The players' union does not threaten massive fines against players who talk about the strike in the press. Selig i9s about to fine three owners for speaking to the press. The fines will reportedly be in millions each.
You have not seen the owners' books. Nor has anyone else because, as liars, they understandably value secrecy. Yet you are willing to take them on blind faith as to their alleged losses. Their "losses" are largely for tax purposes if they exist at all. When Steinbrenner was wrangling with David Winfield, it came out that the owners actually depreciate the players' value each year for tax purposes and the depreciation is based on salary owed. The owners deduct the salary and get an additional deduction for the supposed deterioration of the player. Jason Giambi has begun to depreciate. So has Derek Jeter. And Alfonso Soriano. Surely you have noticed.
Would you deny that much of the resentment of the players is along the line of: Who are they to be making that much money when I don't? Or government school teachers don't? Or cardiovascular surgeons don't?
BTW, that's class warfare not class welfare.
Assuming for the sake of argument that class warfare is disreputable, why is it more reputable when aimed at the players than at the owners? Assuming that it was aimed at the owners. Actually, the owners think that there should be class welfare for owners and, in a remarkable twist of normal reality, think that the welfare ought to be distributed by the players to the owners. Selig thinks there ought to be a minimum dividend for owners no matter how ignorant they may be of the game (their business) and that it is perfectly fine to strip well-run teams like the Yankees of the money paid by their patrons and fans to help a pack of whiny losers with surplus teams to pocket the revenue sharing money and further cheat their fans. Selig sees nothing wrong in the Dolans purchasing the Cleveland Indians and then strip-mining the team. If Selig really cares about "the best interests of baseball", he will throw the Dolans out of opwnership for actions far more deleterious to baseball than any of Marge Schott's personal idiosyncracies.
The players' performance on the field IS the product sold to the public. Would you pay money to see Selig play? To see Pohlad play? To see Glass play? To see Wilpon and Doubleday play? To see the Chicago Tribune play? To see the Disney Company play? MLB is not a factory where the owner pays large sums of money for raw materials and substantial sums in labor to produce finished goods and more large expenses for sales and marketing and delivery and has a few percent left over as profit for himself and any stockholders. Nor is it a business where brilliant and innovative entrepeneurial insight is critical to competitive advantage. Basic human relations and paying a decent level of income to the 750 best baseball players on the planet (each according to his skills in a free market) is all that is necessary.
Most teams play in taxpayer-subsidized or provided stadiums, with unimaginable special tax breaks, with little or no requirement of disclosing their books since their stock is not publicly traded, etc., etc., etc. The owners absolutely resent the success of the players in making them pay the salaries they pay. The owners think that the revenue should be theirs, all theirs and yearn for the permanently dead days of the reserve clause and lifetime chains upon the player talent. The owners have oodles of ego, oodles of id and no self-control or common sense.
It is not a chastisement to point out that your post suggests a much easier understanding of simple player salaries than of complicated and dishonest bookkeeping by owners (if it is not dishonest, why is it so very secret?). And since, they are so very secretive about their books but enjoy your naive faith:
Your specific objective evidence that most owners are losing money?
Your specific objective evidence that player salaries and not gross mismanagement is the root of the problem?
Your specific objective evidence that the players do not generate the necessary revenue to pay their salaries.
Your specific objective solution to the baseball "crisis".
America wants to know!
Disagreeing with you is not a personal attack. Using language colorful not language bland is not a personal attack.
I do personally attack the likes of Selig, Pohlad, the Dolans, the Chicago Tribune, the Disney Company and other practitioners of the art of deception who fleece their clubs' fans and want a guaranteed level of "earnings" as a reward.
You have posted that the players are "stupid" apparently for disagreeing with you as to what their paychecks should be though you have very little personally at stake in the size of their paychecks and I am "chastising" you because I disagree with you and do so enthusiastically. By George, I think I've got it!
Don't hit and run now. Answer the substantive questions.
Baseball's operating loss was $232 million this year, including a major league-leading $52.9 million by the Toronto Blue Jays.
Commissioner Bud Selig, summoned to testify Thursday before the House Judiciary Committee, released an unprecedented amount of financial information on the 30 major league teams.
While the Arizona Diamondbacks were a success on the field, winning the World Series in just their fourth season, they were a bottom-line bust, with an operating loss of $32.2 million, according to the report.
That was the third-highest operating loss in baseball, trailing only Toronto and the Los Angeles Dodgers ($45.3 million).
Eleven of the 30 teams had operating profits before revenue sharing, led by the New York Yankees at $40.9 million. Seattle was second at $34.3 million, followed by San Francisco at $19 million and Milwaukee at $14.4 million.
.......
Of course you will just dismiss this as lies by the evil cartel of baseball owners, but this is the best info available.