Redstate Sports

By GaryCook Comments (3) / Email this page » / Leave a comment »

At age 12, I found myself totally addicted to baseball. That was in 1957.

Mickey Mantle was my boyhood idol, and I was a St. Louis Cardinal fan through my teen years and beyond. I recall with fondness hearing Harry Cary’s “holy cow!” when Ken Boyer would make a diving stop of a sizzling grounder, or when Lou Brock stole another base.

Back in those days, I knew virtually every player on every team because trades were rarer than they are today. Mantle was always a Yankee; Stan “The Man” Musial a Cardinal, Ernie banks a Cub, and Eddie Matthews a Brave. The sports page headlines were about the Mick’s mammoth home run that came within inches of leaving Yankee Stadium, Musial’s five home runs in a Sunday double header, and the Yankee “M & M” squad’s historic chase for Ruth’s record.

During that 1961 assault, my dad would let me play hooky from school when the Yanks came to Kansas City, and I watched many of those home runs from box seats in KC's old Municipal Stadium that cost $3.50.

All of that changed in 1969 when Curt Flood challenged the Reserve Clause, thus setting up the free agency process. Things went from bad to worse when Marvin Miller arrived on the scene and quickly turned the MLB Player’s Association into one of the most powerful unions in the nation.

Today, the headlines are about who got busted for substance abuse, A-Rod’s quarter BILLION dollar contracts, “superstars” going to the highest bidder, and raging debates over whether Barry Bonds’ homerun records should stand (they should NOT). It’s about players’ strikes, contract disputes, and Congressional hearings on substance abuse in Major League Baseball. Hell, one needs a full-time data statistician to keep up with who is playing for what team anymore.

What happened to the game I once loved?

I completely gave up on MLB in 1994 when the World Series was cancelled over a contract dispute. I won’t support multi-million dollar crybabies or the advertisers who bring us the “Yankee game of the week” on our HD televisions. I won’t encourage my grandchildren to look to MLB players as their role model.

Bud Selig is a wimp who wets his pants every time Donald Fehr speaks or does a number “two” when George Steinbrenner barks. His most solemn duty as Commissioner is to protect, defend, and preserve the integrity of the game. On that score, he gets a resounding “F.”

Substance abuse has been around for a long time and it was as obvious and as blatant as an elephant standing on the pitcher’s mound throwing baseballs out of his trunk. Where was Selig? During the televised Congressional hearing that featured McGuire, Sosa, Canseco and a few others, Selig’s only defense for letting the game go to hell was “it’s all because of the players’ union!” Congress had to step in to do what Selig was too wimpy to do. How pathetic is that?

The NFL is a huge success with true balance among teams because of salary caps, and to a lesser degree – the draft. MLB has deteriorated because of the LACK of salary caps and because people like Steinbrenner and the late Gene Autry were willing to BUY a championship – whatever the cost.

In the latest contract negotiations with the MLBPA, the owners had the best chance ever to put salary caps in place because public sentiment was clearly NOT on the side of the players. Another strike would have been devastating to the players and the game – and the players and Fehr knew it. But Selig was too afraid of getting crossways with Fehr or Steinbrenner and so he didn’t push it.

I sincerely miss the days when baseball was a game. Maybe sometime during my lifetime, it can come back to the sport I grew up loving with a deep and abiding passion.

But I’m not holding my breath.