How to save major league baseball

The BBQ Pit
1

I’m a lifelong baseball fan. I listened to Jack Buck doing the St. Louis Cardinals radio broadcasts for every single game when I was as young as 8 years old. I collected baseball cards, memorized statistics of players who were long dead before I was even born. I played Little League for all 3 years of eligibility even though I was terrible, because I couldn’t conceive of not playing.

I have continued to be a diehard fan ever since. I came back to baseball after the 1994 strike. I went to my first Cardinals Opening Day in St. Louis this year, there were hordes of fans just hanging out around the stadium without tickets, happy simply to be part of the ambience. I was one of the lucky ones to be inside the stadium watching the game along with a packed house of tens of thousands of others cheering the introduction of every single player on the roster.

When I grew up, and I was born in 1979 so this holds true for most of us, baseball was truly the national pasttime. Today, kids are growing up in an America where baseball had faded away and NFL football and college basketball are the big sports. The homerun chase in '98 brought baseball back, but now it’s about to fade again. Last night’s fiasco at the AllStar Game is just part of it. Here’s my thoughts on how to begin fixing the game:

  1. Eliminate Free Agency: I don’t care who he played for, I’m the first to say that Curt Flood is a black mark on the history of baseball for bringing free agency into the major leagues. Free agency is what allows Steinbrenner’s Yankees to buy championships. Free agency has caused players to hop around team to team before the fans even get a chance to know them.

  2. Eliminate Interleague Play: Possibly the greatest thing George W. Bush, our current President, ever did was to be the lone owner voting against interleague play. The AllStar Game doesn’t matter anymore. We used to envision the matchups, “What if Wade Boggs had to face Dwight Gooden’s fastball or Hersheiser’s breaking ball?” We could see that at the AllStar Game. These matchups are less special because they happen every year now. This even effects the World Series. Wouldn’t the Subway Series have been even more unique if the Yankees and Mets didn’t play 6 times a year already?

  3. Test for Steroids: I don’t care if it’s random or if they test all 25 players on every team. Tradition is being destroyed as steroid-popping players shatter old records, which records lose their place in history and become utterly meaningless.

  4. Contraction: Expansion went too far. Contraction won’t hurt the fans. Most of the southeast were already diehard Braves fans before the Marlins and Devil Rays entered the league. Canada has hockey and could care less about the Expos. Either give those teams to people who want them, or dump them entirely. Considering how watered-down pitching talent is in the majors these days, eliminating 10 starting rotation spots couldn’t help but improve the quality of all staffs and stop Barry Steroids from teeing off on guys who should be languishing in AA ball instead of pitching against the Giants.

How not to fix the game? Salary Cap. The salary cap has turned the NFL from a game of football into a game of accountancy, complete with it’s own Arthur-Andersens (see the creative cap management of the 49ers in the 1990’s.) Veteran players, fan favorites who’ve played their whole careers for one team, these players are given outright release by their teams just to make some extra room under the cap. The salary cap would make all the problems with baseball worse.

As for the strike? Like many unions, membership has been misled by leadership that seeks only to make itself look good and further their own individual power. The American and National Leagues have marketed and packaged baseball as a product, and this is what enables these players to make such astronomical salaries. The greatest players of today couldn’t simply go off and form their own league and make the same money. Tradition and fan loyalty are with the teams and the leagues, not the players. The players are shooting themselves in the foot with their demands.

Sorry for the length of this post, but this is something that’s part of my lifestyle as a diehard baseball fan, and to see it heading for the toilet burns me up.

2

Yep, eliminate free agency. Cause you shouldn’t be able to work for just anyone, especially if they’re offering you more money, and you don’t have a contract. You wanna keep that in mind when you change jobs next time?

3

**

Nope. That doesn’t solve it.

First of all, why shouldn’t players have the right to change employers? Do you have the right to quit your job and look elsewhere in the industry for employment? As it is, baseball players are restricted to some degree (until they earn free agency) in doing this.

Secondly, it ain’t gonna happen. Do you think for a second that the players union is going to allow the reserve clause to come back into effect. The reserve clause made the player the property of the team, in essence. It also eliminates any barganing leverage (aside from a holdout) that a player may have. Given the history between the two sides up until 1970, there is no way on earth, in heaven or hell that the players will agree to be bound to a team like that. You would sooner get them to agree to the condition that they have to play with a bowling ball.

Thirdly, does this really solve the problem? The problem is that the owners agree to pay the players these salaries. If they simply refused, they wouldn’t get the salaries.

Lastly, of course, it may be true that without free agency you won’t have the Yankees (assuming you keep the first-year player draft), but, on the converse, you won’t have teams like the Browns and Senators who couldn’t put together a winning team if their lives depended on it. At least free agency gives a team that is willing to spend a chance to contend.

