Baseball's strike pitch

If (when?) baseball goes dark, the NFL will be laughing

As some of you may know, I like baseball. It has to do a lot with my youth; with my exhausted southpaw father having played catch with me in our Connecticut backyard after getting home from his ironworker job, with the fun trips to Fenway, with tradition. And I will start this column by saying I know none of the particulars in the looming baseball bloodbath. I saw Donald Fehr at a restaurant on 54th Street in Manhattan last year. I saw Bud Selig at Lambeau Field once.

List of the week The NFL players who are scheduled to account for more than 10 percent of their team's $71.1-million salary cap in 2002 ...   Player, Position, Team Cap Number  1. Michael Strahan, DE, Giants $12.26 million  2. Peyton Manning, QB, Colts $10.33 million  3. Emmitt Smith, RB, Cowboys $10.31 million  4. Curtis Martin, RB, Jets $9.46 million  5. Michael McCrary, DE, Ravens $8.70 million*  6. Jake Plummer, QB, Cardinals $8.68 million  7. Ray Lewis, LB, Ravens $8.47 million  * Likely to be renegotiated.

But there's one thing that really ticks me off about the baseball dispute that threatens to shut down the game before the end of the season. It is that it is never-ending. It is Palestinian-Israeli without the bombs. I have no hope in whatever Kissingeresque Band-Aid that is put on the fight this year or next, no hope that it will ever get fixed for the long term in my lifetime. For the rest of our days, we'll have to spend boring hours hearing players complaining that $15 million a year isn't enough money -- though they won't say it, we all know that's what this is about -- and listening to owners, those dumb enough to pay OK players sick money, talk about how the players are killing the business.

The big difference between football and baseball is that the owners and commissioner in football have built a trust with their union through the years. Baseball doesn't have a Dan Rooney or Wellington Mara. These are two of the finest men I've ever met, selfless men who care passionately about their teams, but just as much about their sport. Lots of people can say that about their own businesses, but I've seen time and again that Rooney and Mara live it. How lucky is the NFL to have the giants of their game be real giants among men? Union boss Gene Upshaw knows his side gets two-thirds of every NFL dollar that comes into the coffers from tickets and TV and T-shirts. He's a former player. He loves the game. His rank-and-file is getting 65 percent of the gross. Relatively speaking, the owners are happy, and the players are happy, and the fans (except for the overwhelming annual turnover forced by free agency and the salary cap) are happy.

Now, I can see a star player in football being a little bit annoyed. Peyton Manning will make $6.3 million this year. He is as valuable to his team as any baseball player is to his. Alex Rodriguez makes four times as much, Manny Ramirez three. A-Rod's never won a thing. The Red Sox just took two of three from Seattle without Ramirez. The Colts could never win two of three against great competition without Manning. But the star player in football knows the score.

The star football player says: I make more money than I ever dreamed of making, and I can make $40,000 to sign some footballs and helmets one afternoon if I want to, and I'm part of the golden goose. I'd be an idiot to kill it.

The star baseball player says: The owners are rat-finks, the owners are lying, the owners are filthy rich, and $12 million a year is a pittance to pay me if I can hit .268.

And so now we'll head toward another baseball strike. The NFL, believe me, is laughing about this. The Yankees just drew 139,000 people on a mostly soggy weekend to watch three games against the Twins -- the Twins! -- and they, along with the rest of the game, will let another work stoppage happen. You'll hear players say it's not their fault, and you'll hear owners say it's not their fault, and you'll hear them all say they wish they didn't have to put the fans through this. And I have no doubt I'll be reading those same words when I'm 85.

I must be sick for liking this game so much.

In an entertaining interview Saturday on ESPN Radio, Phils radio broadcaster Harry Kalas noted the team's 3-17 road record at the time, and said maybe the whole team ought to go out and tie one on.

1a. I think Nate is to be congratulated. His full-of-lies relationship with Brenda in Six Feet Under is over, apparently. And I must say I have never heard a more damaging breakup conversation than the one those two exchanged in Sunday night's second-to-last show of the season. Brenda, quite obviously, is a first-class sicko, a pathological weirdo who I feel sure would sleep with any non-corpse on the planet. Well, not sleep, really. She makes an interesting person in a compelling show, but I have stretched for some time to believe that a pretty normal guy like Nate would be interested in a woman who someday would end up cutting off his head with a machete.

b. I think, speaking of funeral directors who should break up with their loved ones, that you'd better get out of that Keith thing right now, David. In the previews for next week's show you get bashed up against the wall by this hothead, and didn't we all know that was coming?

