Baseball - The game that never fails

seahorse · 07-14-02, 12:21 PM

You can't hurt this game - no matter how hard you try.

http://www.nytimes.com/2002/07/14/sp...ll/14GAME.html

With Labor Woes, Baseball Throws Fans a Brushback
By BUSTER OLNEY with STEVEN GREENHOUSE

Even in a time when sports are big business, baseball for many people is a game of catch in the backyard, bleacher seats and hot dogs, a favorite player, a memorable home run. But there is a great disparity between what draws fans to baseball and how the sport operates, abstractions as different as Peter Pan's never-never land and Disney's tax bracket.

Rarely has the incongruity been more glaring than in the last week, as owners and players prepared for another battle in a labor war that has spanned more than three decades. Leaders for the players association met in Chicago on Monday and while they did not establish a strike date, they talked ominously about the possibility of walking out before the end of this season. Baseball Commissioner Bud Selig again hinted that some teams would face bankruptcy unless there was significant change in the game's financial structure.

Meanwhile, tens of thousands of patrons paid millions of dollars in Milwaukee, first to watch a home run hitting contest on Monday, and then, on Tuesday, they lingered in their seats as the All-Star Game headed into extra innings. But in the bottom of the 11th, an announcement was made that the teams couldn't settle a 7-7 tie, because they had run out of pitchers. The boos of enraged fans — many of whom occupied $175 seats — were not heard by all the players, because some All-Stars had left the park in the middle of the game to catch outbound flights.

Fans are fascinated with baseball records, and now there are a growing number of questions about whether many stars are using steroids and other performance-enhancing drugs. Casual fans rediscover the sport in October, and there is real concern that the playoffs and World Series will be canceled by a labor impasse, as they were in 1994. The disconnect is deepening, mirroring the relationship between the players and the owners.

In other industries, like steel or automobiles, a company that went through repeated labor battles would suffer competitively. But neither the owners nor the players speak much about what impact another labor-related shutdown would have on the fans' interest in the game.

"When you're dealing in an industry or a product that relies on the good will of the public, in that situation it's a risky approach to continually disappoint your audience or your customer base," said Richard W. Hurd, professor of labor relations at Cornell University. "You can't help but wonder whether it's going to catch up with them."

Dick Schwingel, a teacher in Northfield, Mass., and an ardent baseball fan and Red Sox follower, said: "There's plenty of us who are addicted, but all kinds of addictions get cured. I'd have a tough time quitting baseball, but if I can quit smoking, I can quit baseball."

Attendance is down about 6 percent in the last year, a difference of 2,274,527 fans through July 11, a decline that could be attributed to diminished interest in some of the newest ballparks, like those in Pittsburgh, Milwaukee and Detroit. But attendance dropped about 20 percent after the last strike, in 1994-95, and although it gradually rebounded, with help from the interest generated by Cal Ripken Jr., Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa, some clubs have never recovered — Toronto and Montreal, in particular.

Paul Molitor, the former All-Star infielder who was once an officer in the players association, said last week that he was not hopeful for a settlement. "A lot of the rhetoric is the same," he said. "Players have always talked about free market and what our country is built on: supply and demand. Ownership is talking about ways to have some type of increase in competitive balance and find a way for any ballclub to have a chance to win.

"We all know as an industry of $3.5 billion, there should be a way to fix it, but it's gotten so far out of hand in terms of revenue streams. There is no easy solution."

The baseball players' association is arguably the nation's strongest union, and certainly none has thrived as it has. Bound by the principle that they should have the same rights as others in a capitalist system, the players have repeatedly defeated the owners, through negotiating threats, work interruptions, arbitration and lawsuits; the average player salary has increased from $34,000 in 1969 to nearly $2.4 million this year.

The owners' loose coalition has usually been torn apart by competing interests from their own ranks, and in each confrontation with the players, their claims of poverty are undercut by past deception. "This is going to kill us," the Twins' owner, Calvin Griffith, said in 1975, after losing $7,000 in an arbitration.

Each side seems conditioned by history. The owners demand change. The players entrench. Negotiations collapse. The owners' alliance eventually crumbles. A settlement is protracted.

Hurd believes the industry is unique because of the unusual bargaining power of each side. The business of baseball cannot exist without the players — whereas truckers and auto workers have been replaced — while the owners, on the other hand, have exploited their antitrust exemption. These factors allow the two sides to dig in during negotiations. "It's very unusual today to have either a strike or lockout for almost every contract," Hurd said. "It was not as unusual in the 1940's and 50's. It's quite some time since we've seen an industry where work stoppages occur on a regular basis every time a contract expires."

