I Love Baseball

I'm from Cleveland and the Indians have been quite a sorry team for most of my existence. I was born in 46, they won it all in 48, broke the record for wins in 54, then lost 4 straight to the NY Giants. Soon after that, they became perennial losers, especially in the 60's and beyond with horrible year upon horrible year. Still, there was always hope. Then in 94, they got a new owner, a new stadium and a new committment and they became extremely competitive, winning division championships year after year and almost a world series until Florida beat them with 2 outs from victory. Now, they are in the infamous "rebuilding phase"...

But my real beef with baseball is the avarice. For years, I was on the players side, having read how, in the old days, owners made millions and players (excepting the Babe Ruths) got the scraps. Little did I realize what free agency would do to the game. Not only is there no continuity with teams but owners are in a quandary. If they hold tight on their budget, some other owner WILL overspend to buy a championship (the Marlins did it the year they beat the Indians....the next year they dismantled the team which was economically impossible to maintain. So, these actions inflate the prices for the great ballplayers. So, new revenues must be found. TV contracts, pay tv contracts, luxury boxes, etc. Hell, in football, they even came up with the infamous seat license, where you pay a large fee for the RIGHT to later buy a season ticket....I'm waiting for baseball to try it, also.

Look at Boston. They simply can't maintain their payroll. So, they try to offload Rameriz but no one can afford him excepting maybe the Yankees and he doesn't seem to be their kind of player. In Cleveland, we lost Albert Belle to free agency. We offered him a contract that would have made him the highest paid player at the time (and he WASN'T the best player by far)....so the White Sox offer him 2-3 million MORE a year than we did and some of the fans AND Belle claim the Indians didn't want to pay what it takes for a good team (!)
Of course, the next year, the White Sox, who don't win anything, dump Belle. And the dance continues.

I see no changes until the audience boycotts and it probably will never happen. But the only thing the players (and the owners) will ever understand is massive empty seats and diminished tv contracts. Then we will see some intelligent contract stipulations, perhaps based on incentive clauses and not simply past performance and longevity.

Do I sound bitter? Million dollar a year players appearing at autograph sessions and selling their autograph to kids for $10-50 a pop? I'm outraged!

Ed: your rant would be perfectly acceptable at I Love Baseball.

Free agent market opens today, should be lots of deals being made today. Come over and discuss, speculate at your leisure.