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Tuesday, December 22, 1992 Page:
for 12-27-92
Boycott baseball? OK, fine — but you go first
It doesn’t seem so long ago that Kirby Puckett created a fuss by becoming
the first baseball player to collect a $3 million salaryIt doesn’t seem so
long because it wasn’t — it was just over three years ago that Puckett signed
his history-making contract with the Minnesota Twins.
Nowadays, $3 million is a drop in the bucket for a baseball player. Puckett
just signed a new five-year, $30 million contract with the Twins.
Another outfielder, Barry Bonds, agreed to a six-year deal with the San
Francisco Giants that will pay him more than $43 million.
Mickey Mantle was on TV recently, shaking his head in amazement about these
incredible salaries and reminiscing about the year he won baseball’s Triple
Crown — leading the American League in batting average, home runs and
runs-batted-in — and was rewarded with a monstrous pay raise that increased
his salary to $60,000.
OK, times have changed. When Mickey Mantle was playing, back in the 1950s
and ’60s, that $60,000 paycheck was a lot of dough. But if Barry Bonds is
worth $43 million, what would Mickey Mantle earn in the marketplace of the
’90s? Or Willie Mays? Ted Williams? Stan Musial?
Today’s baseball-playing zillionaires are magnificent athletes, but there
isn’t one of them who is in a class with a Mantle or Mays.
But nostalgia isn’t the issue here. And neither is envy — although those
of us who habitually complain about ballplayers’ outrageous salaries are
routinely accused of being “jealous” of others’ success.
I’m not jealous of Barry Bonds, or Kirby Puckett, or any of baseball’s
overpaid prima donnas. I don’t begrudge them their fortunes or their fame.
But something is wrong with a “sport” — a “national pastime” — that
throws around money like this. How long can this go on? Isn’t there bound to
be a point of no return? Isn’t there bound to be one blockbuster contract that
finally breaks the bank, one escalation of the salary structure that exceeds
what the market will bear?
This was to be the year that owners of major-league baseball teams restored
some sanity to their sport’s payrolls.
Instead, the owners gathered in Louisville, Ky., for their annual winter
meetings and gleefully doled out $260 million in new salary commitments.
These are the same team owners who are constantly whining that their teams
don’t make enough money and that player salaries are too high; the same owners
who are constantly raising ticket prices, concession prices, parking prices;
the same owners who are constantly demanding that taxpayers foot the bill to
build a new ballpark or renovate an old one.
The same owners who routinely threaten to move their teams to a new city if
they don’t get what they want.
In 1990, fans talked about staging a boycott in response to a baseball
“labor dispute” that delayed the start of spring training. When the season
finally started, of course, fans poured into the ballparks as if nothing had
happened.
I did boycott baseball that season, and a lonely boycott it was. I know of
just one other fan who joined me.
Worse, my boycott served no purpose. I missed baseball, but baseball didn’t
miss me. Despite my refusal to watch him play, Kirby Puckett still got his $3
million.
I’ve heard rumblings that fans might be receptive to the idea of a baseball
boycott in 1993 — especially if owners stage a “lockout” that delays the
start of spring training or the regular season.
Well, if there are fans out there who want to boycott baseball next season,
I want to hear from you. I’d be willing to participate in a boycott as a
protest against overpriced tickets, overpaid players and avaricious owners.
But I won’t do it alone. If I have to live through another spring, summer
and fall without baseball, I want some company.
Bill Thompson, former associate editor of The Times Leader, is a columnist
for the Fort Worth Star-Telegram.