Now that the pope has died and Terri Schiavo no longer provides Republicans a convenient case to exploit, it’s time to turn to more important things, like baseball.
Opening day came on the heels of an excellent NCAA Final Four and featured a dominating performance by New York Yankees ace Randy Johnson, who routed the defending national champion Boston Red Sox.
But while the action on the field renews our hope every spring, the soul of the game is hurting.
A Congressional hearing in March involving players’ use of steroids marked the greatest collision between baseball and government since Curt Flood brought his free agency case to the U.S. Supreme Court in 1972. Former player Jose Canseco admitted to using steroids and narked on teammates he claimed to have injected.
Steroids tear at the fabric of the game, which looks to its past more than any other sport. It’s part of the beauty of baseball that one can compare Albert Pujols’ 2004 season with Mickey Mantle’s 1956 season and determine their relative abilities with a fair degree of accuracy.
For baseball purists, the steroid revelations were just the latest in a long line of events that undermine the game. The trouble began in 1973, when the first designated hitter strode to the plate.
The DH foreshadowed the development of one-dimensional players such as the reliever who pitches only to left-handed batters between the seventh and ninth innings during full-moon night games on the West Coast — barely an exaggeration. It also provided jobs for geriatric fan favorites like Edgar Martinez, who last year could have been out-run by an ambitious riding lawnmower.
The DH preceded the reign of Commissioner Bud Selig, who has done all he could to ruin the game since taking over in 1992. His first mistake was expanding into Colorado, where the Rockies can be guaranteed never to win a World Series. No pitcher with half a brain wants to risk his career by pitching in a place that, due to its elevation, inflates offense.
Selig failed to prevent players from going on strike in 1994, resulting in the cancellation of the World Series for the first time since 1904. Then he had the bright idea in 1997 of instituting Interleague Play.
Many fans like it — attendance in Interleague games exceeds that of regular games by about 20 percent, according to SI.com — but it results in an unbalanced schedule. It also destroys the uniqueness of the World Series, which used to be the only place American League and National League teams faced each other in games that mattered.
Selig has also come up short in
addressing the competitive imbalance in baseball. Despite revenue sharing, which shifts money from the wealthiest teams to the poorest, imbalance persists.
The Yankees, blessed by a deep-pocketed owner who loves his team, buy their way to the playoffs each year. They paid their players more than $184 million last year, by far the most in baseball, according to The (Cleveland) Plain Dealer.
Meanwhile, small market teams function as a farm system for teams like the Yankees. The Oakland A’s, for instance, have lost a string of their best players in recent years because they couldn’t afford them. The list includes top-flight sluggers Mark McGwire, Jason Giambi and Miguel Tejada. Just this offseason, the A’s had to let go of two ace pitchers, Tim Hudson and Mark Mulder.
Until something drastic happens, the Yankees and Red Sox will continue to spend their way to the playoffs, while teams like the Kansas City Royals wistfully look on.
Part of Selig’s problem is that he cares more about money than the game itself. He looks at baseball from the perspective of a former team owner, which he is.
Selig’s other major problem is the players’ union, the most powerful union relative to its industry in the country. The union stands in opposition to several important reforms,
including the elimination of the
designated hitter, a truly tough steroids policy and regulation of amphetamines, which are widely used in baseball.
One longs for the days of Kenesaw Mountain Landis, baseball’s first commissioner, who ruled the game with an iron fist and took seriously his charge to act in the best interests of baseball.
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