The owners have long doubted that the players could hold together as a union, says William B. Gould IV, the former chairman of the National Labor Relations Board and a professor of labor law at Stanford University Law School. But "the problem in getting the players to make concessions is they have been so successful," Gould said.

"They have won at every step. It's hard to get people to compromise when you look at the past record."

Gould mentioned the $252 million contract of Alex Rodriguez as "the classic example of how they now believe there is going to be a golden egg that will be laid by the goose forever. It's hard to disabuse the players of this idea."

Major League Baseball executives say most teams are incurring enormous losses; union members say revenue streams and franchise values are growing. The owners want to increase revenue sharing, which would presumably serve to anchor salaries. The owners are also intent on restoring some level of payroll parity among teams; by improving competitive balance, they say, small-revenue teams would become more attractive to fans.

In 1991, 19 of 25 teams had payrolls that were 75 percent or more of what the Yankees spent. The Yankees' current payroll is around $135 million, and only 2 of the 29 other teams — the Texas Rangers and the Boston Red Sox — have spent 75 percent or more of that figure. The Yankees' payroll is more than double those of 17 teams.

Molitor said last week that Donald Fehr, the union chief whom Molitor worked closely with, must address the question of competitive balance, especially "when the majority of his players don't have a chance to win."

"I understand protecting players' rights and players' pay," Molitor said, "but where that balance is struck, I'm not sure."

Either way, "the public is getting tired of it," says Charles B. Craver, professor of labor law at George Washington University. "They feel the owners are too greedy and the players are too greedy.

"The average person whose real wages have remained relatively constant are feeling very tired of it. People are very angry, about what's happened with C.E.O. salaries and other things, and I think they're going to turn on professional athletes if they're not careful."

Baseball's tenuous labor situation also threatens to diminish its attractiveness to television executives and advertisers. "Fifteen years ago, baseball was the No. 1 sport for advertisers using athletes as endorsers," said Bob Williams, president of Burns Sports and Celebrities in Evanston, Ill., a company that matches players with marketers for endorsement deals. "Now I'd have to rank it No. 6 or 7."

One problem for Major League Baseball is that the professional football and basketball leagues market themselves more effectively, Williams said, by focusing on individual players rather than "emphasizing the game."

"Baseball stuck with `America's pastime' and stayed on the old path," he added, "and has paid a dear price."

Additionally, Williams said, baseball has itself to blame for its fading popularity because "it has been the leader in work stoppages, which have forced fans to find other avenues to entertain themselves."

"And they have not come back to baseball with the same passion and commitment," he added.

According to Nielsen Media Research, ratings for the 2002 season to date are mixed. For the games on Fox Broadcasting, owned by the News Corporation, about 1.4 million viewers are watching compared with 1.3 million at this point last season. For the games on ESPN, part of the Walt Disney Company, about 500,000 viewers are watching compared with about 600,000 last season.

The All-Star Game on Fox suffered its lowest ratings ever, according to Nielsen Media Research, watched by 14.7 million people compared with 16 million last year.

"A work stoppage would be a tragedy for all of us," said Jon Nesvig, president for sales at Fox in New York. "Every time baseball gets something good going, something bad happens.

"So far, advertisers are pretty much behind baseball" for this season and the postseason, Nesvig said, "but talk about teams not being able to make a payroll or a strike certainly doesn't help."

Baseball's popularity has suffered before and survived, its recovery often robust. Babe Ruth made everyone forget the Black Sox gambling scandal of 1919. A president encouraged the continuation of Major League Baseball during World War II. A generation that seemed uninterested in the 60's has fed the recovery over the last six seasons.

Fans have tightly gripped their emotional ties to baseball. Increasingly, for the players and owners, it's not personal. It's business.

Nome · 07-14-02, 03:43 PM

Seahorse (Dave),

you're great, I love your posts.

I agree that you can never hurt baseball. But, in my mind you can hurt ML baseball, and the bastards are well on their way to do so.

I will always support minor league baseball, HS baseball, LL baseball, and toss a few with friends and relatives but those bastards who run ML baseball have ruined their game

Andy

#45 · 07-15-02, 03:08 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by Nome

I will always support minor league baseball, HS baseball, LL baseball, and toss a few with friends and relatives but those bastards who run ML baseball have ruined their game

Andy

I assume you're talking about the Yankees.

Nome · 07-15-02, 09:04 AM

Talking about the Yankees? Absolutely not. If the other clubs were run as intellegently as the Yankees, baseball would be in fine shape. Sure, I agree there needs to be some form of revenue sharing. The real problem is the intransigence of the Players association and the owners. They forget that the fans are necessary to the game if it is to continue to suceed.