Now then, to throw you a bone, I do think the process of arbitration needs to be changed. It basically makes all the owners pay for the foolishness of one owner overpaying for a player.

**

Well, I was never a big fan of interleague play to begin with, but I don’t think it is the most pressing problem in the game today. Too many other important issues to tackle first. Such as…

**

I don’t think the problem with steroids is that tradition is being challanged. If so, you might as well ban weight training and other legitimate practices that were not available to players in the 30s.

The problem with steroid use, simply, is that they are illegal.

**

I agree that (as does just about everyone, I think) that there are markets that should not be home to Major League Baseball. Contraction is one possible solution.

**

Well, if you’re eliminating free agency, there is no need for a salary cap now, is there?

**

Why not? It was done before. That was the Players League in 1890. I’m willing to bet that had the Players League been formed in today’s day, with TV, radio and Internet coverage, it could have survived and thrived.

**

I’d say the fans are sick of both the players and the owners in this mess.

**

Actually, the players would like to keep the status quo. It’s the owners who are making the demands.

I certainly understand where you are coming from. But eliminating free agency is not the answer.

Zev Steinhardt

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Oh, and BTW, Curt Flood is not the reason for free agency. Curt Flood lost his court case. Please turn your attention to Andy Messersmith and Dave McNally.

Zev Steinhardt

5

Maybe the owners and players will destroy MLB in order to save it. :wink:

6

I couldn’t agree more. I mean, it’s a well-known fact that the Yankees never won a World Series until the advent of free agency. :rolleyes:

Pre-free agency the Yankees won 20 of 73 World Series (1903-1976), or about 27%. Post-free agency (1977-2001), the Yankees have won 6 of 24 World Series, or about 25%. Basically, the same percentage. It probably would have been higher in the pre- era if Ted Williams mother had let him sign with the Yankees when they were the first to try and give him a contract after high school. Williams, DiMaggio, etc…yikes!

As much as I hate the Yankees and as much as I realize that their massive budget gives them an unfair advantage, free agency isn’t the problem, as they were winning before that. No, the key to baseball is more firings of GM’s and bringing in owners who care if their team competes or not (Glass, I’m looking in your direction). If more GM’s used their heads in acquiring personnel, then we wouldn’t be having this discussion. More teams would be competitive. THAT’S the problem.

7

I thank Zev Steinhardt for his detailed reply. As for the other issues presented in reply:

Free agency- yes, in the outer world, I’m a staunch libertarian who would never prevent anyone from making the money the market dictates he will earn. However, baseball players exist within a closed system, benefitting from that system. I see nothing wrong with the American and National Leagues decided to restrict the abililty of a player to move between different “employers” within the major leagues, since those employers would not have the ability to employ anybody if not for the existence of major league baseball as a framework.

As for the Yankees, in years past they were able to win consistently by holding onto great players they developed in the minors. This is still true to a lessor extent with such future 40/40 stars as Alfonso Soriano. Still, the Yankee modus operandi of late has been to sign huge free agents to bolster the rotation and fill out the power slots in the lineup. They may have won championships pre-1970 with homegrown boys, but their methods today rely on free agency.

8

Their core is still homegrown. Jeter, Posada, Williams, Soriano, all home-grown. Same with Rivera, Petitte, and sort of Hernandez. And they have two more up and comers in Henson and Johnson. Well, maybe not Henson, but we’ll see. Without free agency, the D’backs wouldn’t have won the World Series last year. It all works out for those who know how to intelligently sign talent. For those that don’t (Dodgers, Rangers, Red Sox, I’m looking at you) things don’t work out so well.

9

Contraction? Do it.

Tony Gwynn, Tony Gwynn for God’s sake, gets his 3,000th career hit. Less than 15,000 are there in Montreal to see it (13,540, to be exact - source).

Fuck that, goodbye Montreal baseball.

10

Tradition is being destroyed by steroids?? Do you any evidence, other than idiot assumptions?

Christ, if I hear this again, I’m gonna spit.

Let me boil down the ‘evidence’ of steroid abuse. A couple of guys are kinda buff and they hit they hit the ball a long way. And a couple a guys hit more than in any prior year. So, obviously, steroids. :rolleyes: :rolleyes: :rolleyes:

It’s an idiotic assumption.

  1. Bonds and Sosa, and Big Mac, ARE big guys. But not unreasonably big, by any standard. It is quite possible to become that large, and a hell of a lot larger, through diet and weight training. There are a large number of magazines that are devoted to this very pursuit.

