- September 9, 2002 --

Averted Strike Can't Fix All of Baseball's Troubles

   Well, well, well.  The Major League players and owners managed to avoid a strike for the first time ever.  Am I happy about that?  You bet I am.  Does it mean everything is suddenly all right with the Game?  Of course not.

   Let's take the first point first: Yes, I'm very happy there's no strike.  I tried to tell myself I just didn't care what they did.  Go ahead, walk away, I thought.  Then maybe you'll learn your lesson when I don't come back.  The only problem wiith that was, I really wanted to come back.  No, not the first day back had they gone on strike.  Not for a long time, probably.  But I would have wanted to come back eventually.  If I had any doubt that I would have missed the game, It evaporated on Labor Day, when my wife Deb and I went to Wrigley Field.  We got the tickets back in April, long before the strike talk started casting its dark shadow over the season.  As the deadline loomed, I began to prepare myself mentally, pretending I didn't care, I had better things to do on Labor Day, and I could sure use the cash I would get from returning the tickets.  But of course we went.  And as we settled into our seats behind first base at the start of six and a half hours of a Cubs-Brewers doubleheader on a gorgeous sunny day with a light breeze coming in from Lake Michigan and my arm around my wife, I realized there was truly no place in the world I would rather be.  And I was glad.

   I've still never been to Pac Bell park in San Francisco or PNC in Pittsburgh, two of the new parks I really want to see.  And I've still yet to hit Coors Field or Kauffman Stadium -- that "Heartland Tour" Ron and I keep talking about has never quite fallen into place.  Safeco Field still awaits, and before too long there'll be new stadiums in San Diego, Philadelphia, and who knows, Maybe Washington, future home of the Expos. 

   The point is not that I have to see all those ballparks; the point is that I want to.  God help me, I still love the game, and I still love walking up the concourse and finally glimpsing the green of a new playing field, yet another notch in my ballpark belt.  I set a goal in 1989 to eventually see a game at every Major League ballpark, and another strike would have made reaching that goal very difficult.  Not only would I surely have stayed away from the Game for quite a few years, Ron was quite a bit more adamant than I that he would never go back.  Ever.  I certainly wouldn't have blamed him, but my argument to that is it gives "them" too much power over us. Had I vowed never to set foot in an MLB park again, I would have been letting the selfish players and owners control my fate.  Bad enough they nearly trashed a sacred game, so why should I allow their decisions to dictate my own?  Better I should have said, "I'm so mad at you right now, I'm not coming back for a long, long time -- maybe even never.  Maybe.  But if and when I come back, it'll be my decision, not yours."

   Thankfully, we never had to have that conversation, either the theoretical one between me and Baseball, or the very real one that would have transpired between me and Ron over the future of the Baseball Trips.  And I'm glad about that, too.

   But as for the other point, there's still plenty wrong with Major League Baseball. The new agreement will do little to bridge the competitive disparity between the large and small market teams, and you can count on player salaries to continue spiraling out of control.  But the simple fact that there was an agreement reached without a work stoppage could mean that maybe -- just maybe -- something is finally starting to sink into a few thick skulls.  And that beats a strike any day.