Robservations: Greed to blame for MLB ills
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If it happens, it’s due to a myriad of irreconcilable differences between baseball’s players and the owners of its teams. But regardless of the reasons, they all boil down to one simple explanation: Everyone involved in the game is too greedy to give the other side a break.
In an Associated Press article by Ronald Blum concerning the possibility of a work stoppage, Arizona first baseman Mark Grace expressed his hope that baseball’s “owners will realize that, ‘Gosh, the players have given a lot.'”
“If nothing gets done,” he went on to say, “I think that means owners don’t want to get something done.”
What? They’ve “given a lot?” You’ve got to be kidding me.
I’ve read stories on this all day, and the only real thing I can see that the players have “given” is permission for their bosses — the team owners — to test them for illegal steroids. And even that “concession” came with a catch: Players won’t be tested for supplements like andro, or recreational drugs — like cocaine.
Have you ever in your life heard of an occupation where employees weren’t tested for drugs because they didn’t want to be? For that matter, have you ever heard of an employer that lets his or her employees dictate company policy?
The owners, in a splendid example of hindsight, have finally realized they’re paying these men exorbitant salaries to play a child’s game. So they came up with the proposal of a luxury tax, which would be levied on teams whose payrolls exceeded $102 million per year. In short, they hope to stop teams like the Yankees from being able to literally have the best players money can buy. They figure no one would want to pay the tax, so teams would stay under the $102 million limit.
But the players didn’t like that proposal, and countered with one of their own, which lifts the maximum payroll to be taxed to $130 million next year, and goes up $10 million a year after that.
Let’s do some quick math. If a team spends $102 million a year, each member of their 40-man roster makes, in salary and benefits, an average of $2.55 million per year. If the team’s payroll is at $130 million, like the Yankees’ is this year, on the average each player makes $3.25 million.
If you made $3.25 million a year, or $2.55 mil for that matter, would you ever threaten to walk off the job?
And as for these owners, one of the biggest proponents of the tax is Tom Hicks. He’s gone so far as to say if the players do strike, he and his fellow owners should scrap the tax idea, and install a true salary cap.
Tom Hicks, mind you, is the rocket scientist that is paying Alex Rodriguez $25 million a year to play for his Texas Rangers, who are 21 games out of first place in the A.L. West.
So if this year’s baseball season ends at the end of this month, who is to blame? Is it the greedy players, who cry for more and more because they realize they’re what draws the fans? How about the greedy owners, who spend a king’s ransom for enough quality players to field a winning team, then make up the difference by charging us $18 for a nosebleed seat and $5 for a cold hot-dog?
Well, I’ll tell you who’s to blame. They all are, and so are we — for putting up with it.
We can all pound our chests and talk about how we’ll “never come back” if they strike this year, and how un-American it is to walk off the field in this time of patriotic pride.
But the truth is, we’ll be back. You personally may not be, but enough people will come back to keep filling those owners’ and players’ pockets. And then, a few more years down the road, the cycle of greed will begin again.