2 major league teams in peril

Houston Chronicle ^ | July 11, 2002 | RICHARD JUSTICE

[Wolfie]

Gee, I hope its not a city with one of those brand spankin' new taxpayer funded stadiums. I see some very expensive parking lots in our future.

[Consort]

2 major league teams in peril

[TommyDale]

As a Giants fan, I sincerely hope you are correct!

[ilgipper]

I go to the AAA games with the kids, eat hot dogs, sit under the lights, put a few bucks in the hat as it goes by . . . All the professionals and their fans can go to he!!

Hate to mention this, but AAA is still professional baseball....just made up of guys who haven't made it up yet to the same level as the majors. Most guys playing in MLB were AAA players at one time.

[Steve_Seattle]

I think the other team is Arizona. Unlike Oakland, they have a large payroll, and they were in trouble last winter despite winning the World Series.

[Petronski]

2) There needs to be contraction. Cut out 6 teams (4 NL 2 AL). I don't want to hear about baseball losing money when they are overextended. This move will have the added bonus of improving play as at least a third of the pitchers have no business in the league.

Yeah!

[3catsanadog]

If baseball starts to hint that maybe perhaps government could help bail out the cash-strapped teams, I won't be surprised.

[Tallguy]

They agree to pay huge contracts for mediocre talent, and then whine about being broke.

Not to stick up for the owners, but the salary arbitration process has also contributed to the out-of-whack salary structures in MLB.

OTOH, many of the ownership groups are also involved with cable TV -- some are owners of cable franchises, too. They view MLB as a way to attract a base viewership to their "other business." They don't really care if the baseball operations actually make money or not.

[Dog Gone]

I strongly doubt that the government could or would intervene in time to help one club cut fat checks to its players next Monday.

I'm sure the Senators from the affected state will call for government assistance, but the Bush Administration isn't going to pay baseball players out of your tax dollars. Not at those salaries.

[Hemingway's Ghost]

Minor league ball is more fun to watch. Hell, high school baseball is more fun to watch and its free.

No it's not.

[Steve_Seattle]

"the players will certainly be different next year"

The players moved around a lot back in the 50s, too, but the main difference now is you have superstars in their prime changing teams. This is because of free agency. Back in the 50s and 60s, Musial, Williams, Mantle, Mays, Aaron, Spahn, Koufax, Ford, Colavito, Bench, Mathews, Banks, Killebrew, Gibson, Drysdale, B. Robinson, Snider, Berra - you could go on and on - all played all or nearly all of their careers with the same team. The only prominent exception I can think of is Frank Robinson, who moved from the Reds to the Orioles while still in his prime. Roger Maris moved from KC to the Yankees before he was a star. Back then, teams held on to their superstars, but now they can't do that anymore.

[F16Fighter]

To remedy this disparity [in team payrolls]...the owners would like a 50 percent luxury tax on payrolls above $98 million.

And while they're at it, why doesn't MLB just totally emulate the US government by also having a Welfare Dept. for both financially distressed teams AND underpaid ballplayers, a MLB Affirmative Action/EEOC for teams with imbalanced racial composition, and a MLB IRS to audit owners like George Steinbrenner...

Socialism has invested even Major League Baseball.

[ken5050]

FYI, this year's strike will be a tad different, because the CBA will have expired. Some owners advocate that a strike by the players would abrogate all existing contracts......

[Dog Gone]

All professional leagues are inherently socialist, because they have to be. The winning teams still need a league structure which supports the losing teams in order to provide opponents and maintain the league structure.

If it were purely capitalist, you wouldn't have a draft of new players; they would simply go to the highest bidder. The most profitable teams would become dominant and the poorer teams would disband or merge with other teams to compete.

It's an exception to our normal views on capitalism and anti-trust implications.

[F16Fighter]

Suffice it to say, the owners and players deserve each other.

[F16Fighter]

"...The poorer teams would [have to] disband or merge with other teams to compete."

Then so be it...

Major League talent is diluted anyway, and there are too many teams as well IMO.

[RckyRaCoCo]

Dump the Tigers....please!

[ReadMyMind]

I thought the NBA faced and solved this problem in the late '80s or early '90s.

[StockAyatollah]

1) A salary cap needs to be instituted.
2) There needs to be contraction.
3) Everyone needs to enforce the contracts that they sign.

I agree with those suggestions except the socialist salary caps. All that does is break up good franchises. I have paid no attention to baseball since their last strike. But other things would also be necessary for me to possibly regain interest:

1) Dump interleague play. Having separate leagues made baseball different. It also made the All Star game more interesting.

2) Dump the wildcard stuff. Again this makes baseball less special.

3) Tell umpires to either enforce the strike zone the way the rule book says or find another job.

4) Shorten the regular season. Its too cold and rainy in April to play baseball anyway. And this would make individual games more meaningful.

5) Bring back the lost art of pitching.

6) Performance-based pay.

[phil1750]

I used to attend as many as 20 games a season. When they went on strike the last time, I went on permenant strike and haven't been back since.