Baseball players should strike. No, I didn't leave out a word there. They should strike and stay on strike until they are treated like the majority of American workers -- fairly.
It is natural for us to like the players and not the greedy owners, much as workers like their co-workers and not their boss. It is also natural for us to get angry at the seemingly peevish players fighting for more than most Americans make in a lifetime.
Alex Rodriguez's 10-year, $252 million contract is what many point to as an illustration of baseball's problem: What could you do with that amount of money in sports? You could buy three NHL franchises for that amount of money.
But someone had to be willing to pay him that money. Texas Rangers owner Tom Hicks bid himself up from the $190 million contract range.
Cincinnati Reds player representative told the Cincinnati Enquirer, "We never have wanted to tell people what they have to pay us. People laugh about that, but that's the truth. You can't blame a guy for taking the best deal."
So why, then, do baseball fans seem eager to scrap capitalism and the idea of free markets? Baseball executives have made huge mistakes and want to institute socialism as a result. We are supposed to hate the big business, the Carnegies and the Steinbrenners.
The American way is for struggling businesses to regroup or fold. AT&T isn't helping WorldCom recover; why should the Yankees help the Orioles?
The question, then, is: what do the owners want that is so wrong and would ruin baseball?
The answer might surprise most, but it is a salary cap, long hailed as a savior from escalating salaries.
People point to the parity in the NFL as a result of the cap. But a salary cap merely changes the proportion of money spent on the underachievers and helps teams recover from errant personnel moves. The NFL put in a salary cap in 1994, and the Arizona Cardinals have won more than eight games just once. The Cincinnati Bengals have yet to eclipse .500 since the advent of the cap, proving the badly-run teams will still be bad.
All a cap does is force teams to lose their veterans, the guys you grow up rooting for. Empathize with Packer fans who lost Antonio Freeman, a Packer since 1993, to cap constraints. Or Falcon fans who loved Jamal Anderson, a cap casualty after eight seasons there.
The big contracts are still signed in the NFL, but it is the owners that prosper, not the players.
The first thing a salary cap would do is diminish the value of the franchise. Part of owning a business is deciding how to invest in it. A cap will limit investment. If an owner like Hicks wants to spend that much on A-Rod, then let him. We don't enforce the quality of cheese that Gumby's uses. If they want to use higher-priced cheese, well, that's a business decision. Should Domino's have to help them financially if the new cheese doesn't help sales?
Fans want to see the best baseball on the field. That will only happen if clubs are forced to evaluate talent better. The Oakland A's, with the third-lowest payroll in baseball, are in first place and are tied for the most wins in the American League because they have baseball's best evaluator of talent in Billy Beane. The Minnesota Twins, with the fourth-lowest payroll, have a 16-game lead in the AL Central. Teams can compete like these franchises by investing more money in scouting and doing their homework to develop ballplayers rather than overpay for veterans. These teams are forced to decide where they want to invest and they keep their stars while replenishing their farm system.
I hope baseball players don't strike. But the owners are forcing the players' hand. We hate this because of the socioeconomic envy we have. But teams make money on everything: tickets, broadcasting, advertising, concessions, licensing, etc. What incentive does a team have to invest in new broadcast markets or new apparel if the money goes to teams that don't invest?
Here's the problem with revenue-sharing: owners can pocket the money. The team last season with the highest income from baseball operations after revenue sharing: Commissioner Bud Selig's own Milwaukee Brewers. No revenue sharing will force teams to shape up or go bankrupt.
Badly-run teams should lose money much as badly-run business do. Baseball owners claim that only nine teams made a profit. Yet Forbes Magazine said only 10 teams LOST any money.
Baseball players are being framed as the bad guys, being forced to fix a problem that doesn't exist and a problem they didn't cause. Take away your class envy. Remember, this isn't Cuba. The players are fighting for fair business practices only.
The problems should be resolved before a strike has to happen. But since it won't, lay the blame on the money-grubbing owners who soon will drive veteran stars out of town while continuing to overpay for underachievers.
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