Fuck ‘em! I’m gonna start watchin’ me some Little League.
Y’all with me?
Q
(who’s gettin’ TIRED of this shit!):mad:
Based on the body of your writing on this board, I clicked onto this thread thinking I would be reading a full explanation of the issues surrounding the impending strike. LOL.
BTW… what is this about? Money, money, and more money?? Do you believe it when owners say they are not making money and in fact losing money?
What is the scoop Q?
Most of the owners are losing money the same way Enron and Worldcom were showing a profit. Accounting tricks. For instance, the Dodgers can claim more of a loss than they are actually taking because they undersold the broadcast rights to their owner Fox. Forbes Magazine agrees.
However, it gets more complicated because the big money teams like the Yankees that are profitable have no interest in a salary cap, either. Why would they? With a salary cap, more small market teams would be able to retain their star players or sign other ones. Without a salary cap, the Yanks can have a really high payroll, sign the big stars and still show a profit.
The basic issue behind a work stoppage is that baseball is poorly run, the owners can’t agree on anything, make poor business decisions, don’t market their league, and dont’ give a crap about the fans, the players are greedy and arrogant and don’t give a crap about the fans.
But the Angels are doing well, so I’ll watch.
I don’t like baseball. I don’t watch baseball. I don’t want to flame, but… That said, I submit that these steroid using, excessively spitting yokels- the least athletic of atheletes (save golfers)- should get down on their knees and thank gawd that anyone is willing to pay them a dime to play a game. If this national pastime was actually indicative of the people in this nation, Mexico would have conquered us long ago. I propose a salary cap of $20,000/year tops. 
- the least athletic of atheletes (save golfers)-
Hang on now… I believe these guys are very athletic. Can you imagine what must go on to hit something coming at you 90 mph?
BTW, at one point in my life I was quite the athlete. Damn if golf isn’t the most difficult sport I have tried. It looks easy, but it ain’t. Do you play baseball or golf?
As for the steroid issue, have no idea on that issue. I figure many if not most of them are using various kinds of supplements. Some of these will probably produce negative consequences eventually. I would like to see the players union take a strong stand on the steroid issue. This would be best for the players. The ones that don’t use the stuff wouldn’t feel the pressure to do so if nobody used b/c everyone was tested. I was shocked to learn that mlb has no testing. I thought all professional sports tested.
I doubt very many players are taking steroids. It’s more likely they are taking shots of testosterone or some other similar thing that is much harder to detect than steroids. Same as football players, basketball players and Olympians. Steroid testing is a red herring since it won’t likely turn up much except for a few morons in the sport and it will reinforce that things are kosher when in fact, I’m sure many players are still taking “enhancement drugs.”
Wait a Minute! You clicked on my post just because I have over a thousand of 'em???
Did you bother to even read some of the ones I have already posted???
Sorry I misled you, 9. But I’m a VEERRRYY simple guy. I ask questions so that I can increase my knowledge. I post my opinions here, so that they might be clarified for me, but as for baseball (which I love): I will watch it on the Little League diamond from now on.
Please! Don’t make the same mistake that so many others make when they first join: The number of posts shown does not automatically make one smarter.
Thanks
Quasi
The number of posts shown does not automatically make one smarter. :eek:
Shucks. I was hoping that as I built my post count I would get more and more intelligent. I could have sworn I was getting smarter. :smack:
I have read a lot of your stuff. You seem to be pretty knowledgeable. Seriously.
I heard the Cryonics Institute is going to send you a letter of request. 
Ummm… testosterone is a steroid.
There was a recent cover story in Sports Illustrated in which several players went on record (some anonymously, some not) that probably around half of MLB players are taking either steroids, or HGH, or both. Ken Caminiti admitted to being on them when he won the MVP award (he started taking them to speed recovery from an injury), and apparently it’s so common that it’s become an open matter in locker rooms.
It does.
On a side note, ** Handy ** has discovered a cure for cancer, the meaning of life, cold fusion, and the missing link.
He is now devoting his vast intellect to the determination of why we drive on parkways and park on driveways. 
There was a recent cover story in Sports Illustrated in which several players went on record (some anonymously, some not) that probably around half of MLB players are taking either steroids, or HGH, or both.
What does the player’s union say about the use of steroids and the need for testing? Wouldn’t it make sense for them to want testing? If they really cared about the well-being of the players and the future of the game, it would make sense for them to want to weed it out. You would think this would be one issue that the owners and players could agree on.
