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 Share the wealth Royals' fans protest baseball salary disparities
Posted: Friday April 30, 1999 09:59 PM
KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) -- About 3,000 fans walked out of Kauffman Stadium during the Yankees-Royals game Friday in protest of baseball economics that pitted one of the richest teams against one of the poorest. The fans, wearing shirts that read "$hare the Wealth" had gathered hours before the game to drink beer and line up for general admission tickets as the sponsoring radio station broadcast it's call-in show live from the stadium. The fans filled the left field bleachers, turning their backs when the Yankees were at bat. They chanted "Share the wealth" and "Let's go Royals" before leaving when Derek Jeter grounded into a forceout for the first out of the fourth inning. One fan waved a sign that read "George Steinbrenner Death of Baseball." It took nearly 15 minutes for the protesters to empty the left field seats. Some other fans not taking part filled some of the seats. Some of the fans littered the left field corner with fake $100 dollar bills as they left. They went from the stadium about a half-mile to the parking lot of a hotel where big screen televisions were set up for them to watch the rest of the game. "That group of people think it's important to bring it to everyone's attention," Royals manager Tony Muser said. "They are doing what they think is right." Yankees center fielder Bernie Williams was a particular target of the fans. Williams, whose $10 million salary easily was more than the entire Royals team on the field, was booed by fans as the team bus arrived. "I felt like I was walking to [a '60s protest] somewhere," Williams said. "This is not about the Yankees, it's about the payroll disparity in baseball," said 32-year-old David Utz. "There is no way for us to even compete. It's not against the Yankees, it's just that they are the poster boys for the big money in baseball. We just can't compete." Fans waved fake bills at the Yankees players in a protest organized by KCTE, an all-sports station. The station is in a ratings war, but sports director Kevin Kietzman said the protest was not a programming stunt. "Every idea we have was generated by callers," Kietzman said. "The shirts, the posters with the skeletons, where we're going when we walk out -- fans said we need to go somewhere with big screen TV's. We asked the fans. The fans have never been heard from before." The fans left small posters with skeletons on their seats as they left. Some Yankees players took the pregame gathering in stride. "The best way for them to support the Royals is to come out and be at the games, and not criticize us for what we're doing," Jeter said. The start of the four-game series with the Yankees was symbolic -- these two teams had a bitter rivalry in the late '70s that culminated in George Brett's dramatic three-run homer in Yankee Stadium off Goose Gossage in 1980 that put the Royals into their first World Series. But now the Royals are nothing but a poor sister in a sport where proposals of revenue sharing have gone nowhere and the luxury tax is of little help. The Royals were hopelessly outclassed last year in losing all 10 games to the Yankees. New York puts 17 millionaires on the field. The Royals put six -- and they desperately want to shave costs by trading two of them, Kevin Appier and Jeff King. It puts Kansas City, trying to get below $20 million in payroll, down at the bottom with the likes of Florida, Milwaukee, Pittsburgh, Minnesota and Montreal -- the Expos are trying to compete at $17.3 million. "I'm very conservative and I believe the free market applies," said Mark Kennedy, one of the fans who planned on joining the walkout. "But this is not a normal business situation. There is a finite number of teams. If another team can't get in the market, then the normal rules don't apply. "If George Steinbrenner wants to say he doesn't care about other teams, that's ignoring that nobody wants to see the same teams in the playoffs and the World Series all the time. Nobody wants to see the New York's the Chicago's, the Los Angeles' the Boston's playing each other all time." The city, which has a long tradition of Negro Leagues baseball and has been an American League club since it was founded in 1968 by Ewing Kauffman, faces the real prospect of losing its franchise. Kennedy, who works as a project manager for one of the largest employers in the city in Sprint Corp., said losing a baseball team could be devastating. "If Kansas City loses the Royals, it would have a huge impact on the city economically and in terms of being a big league city," said Kennedy, who planned to walk out on what was a beautiful day for baseball in Kansas City. "I believe in the free market, so this is really against my general principles. But this is not a normal business situation."
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