No clemency for greed
Posted: Wednesday March 03, 1999 12:41 PM
The gag a few years ago was that cocaine was God's way of telling us that we had
too much
money.
Well, I'm sure none of the fools who pretend to run baseball -- management or
labor -- will pay any attention, but we can now safely say that the Yankees'
acquisition of Roger Clemens is God's way of telling us that the Yankees have
too much money, too much power, too much
everything.
To add the best pitcher in baseball to the best team in baseball is dreadful for
baseball. The fact that such a vulgar thing can happen at all is proof that
baseball is on the edge of
implosion.
Oh, this is not to suggest that the Yankees are the only wretched excess in our
Nasty Pastime. To be sure, they are the diamond's Louis XIVth, but there are a
few other lesser Bourbons as well, crowding the top of the
standings.
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Heinz Kluetmeier |
The point is that baseball is not a healthy society now. It is a class war, and
there is no middle class. A few teams, like the Yankees, are very wealthy. As
baseball's economic gap grows, most others, without resources, are obliged to
give up the ghost and join the peasantry. If you cannot possibly win with, say,
a $35 million payroll, then you might as well not win with a $15 million payroll
-- or less. Montreal proved that
point.
It is disingenuous of George Steinbrenner, the fatuous owner of the Yankees, to
protest that Clemens was not purchased, but was obtained in a trade. Technically
this is true, but Clemens would only allow himself to be sent to a contending
team, and only rich teams can be contenders, and so there is a vicious circle.
Besides, now the Yankees will be even better, and Clemens will be rewarded with
a massive new contract. The gap will widen. The few smug Bourbons of baseball
bid against each other, grossly overpaying, while the peasants sit there, with
their little runny noses pressed up against the windowpane, unable to even get
into the candy
store.
Language deceives. It has been common to refer to the Yankees and the other
profligate franchises as "Big-Market Teams," the others as
"Small-Market Teams." In fact, this is a misleading simplification.
For example, while Philadelphia is the sixth-largest metropolitan area in the
United States, and Cleveland is 14th, and Philadelphia is literally twice as
large as Cleveland, it is Philadelphia that operates as a small-market team,
Cleveland as
big.
The size of a cable-TV contract, the type of stadium, the number of luxury boxes
-- all these things matter more than mere population. Or, to be specific and
realistic, a so-called small-market team is better defined simply as one that
cannot possibly win. If we stopped referring to franchises as big and small,
but, instead, employed more accurate names, we could understand better the true
bifurcated state of baseball. We should label baseball franchises as either: a)
Viable or b)
Surrender.
We don't have Surrender Franchises in the NFL and the NBA. Every team at least
has a chance. A hope. Of course, defenders of the status quo will whine that
baseball is business. This is true. But that does not mean that baseball is a
business like any other. It must accept business rules that benefit the whole
culture.
If not, baseball will soon enough belong only to the privileged few teams and
stars.
Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa can't divert us from the ugly truth every
season.
These commentaries, which appear each Wednesday on National Public Radio's Morning Edition, are posted weekly by CNN/SI.
SI Photo Essay: Roger Clemens - Big Apple Bound
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