I wonder if it is as widespread as the article says. Maybe Caminiti had another agenda.
What’s this I’ve been hearing about contraction? Are they really going to shut down some of the teams? How many of the major teams are unprofitable? One guy at work thinks that all of the teams that don’t have new stadiums will get axed.
I guess it’s time to say goodbye to the Cubs, Red Sox, and Yankees then.
The Dodgers too. And Busch Stadium is looking a bit old, so let’s get rid of the Cardinals while we’re at it.
Yes, it would make sense for them to want testing, and some players have actually said so in public - mostly because they (presumably) don’t do it and are tired of seeing those who do prosper.
But as said before, testing is a prickly issue. I think the players are concerned that testing wouldn’t be terribly accurate, that the tests would be positive for other things that aren’t illegal at all (extra testosterone, perhaps?).
Makes sense in theory for them to agree to be tested, because in the long run it’ll keep players healthy, to a degree. Still, there are issues.
jacksen, I’d have to go back and look at it to see what the owners and the union had to say about testing, but the general feeling on it, IIRC, was negative, as it would prove to be a major embarrassment.
It wasn’t just Caminiti in the article, though. Curt Schilling and Kenny Rogers, among others, also commented that steroid use was widespread. Caminiti backpedaled from his “50%” assertion, but it still appears to be a big problem.
I think he and Canseco backpedaled a lot from their initial assessments; perhaps because they blurted out the first number that came to mind, without thinking, or just because they thought better of it.
:smack:
I knew that. Anabolic steroids is what I was referring to. I just sort of shortened it.
This is what results from the owners’ having ditched the notion of a semi-independent commissioner.
The players are strong enough that they could lay out a plan for how baseball’s economics should work in a way that would protect both their interests and the good of the game. But they’ve got no tradition of doing so, so it’s not even on their radar screen. Meanwhile, the owners are just as stupid and shortsighted as they had always been.
But for a brief while, Peter Ueberroth and Bart Giammatti and Fay Vincent, as commissioners of baseball, saved the owners from the worst of their stupidity. (Remember the ‘85 strike? I didn’t think so. Lasted about a day and a half, thanks to Ueberroth - and the owners never forgave him for preventing another hopeless attempt to break the players’ union. But his averting a quick repeat of 1981 allowed baseball to fully recover from the damage it had done to itself, and they went on to make scads of money over the next several years.)
Now, of course, one of their worst and stupidest is the commissioner, and rather than braking the typical owners’ headlong plunge into disaster, he’s creatively finding new cliffs to lead them over. (Have a great postseason and WS that makes people forget about baseball’s off-the-field problems for a minute, and gets them excited about the game? No prob, we can take the wind out of their sails: announce MLB’s contraction plan two days after the Series is over.)
Now nobody’s even managing a faint pretense of looking after the fans’ interests, or what used to be known as “the good of the game”. So they’ll do what they’ll do, and kids growing up now will get hooked on other pursuits, and eventually baseball will be a second-tier sport, like hockey or NASCAR has historically been regarded. I’m not sure if that’ll take fifteen years or forty, but I unfortunately expect to live to see it.
Firefly, are you seriously sugegsting that the players EVER held the SLIGHTEST respect for ANY commissioner, even when the Commissioner held some genuine, independent power?
If so, you’re sadly mistaken. The players’ union always maintained that every commissioner, from Kuhn through Vincent, was nothing more than a flunky of the owners. They ignored any and all pronouncements from every commissioner, and scoffed at the notion that Bart Giamatti or Fay Vincent cared about the game or the fans or anything else but enrichingthe owners.
So, frankly, it made perfect sense for the owners to select one of their own as Commissioner, since the players always acted as if there was no Commissioner anyway. The old “independent” Commissioners haven’t had any real power over players since the mid-70s.
IF there were to be a REAL Commissioner with real power to look out for the good fo the game, that would require the owners to give up some power, and the players to give up the ABSOLUTE power they hold now. Do you really think either side wants that?
As it NOW stands, baseball players can shoot steroids with impunity, and snort cocaine in the dugout during games (as Steve Howe and Dave Stewart regularly did) without fear of punishment. Do you really think the players want to change that?
So, a “real” independent Commissioner is a fantasy. The players have always known that a Commissioner with real power, one who could discipline them, is not in their selfish interest. At long last, the owners concluded the same thing. Don Fehr is fighting tooth and nail for the players, without consideration for larger issues. Why is it the OWNERS who have some implied moral obligation to look for some greater good than their own profit?