OP-ED: The sad state of baseball
As we near the Dec. 1 expiration of the contract between Major League Baseball and the players’ union, this diehard baseball fan who is about to embark upon an 11th season as a Pirates season ticket holder frets.
Animosity and distrust between the two sides has reached an apex, and there is every reason to expect that the owners will lock out the players as an agreement fails to materialize.
Both team and owners and players are fabulously wealthy. The average player salary in 2021 garnered $4.17 million per year. Many star quality players sign multi-year pacts which guarantee them hundreds of millions of dollars. The owners whose investments enable the sport to exist are earning millions and millions of dollars each year through various means.
In many respects, the sport is in a sick state. Attendance is declining. Interest among minorities is waning. Games are too long and the League has chosen all the wrong ways to attempt to shorten them.
Rules have been instituted which offend traditionalists like me. This season a runner was placed on second base to begin each inning in games which are tied after nine. An intentional walk is issued automatically, the pitcher no longer required to throw four pitches to the catcher. Doubleheaders, which used to be common, are now seven innings. It is all but certain that the designated hitter rule will be thrust upon the National League next year, removing a great deal of strategy from the game.
Umpire review of close plays was initiated in order to reverse calls that had obviously been blown. It has morphed into something else: removing the human element from umpiring as extremely close plays are looked at from every possible angle by a crew in New York City, causing the game to come to a halt, often for minutes.
What is next: robot umpires, shortening all games to seven innings, and not requiring a batter who hits a home run to run the bases?
The economics of the game cause huge disparities from team to team despite efforts of the League to spread revenue to smaller market teams like the Pirates. The owners dare not insist on the salary cap which every other sport enjoys as the union has made it clear that it will not stand for such a thing. The Pirates will never be able to afford to sign a superstar: no hope that there will ever again be an athlete of the caliber of Roberto Clemente or Willie Stargell who spend their entire career with the same club, including through years of greatness.
As we Pirates fans are all too aware, there is no mechanism in the sport which compels an owner to spend in order to put a competitive team on the field. The players’ union is said to be seeking such a provision in a new contract. I wish them a lot of luck with that.
The last baseball strike took place in 1994. It damaged the game immensely as fans, regardless of which side they deemed to be in favor, failed to understand how a sport which is flush with multi-multi-millionaires, could not come up with a way to equitably distribute the cash and keep everyone fat and happy.
I have upgraded to fantastic seats for next season due to my longevity as a season ticket holder. I hope that my wife and other companions and I will have the opportunity to sit in them.
Oren Spiegler lives in Peters Township.