[ale] [OT] (- Way OT) Pre-emptive baseball strike

[Byron A Jeff]

> 
> > From: Irv Mullins [mailto:irvm at ellijay.com]
> > Sent: Monday, August 19, 2002 8:19 AM
> >
> > Poor, starving big-league players who can't afford that
> > forth mansion with the matching Ferrari have the right
> > to demand that their 'fans' pay for those toys?  It may
> > be 'legal', but is sure ain't 'right'.
> 
> As long as they aren't sticking a gun in anyones face forcing them to come
> to games or pay the 'Pay-Per-View' fees, they have every right to ask for as
> much as they can get.

I haven't seen any objections to the off topic nature of this thread. So I
guess I'll join in the fun...

What I've seen with baseball, and other major league sports, is that the fans
gets pissed off by the amount of money the employees are making, just like
the comment above. But if you exclude the money and look at the principals
you'd figure that the owners are wrong 6 ways from Sunday:

The owners want to artifically slow salary increases to protect themselves 
from themselves. ARod and Manny certainly weren't threatening anyone when
they got their monster contracts. All Texas and Boston had to say was "We
can't afford to pay you that much. If you insist on that amount, you'll
have to look to play elsewhere." But to the owners it's trophy hunting to
sign the big guy to the big contract. So they want an agreement where the 
players say "You guys spend too much on us. So we're going to let you
artifically slow our salaries." Yeah. Right!

Then there's the competitive balance issue. It works in pratice in other
sports, especially football. But it works for several reasons: Everyone has
the same payroll and a percentage of the total revenue has to be paid in
salaries to the players. The baseball owners want neither. They would still
prefer that the Yankees have a $170 million payroll while the Royals, Pirates,
Twins, and Devil Rays payroll not collectively add up to that. Stienbrenner
can afford it because he has a $750 million or so local TV contract for the
Yankees that he essientially doesn't have to share with anyone. It's ridiculous.
Then when monies are transferred from the big spenders to the little guys, 
that money goes into the small market owner's pocket because there's 
obligation for him to pay salaries with it. That's why old George got into
trouble last week when he stated that small market owners don't invest in
their teams. Again why should players agree to that status quo when it means
that 80 percent of them cannot compete for a championship from the day that 
they show up for spring training.

Then of course there's the fact that no one is privy to the owners books.
They are so two faced: "I'm broke and in debt, but I'll pay that star player
his $17 a year."

The funny thing about this is that the players are willing to compromise. I'd
be pissed if they said "No luxury tax." and "No revenue redistribution". But
they've agreed in principal to both. But the owners won't budge on the numbers
and the percentages (50 percent over $102 million at last count for the luxury
tax).

The final point in all of this is that unfortunately striking is the only
leverage the players have at this point. If they get to the end of the season
without an agreement, then the owners can unilaterally implement whatever
they want. They can lock the players out. They won't have to pay them. They
won't lose any money because there's no games in the winter.

What I've seen is that they players want to get this done, they are willing
to compromise on most of the major points, but they are not willing to have
numbers that are decidedly in the owners' favor shoved into their face. And
unlike the rest of us who can find another company offering a similar job,
there's no such recourse in MLB.

So threatening to strike, and then actually doing it if necessary, is the
only possible way to get some movement in the negotiations. 

But as usual the fans will lose. But the fans should be firmly pointing
fingers at the owners in this case.

Just my two cents.

BAJ

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