BASEBALL RUSE

Last week Major League Baseball Commissar, I mean Commissioner, Bud Selig stated in the annual meeting that two major league teams would no longer exist. He stated that baseball had been losing money the past four years, and that it was time to tighten baseball’s belt. I noticed he did not mention the teams or the cities that would be dropped. I also noticed he did not mention the fact that one of the richest teams in the majors had just won four of the last six World Series and the National League East has been dominated by the 2^nd richest team in the majors, the Atlanta Braves.

Bud Selig was just sending out a trial balloon; just trying to find out which of the troubled cities would fight for their teams and which cities would say to H*** with baseball, there are more important things for cities to deal with. Well, he found out very quickly which cities would fight to the death for their beloved baseball teams.

This has become a major problem for Selig and major-league baseball. They have refused to address the real issue, MONEY AND PLAYERS' SALARIES.

Right after the baseball meetings this year, the Yankees, Braves, and St. Louis Cardinals went into a bidding war for Oakland’s only real Superstar Jason Giambi. I thought baseball was having money problems? This is exactly what is so wrong with the game today.

In the 1930’s and 1940’s the St. Louis Browns became the defacto farm team of the New York Yankees, Brooklyn Dodgers, and New York Giants. Whenever the Browns got a wonderful player he would play for a year, maybe two, then he would be traded for cash to the Yankees, Dodgers, or Giants. It is happening all over again. The Minnesota Twins, Kansas City Royals, Tampa Bay Devil Rays of the American League and the Montreal Explos and Florida Marlins in the National League are now serving as farm systems for the other major league teams. This is wrong.

The Florida Marlins could be described as the disgrace to baseball, winning the World Series in 1996 as a Wild Card team and then within a year the owner trades the whole team away for younger, cheaper players. The Marlins’ owner even increased the prices of tickets the next year, knowing that Florida Marlins fans would buy them, not knowing that the team that won the series would not be the one they would be seeing on the baseball diamond.

Baseball better get its act together, or a lot of fans will walk away from the game as in 1995. The baseball fans can only take so much and then its “goodbye. ” I stayed away from the game for almost two years after that strike. Believe me, I will have no problems staying away from the game again.  

1)      In the past seven years, only four clubs have made the playoffs every year. The teams that spend BIG money: the Yankees, Braves, Indians, Mariners.

2)      Owners have held cities hostages for teams: If you don’t build me (owner) a new stadium, I will take my team (toy) and move it to a city that will help me. San Francisco almost lost the Giants twice. The Oakland A’s are not going to be in Oakland too much longer if they don’t get a baseball only ballpark.

3)      If owners have the money to buy a team, they should have the money to build a stadium! Cities should not be responsible for owners’ financial well being.

Baseball is a business, if you lose money, get out, sell your team like any other business owner would.

4)      Baseball needs a revenue sharing format or salary cap system as other professial sports have. It is not fair for the New York Yankees to get five TV contracts while the Oakland A’s have to struggle to get just two. The Yankees can get four product endorsements while again the A’s might get one. The money begins to add up. The Yankees can afford to hire or buy an Andy Pettitte while the Oakland A’s can’t even make an offer.                                                                                                If baseball continues to operate in this current fashion, it will certainly lose half of the American League teams because they are not in the big city markets.

 The National Football League has a salary cap and there’s not a dominant team. Anybody can win the Super Bowl in any year. That is fun and exciting. The way sports were intended, any team could get to the “pot of gold” at the end of the year.

      That makes every fan of the NFL hopeful that his team can make the playoffs and Super Bowl.

In baseball we all know when spring training begins, the Minnesota Twins andd Florida Marlins will never win the American League Championship or National League Championship, let alone the World Series. This is not fair for the fans of Minnesota and Florida and not fair for the players of both teams.

5)      Major League Baseball needs to be of one mind, like the NBA, NFL, and NHL. At present, they are 30 different corporations with 30 different agendas that can never agree on anything. Thirty different owners not willing to share anything. These 30 owners are more then willing to let weak teams go down in flames instead of helping them survive.

The question now remanding is will baseball do the right thing this spring?  I doubt it. As they say in the Bay Area ,MONEY TALKS AND NOBODY WALKS !!!! Major League Baseball get your act together. []