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Volume 130, Number 1 |
July 14, 2009 |
Sports
August 30 strike date looms large in baseball
Union and owners apart on key issues, such as the luxury tax and revenue sharing
Posted 08-29-2002 at 12:32PM
Tim A. Fill
Senior Reporter
With the August 30 strike date looming ever closer, players and owners are still trying to hash out an agreement. If a work stoppage occurs, it will be the ninth in the last 30 years of baseball. A strike in 2002 could be the end of many fans’ interest in America’s pastime. Interest in baseball is already waning, with fewer sellouts in 2002 than in 1994, the year of baseball’s last work stoppage. Baseball lovers vowed to stay away after the ’94 strike, but fans were attracted by the fun-loving antics of Sammy Sosa and Mark McGwire chasing the single season home run record of Roger Maris, the always professional attitude of Cal Ripken pursuing Lou Gehrig’s consecutive games streak, and the longevity of Tony Gwynn and Wade Boggs reaching the 3000-hit milestone. But baseball’s faithful are fed up.
A work stoppage this year would cause several potential milestones to fall off the radar. Yankee pitcher Roger Clemens could get his 300th win, but will miss it if players walk out. Sosa would fall short of his 500th home run; Barry Bonds’ climb up the all-time home run list would be stopped. A historic playoff race would be halted, with the Twins and the Braves missing out on all-but-clinched playoff spots. The Diamondbacks wouldn’t get to defend their World Series title, and the Yankees would miss out on potential revenge. The Mariners, Angels, and Athletics–the teams involved in the first place tie occurring latest in a season in major league history, will be unable to fight for two playoff spots.
Players and owners are still apart on the key issues of this possible strike. The core issue is a revenue sharing plan to help restore a competitive balance. Some payrolls in the majors are as high as $242 million per year, averaging out to almost $10 million per player. Low revenue teams like the Devil Rays, Royals, and Expos can’t generate enough of a following to pay those kinds of salaries. One suggestion has been to enforce a luxury tax on teams with payrolls above the league average. Another proposal was a salary cap, but both of these solutions carry problems themselves. The money coming from a luxury tax may find its way into the pockets of owners instead of actual teams–something that the owners of richer teams would cringe to see. The big spenders in baseball feel that they should be able to spend as much as they like because it is not all about the quantity of purchases; it’s about the quality too.
Personally, I think that the players would only hurt themselves if they were to walk away from the game. Recently, they have made themselves out to be whining babies, only worried about how padded their pockets are and how much more they make than their fellow player. Fans are appearing nationwide with signs vowing to never come back if the players strike. The players should think about the fans, and not just the fans like me. They should think about the seven-year-old that thinks that these athletes are her heroes, or the twelve-year-olds who boldly (and blindly) imitate the athletes’ victory celebrations. I don’t think the players know how badly they are hurting themselves, the game, or the fans. I hope that they can avoid a strike–it may be the last chance to keep us as fans.
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