Baseball Fans? Go on Strike? Whaddaya crazy?:
As devoted fans of Major League Baseball,we at FanStrike.net demand that team owners and the Major League Players Union take the following actions:
- Institute an extensivedrug testing policy with more teeth –a policythat makes use offrequent, random, unannounced”no warning” urine screens. It is imperative that these drug tests be conducted on the spot without any delay or waiting periodwhatsoever. (The current drug testing procedures are a joke.)
- Implement a two year moratorium for inductions of all new players into the Baseball Hall of Fame. I am not saying that we should dispense with or boycott the Hall of Fame altogether. All I am saying is that we need some time to more effectively assess the fallout from baseball’s steroid era. A two year moratorium should be sufficient time to make this assessment.
- The Baseball Commissioner should mandatethat therecord books and the Baseball Hall of Fame explicitly indicate that the following home run records were broken duringbaseball’s steroid era: the single season home run record of 73, the career home run total of 762 (or whatever the total ends up to be after Barry Bonds’ retirement), and the single month home run record of 20 set by Sammy Sosa in June, 1998.
As devoted, passionate, well-meaning‚fans of Major‚League Baseball,‚we‚commit‚to take the following actions in order to ensure that the demands enumerated above are met:
- While watching MLB games on TV (or listening to them on the radio), pay extra close attention to the commercials. When the need arises to buy a good or service advertised during the game, make a concentrated effort to buy the goods and services of that advertiser’s competitor.
- Substitute a trip to a Major League baseball game to a trip to a minor league baseball game. Check out our “Other Baseball Options“‚post in our blog.
- To the greatest extent possible, avoid buying advance ticket purchases to Major League games. Instead, try to buy a ticket below face value from a ticket broker outside the stadium the day of the game.
- While at a Major League baseball game, limit your purchase of food concessions to the greatest extent possible. To help you with this endeavor, check out our “Eat Before the Game” post in our blog.
- While at a Major League baseball game, limit your purchase of‚beer by half. To help you with this endeavor, check out our “But I like to Drink Beer…” post in our blog.
- Sign our petition by clicking on the following link: “Sign the petition“.
- Spread the word about our cause at FanStrike.net to five other dedicated, avid baseball fans.
It is up to us fans to save our game. I personally think that Major League baseball is worth saving.‚If we fans as consumers sit idly by and do nothing to demand that baseball clean up its act, we‚as‚consumers of the Major League‚Baseball‚product are complicit in propagating professional baseball’s steroid culture. A lot is at stake here. If‚nothing is done to change baseball immediately,‚professional baseball’s entire credibility will be shot.‚The home run record numbers of 73 and 762 already hold no credibility‚for me. For this baseball fan, if nothing is done to clean up baseball’s steroid mess, Major League Baseball is in danger of becoming a discredited performance enhancing freak show not at all unlike those Mr. Universe, Worlds Strongest Man, Longest Drive, and WWE professional wrestling competitions you occasionally see on television late at night.
Performance enhancing drugs have no place in baseball. We fans need to put some positive‚ECONOMIC pressure on the Major League Players Union, the franchise owners, the radio and television networks, and the individual players themselves to help ensure that Major League Baseball regain its former credibility, consistency, and position of importance in American culture. We need to save our great national game.
If you have any questions, comments, or suggestions, feel free to contact me, Leo McNellis, at lmcnellis@fanstrike.net.