Most of the current teams management couldn.t be successful running a McDonalds franchise

Andy

07-14-02, 12:21 PM	#1
seahorse Suspended Join Date: Jan 2000 Location: Hilltop Park	Baseball - The game that never fails You can't hurt this game - no matter how hard you try. http://www.nytimes.com/2002/07/14/sp...ll/14GAME.html With Labor Woes, Baseball Throws Fans a Brushback By BUSTER OLNEY with STEVEN GREENHOUSE Even in a time when sports are big business, baseball for many people is a game of catch in the backyard, bleacher seats and hot dogs, a favorite player, a memorable home run. But there is a great disparity between what draws fans to baseball and how the sport operates, abstractions as different as Peter Pan's never-never land and Disney's tax bracket. Rarely has the incongruity been more glaring than in the last week, as owners and players prepared for another battle in a labor war that has spanned more than three decades. Leaders for the players association met in Chicago on Monday and while they did not establish a strike date, they talked ominously about the possibility of walking out before the end of this season. Baseball Commissioner Bud Selig again hinted that some teams would face bankruptcy unless there was significant change in the game's financial structure. Meanwhile, tens of thousands of patrons paid millions of dollars in Milwaukee, first to watch a home run hitting contest on Monday, and then, on Tuesday, they lingered in their seats as the All-Star Game headed into extra innings. But in the bottom of the 11th, an announcement was made that the teams couldn't settle a 7-7 tie, because they had run out of pitchers. The boos of enraged fans — many of whom occupied $175 seats — were not heard by all the players, because some All-Stars had left the park in the middle of the game to catch outbound flights. Fans are fascinated with baseball records, and now there are a growing number of questions about whether many stars are using steroids and other performance-enhancing drugs. Casual fans rediscover the sport in October, and there is real concern that the playoffs and World Series will be canceled by a labor impasse, as they were in 1994. The disconnect is deepening, mirroring the relationship between the players and the owners. In other industries, like steel or automobiles, a company that went through repeated labor battles would suffer competitively. But neither the owners nor the players speak much about what impact another labor-related shutdown would have on the fans' interest in the game. "When you're dealing in an industry or a product that relies on the good will of the public, in that situation it's a risky approach to continually disappoint your audience or your customer base," said Richard W. Hurd, professor of labor relations at Cornell University. "You can't help but wonder whether it's going to catch up with them." Dick Schwingel, a teacher in Northfield, Mass., and an ardent baseball fan and Red Sox follower, said: "There's plenty of us who are addicted, but all kinds of addictions get cured. I'd have a tough time quitting baseball, but if I can quit smoking, I can quit baseball." Attendance is down about 6 percent in the last year, a difference of 2,274,527 fans through July 11, a decline that could be attributed to diminished interest in some of the newest ballparks, like those in Pittsburgh, Milwaukee and Detroit. But attendance dropped about 20 percent after the last strike, in 1994-95, and although it gradually rebounded, with help from the interest generated by Cal Ripken Jr., Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa, some clubs have never recovered — Toronto and Montreal, in particular. Paul Molitor, the former All-Star infielder who was once an officer in the players association, said last week that he was not hopeful for a settlement. "A lot of the rhetoric is the same," he said. "Players have always talked about free market and what our country is built on: supply and demand. Ownership is talking about ways to have some type of increase in competitive balance and find a way for any ballclub to have a chance to win. "We all know as an industry of $3.5 billion, there should be a way to fix it, but it's gotten so far out of hand in terms of revenue streams. There is no easy solution." The baseball players' association is arguably the nation's strongest union, and certainly none has thrived as it has. Bound by the principle that they should have the same rights as others in a capitalist system, the players have repeatedly defeated the owners, through negotiating threats, work interruptions, arbitration and lawsuits; the average player salary has increased from $34,000 in 1969 to nearly $2.4 million this year. The owners' loose coalition has usually been torn apart by competing interests from their own ranks, and in each confrontation with the players, their claims of poverty are undercut by past deception. "This is going to kill us," the Twins' owner, Calvin Griffith, said in 1975, after losing $7,000 in an arbitration. Each side seems conditioned by history. The owners demand change. The players entrench. Negotiations collapse. The owners' alliance eventually crumbles. A settlement is protracted. Hurd believes the industry is unique because of the unusual bargaining power of each side. The business of baseball cannot exist without the players — whereas truckers and auto workers have been replaced — while the owners, on the other hand, have exploited their antitrust exemption. These factors allow the two sides to dig in during negotiations. "It's very unusual today to have either a strike or lockout for almost every contract," Hurd said. "It was not as unusual in the 1940's and 50's. It's quite some time since we've seen an industry where work stoppages