2. I think the funniest thing that happened during the NFL owners meetings in Houston this week was the discovery that the Competition Committee will study whether to make a rule on the opening and closing of the retractable roof of the new Texans stadium. Could it be an unfair advantage, owners fret, if the Texans open and close the roof the way the Giants used to open and close the east and west end gates to let the wind rush in? Silly. The roof takes 10 minutes to retract anyway. The league just ought to say if the game starts with the roof open, it will stay open all game.

3. I think these are my personal thoughts of the week:

a. Montclair (N.J.) High School Softball Note of the Week: After three consecutive single-digit-win years, the Mounties (15-9) have earned a trip to the New Jersey state playoffs, with a home game against Union County foe Linden High on Thursday. We lost two of three last week, but Your Favorite Player, Mary Beth King, did line a 60 mph fastball off Christine Doyle of the state's No. 1 ranked team, Immaculate Heart Academy, up the middle in the first, and did come around to score the fifth run that 22-0 IHA has surrendered all year. IHA 4, Montclair 1.

b. Coffeenerdness: No complaints this week. A record.

c. Ann and I watched Training Day on pay-per-view while waiting for Mary Beth to return from the Junior Prom, and I must say it's one of the best movies I've seen in a long time. Denzel Washington is terrific as the crooked cop, and Ethan Hawke is just as good as the cop who won't be destroyed by Denzel's chicanery. Great characters.

d. Then Ann and I watched the end of one of the most entertaining baseball games I've seen in a while. Fourteen innings, 13 runs for the Yankees,12 for the Twins. Jason Giambi, you the man. Even though I don't like your team.

4. I think, after attending the final game of Nets-Hornets, that Jason Kidd could actually turn me into an NBA fan. Or at least a fan of whatever team he plays for. Kidd makes all things -- euphoria, disaster, a nearly-no-look three-pointer -- possible.

5. I think Jerry Jones feels awful about having to whack Ryan Leaf because he likes Leaf and his wife, and because Leaf really has turned over a new one. But it's coming, son. It's coming. If I were the Giants, I'd claim Leaf the minute he's on the waiver wire. I doubt he can play, but at the NFL minimum, and with Kerry Collins on the cusp of the final year of his contract, why not try?

6. I think Cade McNown's in trouble in Miami. Norv Turner likes accurate quarterbacks, and he might see Robert Morris University free agent Tim Levcik as a better fit for his offense this summer than McNown. How the mighty have fallen. I really like McNown, and his heroic running-and-passing performance for the Bears in the 2000 opener at Minnesota shows he has a place in this league. I must be the only one who thinks that.

7. I think Jim Haslett would be nuts to sign an extension with Tom Benson in New Orleans unless Benson gives him more than Mike Ditka's last salary, which was $2.5 million a year. Haslett's won 18 games in two years. Ditka won 15 in three years.

8. I think the reason so many people in the NFL look at the new football chief in Cleveland, Pete Garcia, with a jaundiced eye is that they think Garcia may play outside the NFL rules. Garcia used to work at the University of Miami under Butch Davis. He's still friends with the football staff there, obviously. And at Miami's bowl game this year, there was Garcia in full view of the national TV cameras, shown time after time on the Hurricanes sideline. This was a clear NFL no-no. It's an unfair advantage to be with a bowl team at its game, and the NFL has told that to Garcia and the Browns in no uncertain terms.

9. I think one of the most overrated positions in the NFL is capologist. Yes, it's important to have a good handle on your cap. But the best capologists have one thing in common: GMs who know how to say no.

10. I think I'd like to say one thing to the 1,700 men who are two months away from training camp: You'd better get that ephedrine out of your system now, and find some way to lose those extra pounds that doesn't include a stimulant.

Sports Illustrated senior writer Peter King covers the NFL beat for the magazine and is a regular contributor to CNNSI.com. Monday Morning Quarterback appears in this space -- no kidding -- on Monday mornings.

 

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