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Major League Baseball's regular season began Tuesday
around 4 a.m. when the New York Yankees played the Tampa
Bay Devil Rays in Tokyo. The two squared off again this
morning in the Far East. Boston travels to Baltimore
on Sunday, April 4 and the rest of the Bigs crank it up
on Monday, April 5. As George Will likes to say, the sun
is rising and the long darkness of winter is over.
Baseball season has arrived.
I'm probably as big a baseball fan as one might find
in these parts. It has been a part of my life lo these
past 40-plus years or so, when my dad first gave me a
whiffle bat, a plastic ball and a Phillies hat (yes, you
read right; we lived near Philadelphia when I was a
tot).
I saw my first game at Crosley Field when I was 4.
Joe Nuxhall pitched, Pete Rose was playing second base
and the Pittsburgh Pirates had a guy named Willie
Stargell, who was beginning to make a name for himself.
Stargell, in fact, hit the game-winning home run that
day, one of his 27 that year.
I've seen games at Old Connie Mack Stadium, Old
Comiskey Park, Old County Stadium at Milwaukee, Old
Atlanta Stadium, Old Riverfront and Old Wrigley Field,
to name a few.
Baseball is a grand old game, to be sure. Don't ask
me why, but it's just different from all the rest of the
sports. But the game is in trouble. This off-season has
been, perhaps, one of the most tempestuous on record. It
started with Pete Rose's gambling confession and the
hoopla that surrouded his reinstatement. Then came the
steroid bomb, followed by the blockbuster deal that sent
Alex Rodriguez to the Yankees, making the pinstripers
even more formidable.
Ever being the arch conservative, I have often
cringed at a salary cap notion. I have always been
pro-capitalism. That's why I have little sympathy for
Vanderbilt (and Duke for that matter) football. If a
team wants to spend the money on top players, I have
said they should be able to.
However, I'm starting to back away from that idea.
Baseball's biggest current crisis isn't juiced players
or Rose's peccadilloes.
Baseball's biggest problem at the moment is that
greater than two-thirds of the MLB cities are suddenly
out of contention even before the season has started.
They are mathematically eliminated before April arrives
-mathematically eliminated not because of their record,
but because of limited payroll.
In the old days, spring training and the advent of
the season brought about much excitement. In the old
days, two-thirds of all MLB teams, or more, had a shot
back at a pennant.
Now, cities like Cincinnati, San Diego, Arlington,
Montreal, Detroit, Toronto, Kansas City, Denver,
Pittsburgh, to name a few, have little to look forward
to this spring, and what's worse, they have little
reason to go to the ballpark on a regular basis.
Teams like St. Louis, Houston, Baltimore and
Philadelphia made strides to improve, but big payroll
teams trumped them. Baltimore, for example, acquired
Javy Lopez and Miguel Tejada and appeared poised for a
run at the AL East crown. But why would Oriole fans want
to watch utter futility now? The Orioles used to be the
"it" thing to do in Baltimore, but attendance is sagging
and people are doing other things now.
This is going to have big fallout all across the
league. Many fans have already conceded that Yankees and
Red Sox will basically be flipping a coin to see who
goes on. That's not good. That's like watching a mystery
flick and knowing how it ends before you even buy the
popcorn.
Bud Selig has fiddled while the baseball world around
him burns. I have a feeling (maybe it's a hope) that the
wheeling and dealing done by the baseball "haves" will
cause an implosion and we'll see yet another surprise
champion, a la Arizona, Anaheim and Florida. But you
also might see plummeting attendance, lower TV ratings
and small-market owners bailing.
Unless you are a Cubs, Yankees or Red Sox fan, there
seems to be little to be hopeful about this year. But
there are 162 games to go; let's see how it all shakes
out. |