occur on a regular basis every time a contract expires." The owners have long doubted that the players could hold together as a union, says William B. Gould IV, the former chairman of the National Labor Relations Board and a professor of labor law at Stanford University Law School. But "the problem in getting the players to make concessions is they have been so successful," Gould said. "They have won at every step. It's hard to get people to compromise when you look at the past record." Gould mentioned the $252 million contract of Alex Rodriguez as "the classic example of how they now believe there is going to be a golden egg that will be laid by the goose forever. It's hard to disabuse the players of this idea." Major League Baseball executives say most teams are incurring enormous losses; union members say revenue streams and franchise values are growing. The owners want to increase revenue sharing, which would presumably serve to anchor salaries. The owners are also intent on restoring some level of payroll parity among teams; by improving competitive balance, they say, small-revenue teams would become more attractive to fans. In 1991, 19 of 25 teams had payrolls that were 75 percent or more of what the Yankees spent. The Yankees' current payroll is around $135 million, and only 2 of the 29 other teams — the Texas Rangers and the Boston Red Sox — have spent 75 percent or more of that figure. The Yankees' payroll is more than double those of 17 teams. Molitor said last week that Donald Fehr, the union chief whom Molitor worked closely with, must address the question of competitive balance, especially "when the majority of his players don't have a chance to win." "I understand protecting players' rights and players' pay," Molitor said, "but where that balance is struck, I'm not sure." Either way, "the public is getting tired of it," says Charles B. Craver, professor of labor law at George Washington University. "They feel the owners are too greedy and the players are too greedy. "The average person whose real wages have remained relatively constant are feeling very tired of it. People are very angry, about what's happened with C.E.O. salaries and other things, and I think they're going to turn on professional athletes if they're not careful." Baseball's tenuous labor situation also threatens to diminish its attractiveness to television executives and advertisers. "Fifteen years ago, baseball was the No. 1 sport for advertisers using athletes as endorsers," said Bob Williams, president of Burns Sports and Celebrities in Evanston, Ill., a company that matches players with marketers for endorsement deals. "Now I'd have to rank it No. 6 or 7." One problem for Major League Baseball is that the professional football and basketball leagues market themselves more effectively, Williams said, by focusing on individual players rather than "emphasizing the game." "Baseball stuck with `America's pastime' and stayed on the old path," he added, "and has paid a dear price." Additionally, Williams said, baseball has itself to blame for its fading popularity because "it has been the leader in work stoppages, which have forced fans to find other avenues to entertain themselves." "And they have not come back to baseball with the same passion and commitment," he added. According to Nielsen Media Research, ratings for the 2002 season to date are mixed. For the games on Fox Broadcasting, owned by the News Corporation, about 1.4 million viewers are watching compared with 1.3 million at this point last season. For the games on ESPN, part of the Walt Disney Company, about 500,000 viewers are watching compared with about 600,000 last season. The All-Star Game on Fox suffered its lowest ratings ever, according to Nielsen Media Research, watched by 14.7 million people compared with 16 million last year. "A work stoppage would be a tragedy for all of us," said Jon Nesvig, president for sales at Fox in New York. "Every time baseball gets something good going, something bad happens. "So far, advertisers are pretty much behind baseball" for this season and the postseason, Nesvig said, "but talk about teams not being able to make a payroll or a strike certainly doesn't help." Baseball's popularity has suffered before and survived, its recovery often robust. Babe Ruth made everyone forget the Black Sox gambling scandal of 1919. A president encouraged the continuation of Major League Baseball during World War II. A generation that seemed uninterested in the 60's has fed the recovery over the last six seasons. Fans have tightly gripped their emotional ties to baseball. Increasingly, for the players and owners, it's not personal. It's business.

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07-14-02, 03:43 PM	#2
Nome NYYF Legend Join Date: Feb 2000 Location: Branchburg, NJ 08876	Seahorse (Dave), you're great, I love your posts. I agree that you can never hurt baseball. But, in my mind you can hurt ML baseball, and the bastards are well on their way to do so. I will always support minor league baseball, HS baseball, LL baseball, and toss a few with friends and relatives but those bastards who run ML baseball have ruined their game Andy

07-15-02, 09:04 AM	#4
Nome NYYF Legend Join Date: Feb 2000 Location: Branchburg, NJ 08876	Talking about the Yankees? Absolutely not. If the other clubs were run as intellegently as the Yankees, baseball would be in fine shape. Sure, I agree there needs to be some form of revenue sharing. The real problem is the intransigence of the Players association and the owners. They forget that the fans are necessary to the game if it is to continue to suceed. Most of the current teams management couldn.t be successful running a McDonalds franchise Andy


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