of it with you:
Subject: To Hell with Baseball
Since September 11, 2001, Americans have come together as never before in our generation. We have banded together to overcome tremendous adversity. We have weathered direct attacks on our own soil, wars overseas, corporate scandal, layoffs, unemployment, stock price plunges, droughts, fires, and a myriad of economic and physical disasters both great and small. But now, we must come together once again to overcome our greatest challenge yet.
Hundreds of Major League Baseball players in our very own nation are living at, just below, or in most cases far above the seven-figure salary level. And as if that weren't bad enough, they could be deprived of their life-giving pay for several months, possibly longer, as a result of the upcoming strike situation. But you can help!
For only $20,835 a month, about $694.50 a day (that's less than the cost of a large screen projection TV), you can help a MLB player remain economically viable during his time of need. This contribution by no means solves the problem as it barely covers the annual minimum salary, but it's a start and every little bit will help!
Although $700 may not seem like a lot of money to you, to a baseball player it could mean the difference between spending the strike golfing in Florida or on a Mediterranean cruise. For you, seven hundred dollars is nothing more than a month's rent, half a mortgage payment, two unemployment checks, or a month of medical insurance with COBRA, but to a baseball player $700 will partially replace his daily salary. Your commitment of less than $700 a day will enable a player to buy that home entertainment center, trade in the year-old Lexus for a new Ferrari, or enjoy a weekend in Rio.
HOW WILL I KNOW I'M HELPING?
Each month, you will receive a complete financial report on the player you sponsor. Detailed information about his stocks, bonds, 401(k), real estate, and other investment holdings will be mailed to your home. Plus, upon signing up for this program, you will receive an unsigned photo of the player lounging during the strike on a beach somewhere in the Caribbean (for a signed photo, please include an additional $150). Put the photo on your refrigerator to remind you of other peoples' suffering.
HOW WILL HE KNOW I'M HELPING?
Your MLB player will be told that he has a SPECIAL FRIEND who just wants to help in a time of need. Although the player won't know your name, he will be able to make collect calls to your home via a special operator in case additional funds are needed for unforeseen expenses.
YES, I WANT TO HELP!
I would like to sponsor a striking MLB player. My preference is checked below:
[ ] Infielder
[ ] Outfielder
[ ] Starting Pitcher
[ ] Ace Pitcher
[ ] Entire team (Please call our 900 number to ask for the cost of a specific team - $10 per minute)
[ ] Alex Rodriguez (Higher cost: $60,000 per day)
Please charge the account listed below $694.50 per day for the player for the duration of the strike. Please send me a picture of the player I have sponsored, along with an Alex Rodriguez 2001 Income Statement and my very own Donald Fehr MLB Players Union pin to wear proudly on my hat (include $80 for hat).
Now, I have to admit that I laughed out loud reading this -- it's classic. Really.
But despite the undeniable humor involved here, it's this mentality that's driving me crazy right now. Why? Because this is just another fan placing all the blame for this mess on the "selfish, uncaring, greedy and immoral players," and I just don't get it.
Yes, I understand that these guys make millions upon millions of dollars, and I also understand that most of us would sit through a "Murder She Wrote" marathon just to live the life of a baseball player for even a couple of hours.
But I'm pretty sure there are two sides to these negotiations here. In fact, I don't think you can even have negotiations without at least two sides. I'm pretty sure that's how it works.
And while the players are taking the brunt of the public outcry because they're the ones on the field everyday and they're the ones who set August 30 as the strike date, the owners definitely deserve a lot of the blame here as well.
Everybody seems to think that the two sticking points in these talks are revenue sharing and the luxury tax, with the latter being the potential deal breaker. But that's not the case. Instead, it's the numbers, the percentages, that are pushing this thing into the eleventh hour. Bottom line: the players want lower percentages, the owners want higher.
See, the players, the guys most fans have grown to hate the past couple months, agree that something needs to be done to fix the game. They also agree that revenue sharing and a luxury tax are probably the best solutions. But the owners, who are essentially trying desperately to make up for their own boneheaded mistakes (A-Rod's contract, Kevin Brown's contract, Carlos Delgado's contract, Chan Ho Park's contract... ), are proposing an unbelievably stringent threshold for the luxury tax and some pretty generous percentages for the revenue sharing. At this point in time, the players, in return, are counter-proposing some numbers that just won't get the job done. Both sides are being unreasonable in their own ways, but it's the players who look like the bad guys here because fans, for whatever reason, aren't looking at the entire situation with open minds.
Put yourself in their shoes for a second... . If your billionaire boss was trying to initiate widespread changes throughout your company that would drastically reduce your salary, wouldn't you want to do something about it? Overlook the amount of money we're talking about for now and just think about how you'd react. The interesting thing about all of this is, the players aren't saying "no" to these proposed changes; instead, they're trying to find numbers that work better for both sides. Seems pretty reasonable to me.
I'm not defending the players and I'm not defending the owners; as I've said before, both sides are wrong and both sides have plenty of room to compromise. But did you honestly expect all of this to be easily resolved days or weeks before the strike date? It's gone this far because the players and the owners are being stubborn and if a deal is struck in the next day or so, it'll only be because both sides were willing to find the middle ground for the good of the game. And if they find that middle ground before tomorrow's deadline, I'm satisfied. Some people say the damage has already been done, but aside from some moronic comments made by Barry Bonds and a handful of others, what kind of damage are we talking about? Emotional distress from putting us through this situation? I think we'll recover.
If the players and owners agree on a new deal by tomorrow afternoon, the game, at least for the time being, would be damaged but still in tact. If they don't sign a new agreement, it'll be the players, not the owners, who'll receive the blame but as my mother always told me, there are two sides to every story. And in this case, there'd be two sides in the wrong.
Let's hope it doesn't come down to that, though.
I'm watching the Twins/Mariners game on ESPN right now and I just saw this sign, held up by a fan who desperately wanted to get on TV (mission accomplished I guess):
Every
Striking
Player is
Nuts
Not bad, but I prefer:
Equally
Stupid:
Players and
owNers
Maybe it's not quite as clever, but it's certainly more accurate.
In the Bullz-Eye
Patriots quarterback Tom Brady. After leading New England to an unlikely Super Bowl championship last season, not only did the Pats show their confidence in Brady by trading ultra-popular QB Drew Bledsoe to the Bills, this week they also signed the Michigan product to a four-year, $28-million contract extension. Pretty big numbers for a guy with just 14 starts on his NFL résumé.