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Posted: |
Aug 18, 2002 - 5:34 PM
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By: |
Eric Paddon
(Member)
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The players decision to set a strike date, now two weeks away, represents how these greedy, self-indulgent people will forever be clueless when it comes to understanding the damage they do to the game by thinking they're still just like a "union" that represents underpaid factory workers.
The irony is that I have no sympathy at all for the perspective of the hardcore small market owners who have been trying to cover up their own incompetence in terms of running their ballclubs (Milwaukee, Kansas City, Colorado etc.) by suggesting that everything is the fault of the Yankees and George Steinbrenner when in point of fact the Yankees have never once raised the bar to absurd heights in salaries, ala the A-Rod and Kevin Brown contracts. Now, in order to cover up the incompetent decision making these teams have made, they want to have the Yankees and paying Yankee fans bail them out, with no promise that these luxury tax revenues will go toward increasing payroll and giving them the ability to "compete" (this is another canard I'm tired of hearing about. There are more than 12 teams in baseball with a shot at winning a World Series each year which is a lot more than I can say for the NBA where dynasties never attract any outrage from sportswriters, who I guess only hate dynasties if they're the New York Yankees).
That being the case, the players still have no right to sabotage a season in progress that millions of fans have already invested much of their spare time in to follow. If the players feel the need to use the lame tactic of a strike as a weapon, it should be in the context of refusing to play next season and not sabotaging post-season for a year that millions of fans have already invested their time in. Players never seem to realize that its the fans who make 1/100th at best of what they make who sacrifice their time to follow the games, and without them these pampered players would be nowhere. Their selfish behavior in 1994 killed off baseball in Montreal for good as a viable entity and if it happens this year, good bye Minnesota.
I am one of those fans who love the history and tradition of the game too much to ever give it up, and I have always had a knack for forgetting about the off the field crap when a game goes on, but I wouldn't blame anyone for quitting the game for good as a fan if this strike happens as I think it will. The ultimate disgrace is the thought of these pampered crybabies on strike on the first anniversary of 9/11.
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How much money these guys make, and how much the fans want to see them earn it, is irrelevant. The point is, they're free citizens or full- or part-time residents of the U.S., and therefore have the inalienable right to unionize and strike.
People will not hurl themselves from the Brooklyn Bridge because they've been denied a chance to watch the Suicide Squeeze.
Babies will not go without their formula or a "luxury-tax" formula.
Industry will not grind to halt for lack of fuel or on-field competition.
Planes will not wander the skies, aimless flying Dutchmen, their passengers imperiled for lack of enforcement of the Infield-fly Rule.
C'mon, Jake, it's...baseball.
Besides, if a strike's what it takes to keep the Yankees out of the World Series, I'm all for it.
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