  2. MLB players have access to the best weight rooms around. And they don’t have to go out of their way, all they gotta do is go to the stadium. Also, the teams all have trainers. AND these guys are dedicated professional athletes, so I think some of them might take training very seriously. And “Andro”, the steroid Big Mac took, that wasn’t illegal or banned by MLB? CNN ran a story about a study that showed pretty conclusively that it didn’t do squat!! Here! and here.

  1. Babe Ruth hit more than any other player in his day. Shattered his own record by LOT. Roger Maris broke that record (and would have been broken by Mantle too, if he’d stayed healthy) then sank into mediocrity immediatly thereafter. Steroids???

You see, there is precedent for records to be broken, even shattered. Eventually, all records will be replaced with new records. Atheletes get better, and more dedicated, training methods improve, and there’s all that science, and in baseball, scouting and videotape of pitchers.

  1. Lance Berkman and Shawn Green are hitting them out at pace that neck and neck with Bonds and Sosa. No one will even consider accusing either of steroids. Green is skinny, lanky bean pole, fer chrissakes. So it IS possible to excel without steroids. And it’s also possible to be big and buff and NOT hit that many HR’s. Frank Thomas, who outweighs both Sosa and Bonds by 40 LB’s, never hit higher than 43. Glenallen Hill, who had HUGE arms and weighed slightly more than Bonds and Sosa, never hit 30 in season.

It’s not the bulk, or the strength, that gets the ball out of the yard. it’s bat speed and hand-eye coordination.
Oh, BTW, interleague games draw better than intraleague games. The fans want to see these games. They want to see these players battle it out in a game that means something. The ASG never meant anything other than showcase.

So Bonds facing Randy Johnson isn’t special 'cause happens every year? Clemens v Ramirez and Thome has no luster because it happens often? Horsehockey!. The interleague matchups have MORE relevence because the games count, the stats count!

11

Y’all miss the point. You wanna do something good for the sport and fans?

T’heck with salary caps. I want hot dog caps. $.50 for a regular, $1 for a “jumbo”. And no beer or alcohol sales. You wanna get drunk, do it before the game. Sodas that cost something less than a day’s wages. When you restrict the income everyone takes notice.

These bastards, owners AND players, need to remember where they’re paychecks come from.

12

Which TOTALLY adds another element to the game when you are able to play Armchair QB AND Armchair GM at the same time!

13

My concern with the use of steroids has little to do with records. It bothers me because the guys that use will suffer severe health consequences. The guys that don’t may talk themselves into believing that they should use steroids in order to compete. We have no way of knowing how widespread this is. Only what the players said in the interview with SI. It seems that there should be testing. In addition, I would like to see MLB spend time presenting the facts about drug use to the rookies. I know they have something along these lines now, but they should emphasize some things more.

Given the fact that free agency is non negotiable, I think the issue of revenue sharing should be looked at. The smaller markets can’t compete.

Contraction seems to be necessary. Since the stadiums will still be there, why not have 5 or 6 “invitationals” a season? Both teams could travel to this neutral spot to play. The fans would at least get to see 5 or 6 games a year. If these games were well- attended, they could add a couple of games the following year.

14

The smaller markets could compete if they weren’t owned by complete nimrods!

15

Well I wish I could be the nimrod that could manage to accumulate enough wealth to buy my very own baseball team. Or does nimrod mean asshole? I am assuming nimrod means dumb. Obviously the owners have some sort of brain, otherwise they would have never been so successful, financially.

Do the owners in smaller markets not know how to select talent? Or do you think they don’t know how to attract people to the park? Exactly where do they make most of their money? Ticket sales, TV, merchandise, concessions, parking? The teams that make money… is it because they get the big name players? The big name players are the most successful so they win more, when you win more, more people buy tickets and merchandise, etc…

What are the examples of clubs with smaller payrolls that are winning? My Astros made a run of it until playoffs. I think they emphasize the farm league and developing their players. Attendance is above average, especially since this year we have only recently been able to put a few wins together. I do not classify them as small market, but we have smaller payroll than some, maybe even most.

So Spooje… I appoint you as OWNER / GM of a small market club. You pick. What would you do to be successful?

I hear the Yankees put most of their profits back into the organization. Don’t know if this is actually true. Just heard it on sports radio. If this is the case, should we say that owning a baseball team is like a hobby for billionaires… or kind of like a public service? You really don’t do it for profit?

16

I think it’s fairly obvious to all but the most dense that over the long haul a team with a smart GM who has lots of money at his disposal is likely to be better than a team with a smart GM and no money. It’s not that the Yankees win just because they spend big, it’s that the Yankees win because they spend big and because they spend wisely, for the most part. Give Billy Bean $140 million and we’d be bitching about the A’s beating the Yankees in the ALCS every year. Give Allan Baird $140 million and… we’d be bitching about the Yankees just like we do now.

