THROUGHOUT America, the prospect of an impending baseball strike has captured the hearts and minds of sports talk show hosts. Radio shows air callers complaining about how they intend to abandon the game for eternity if another work stoppage begins. Although a strike (tentatively set for Friday) would be regrettable, the players, owners and lamenting commentators should look at their place in the world and realize that Major League Baseball, taken in context of the last year, is really not that important.
A baseball strike will not damage American culture, prestige or spirituality. While both sides of the current labor dispute have reasonable proposals, the prospect of a strike will not foreshadow the unleashing of the Four Horsemen. Life will, in fact, continue as normal.
The differences between the players and owners do not appear to be that substantial. Major differences center around efforts to make Major League Baseball more competitive. All sides appear to agree that it does not help baseball for only six to eight teams -- among them the Braves, Yankees and Diamondbacks -- to have a reasonable chance at winning the World Series.
Baseball fans in Tampa Bay, Kansas City and even Toronto have a legitimate reason not to attend their teams' games. Over the course of a season, they aren't going to have a reasonable chance at the playoffs.
An obvious reason for certain teams' consistently poor performance is the difference in markets. Teams in smaller cities obtain less money for television rights than do teams in larger cities.
The most prominent proposal put forward to improve the payroll (and, presumably, on-field) parity among the teams mandates installing a "luxury tax," whereby teams with higher payrolls pay into a fund that is distributed among the other teams.
Currently, the players have not objected outright to a luxury tax scenario, though they do object adamantly to a formal salary cap.
Their reasoning is simple: They need to feed their families. By families, I mean their wives, children, defense lawyers, therapists, publicists, agents, pets, their pets' agents and Shawn Kemp. Without the right to obtain a $2.383 million dollar salary (the average salary for a major league ballplayer), these individuals will be forced to earn a living solely as spokesmen for Viagra and Just for Men.
Truly, the players have little reason to object to a luxury tax. As shown in the NBA, a modified salary cap does not destroy player profitability. The luxury tax proposal does not even come close to imposing a real salary cap. The players should support it and take the idea of a strike off the table.
For the owners' part, they should agree to some kind of minimum payroll for all teams. While most small-market teams lack real income opportunities, a number of teams -- in both large and small markets -- just do not put any money into their player personnel.
Teams in Detroit, Miami and Philadelphia all are at the lower end of payroll and, not surprisingly, consistently perform poorly (CNNSI .com, 2001 Team Payrolls Comparison). To promote parity, the owners should adopt some kind of minimum payroll.
The above discussion, however, ignores the most important part of this rigmarole. A strike won't cause riots, mass hysteria, swarms of grasshoppers or spontaneous bouts of depression.
Baseball is a wonderful, relaxing game built on tradition and tied to American culture. It incorporates strategy, strength, speed, physics, beer, pork products and ticket scalping -- all wonderfully American ideas.
Ultimately, however, Major League Baseball is just one version of the game. Those with an attachment to the sport can look to high school, college and minor league baseball.
Those seeking to view baseball in its most "fun" form should watch the Little League World Series. In that setting, children try to emulate their stars by calling their shots, strutting after home runs, and showing the emotion that athletic competition is built upon.
If the owners and players act in such an incredible manner as to stop the game for years, another thing might develop: a new baseball league could be formed. The fact that one version of the sport dies does not mean the sport itself is dead.
If anything, the attention paid to the strike may give the players and owners too great a sense of self-importance. Rather than cry and yell about a possible strike, fans should just walk quietly away from the game and watch something like the Iron Chef. Once the two sides realize that the world actually can continue without their presence, they may come to terms. When the game returns, the national attention likely will return as well.
Baseball is America's pastime. Major League Baseball is but one incarnation of it. Throughout the controversy of the upcoming days and months, players, owners and commentators would do well to keep this in mind.
(Seth Wood's column appears Wednesdays in The Cavalier Daily. He can be reached at
swood@cavalierdaily.com.)
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