I don’t think eliminating free agency is the answer, nor is a hard salary cap. Much of what the owners are proposing doesn’t seem too unreasonable to me, to be honest. An increase in revenue sharing, coupled with a luxury tax on excessive payrolls, seems like a decent place to start.

Of course, from the players’ perspective, the current system works fine, and to a certain extent, I see their point: the owners are asking the players to save the owners from themselves…

17

With all due and great respect, I disagree. The last time the owners acted in concert like that outside the framework of a collective bargaining agreement the players union won a huge lawsuit against the owners for collusion. The owners cannot DO something like that even when it makes sense to do so, and even if it were legally possible, there would always be some moron owner who would break ranks and give a long-term contract to a bum. (Exhibit A - 1977 Cleveland Indians sign often injured pitcher Wayne Garland to a 10 year contract for the then princely sum of over $200,000 per year. Exhibit B - 1998 the LA Dodgers sign often injured pitcher Kevin Brown to a $108 million contract.)

(preview :smack: )

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The NFL’s salary cap is the best one in sports, because teams have a real chance to win if they are good enough. In baseball’s economics, you will never have a Ravens or Patriots teamcome out of nowhere to win the championship.

The cap cuts both ways, too. Remember how clever the Dallas Cowboys thought they were? I think last season they were paying almost a third of their salary cap to players that were no longer on their team.

How about raising the pitcher’s mound? They lowered it in the late 60s when pitchers got too good. It’s time to give something back to the pitchers and raise it.

19

Gee, wouldn’t it be great then to get drafted by some team, they develop a star a year ahead of you, and your advancement is blocked unless they deign to trade you? They want to keep you as depth, you’re stuck. Hate living in, say, NY? Want to live down South? Sorry, you’re Mets property. You want to work in baseball, you do it here.

When did the Yankees start to win titles? After they bought some guy from Boston. Name of Ruth. Paid money for him, and they even held the mortgage for Fenway Park as part of the deal.

I don't have access to all the minor league affiliations thru the years, but I understand the Yankees kept their supremacy by having more scouts and farm clubs than other teams pre- free agency. A function of having more money.

Do you want an international draft? Most foreign players are not subject to the draft - just US (incl PR) and Canada I think. If you have $, you can sign players with big international “amateur” reputations (Hernandez) or from the Japanese major leagues (Soriano ) . It also doesn’t stop you from taking players from teams who are dumping them because they can’t pay the (Clemens, Mondesi)
** JJTM** , I don’t think they need contraction, but that doesn’t mean you can’t relocate a team or two. Bud Lite did it to the Pilots after 1 year, didn’t he? No, that doesn’t necessarily mean DC. They’ve had 2 teams move away in the last 45 years. Maybe they’re not a good baseball market either.

** Spooje**, a lot of the luster is lost on the interleague games. Attendance is up a little, but attendance goes up during the season due to nicer weather, kids on vacation, etc. It isn’t that big a change this year.

Also, Sosa and Bonds aren’t even all that big. 6’1" 225 isn’t that huge at all. They are in shape, true. Go to any Gold’s Gym after work, you’ll see a few dozen guys much bigger than them. And look at tape of Mac setting the rookie HR record at 49. He was pretty darn skinny then. For that matter, Ted Williams got the name Splinter because he was so thin. A lot of the oldtimers weren’t particularly big. Look at Total Baseball at Aaron, Mays, and Mantle. The tallest is Aaron. 6’. Heaviest? Mantle. 198. Those 3 guys hit a few. I’ve seen Mays. I remember thinking how LITTLE he was. (5’10", 180 listed - may actually be smaller)

** PatrickM **, it’s only collusion if all the owners band together and agree to not bid for anyone. They had a MAJOR star go out back then and not get any offers even close to what other players were given (Was it Dawson?). Teams showing some restraint and saying “You want how much? Too much” and saying “We won’t bid on ANY free agents.” are 2 different things.

Kevin brown also had had a reputation for being a workhorse, usually over 200 IP (or the equivalent rate). Giving very long-term contracts to pitchers is an iffy proposition, though.

20

From Sportsline.com

From ESPN

This is especially true of the big market match-ups like NY, Chicago, Texas and LA.

From the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

[quote]
The average attendance during the first of two interleague segments, which concluded Sunday, was 33,495, the fourth-highest total since the innovation began in 1997. That figure represented an increase of 17.3% over the average attendance of 28,560 for regular league play this season. Granted, that is from last year. Attendence is little off all around this year. But that can hardly be blamed on interleague play. The strike, contraction, a shaky economy and terrorist alerts are more likely causes of decline.

Can someone tell me the ‘luster’ of two teams NOT playing each other?