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Home : Fantasy Baseball : Perspectives
KingFish TalesThe State of the Game and Beyond!February 22, 2002Author: KingFish |
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The State of the Game and Beyond! Written by; RockieBill, Trots, JamesMetFan, Bear, USC2002, GiveHyzduaShot KingFish The following is perhaps one of the most enlightened one day threads that I have read in quite some time concerning the state of the game of baseball. It all started with a rather innocent posting by RockieBill on the Addict Sports Site. Others followed and added even more but this snapshot was something else. It turned into one dynamite thread! RockieBill ”Now then, if we had a commissioner that had a spine, this sort of BS would not be going on. As far as Japanese players coming into the league, they should be subject to the amateur draft, just like every other rookie. They're not rookies, ya' say? As long as they're eligible for ROY honors, they're rookies! Sheesh, this game needs some help - and it's not coming from Selig...” JamesMetFan quickly followed that with; The gauntlet had been thrown down. Either take up the challenge or run away and hide. They didn’t hide! RockieBill This whole rookie thing is such a sore spot with me, James. The amateur draft is so totally corrupt, I don't even know why they bother to call it a draft. Most teams don't have a chance in hell of signing their first round picks, and when they do, they pay through the nose. The overseas players are just beginning to see how much money can be wrung out of the system. All of the money involved just begs to be fought over. Fiascos like JD Drew, Matt Harrington - even Little League parental violence and the Danny Almonte embarrassment - all of this happens because there's so much money involved. The complete amateur system needs to be blown up as it stands and rebuilt from the ground up. It seems no one is in the game just for the love of the game anymore. As usual that Large mouth Fish swam right into the middle of the fray.. KingFish And you know.. It wasn't that way when I was growing up but it seems to be the way the system has developed. Is it right? Absolutely not but to tell you the truth I hope the guy doesn't sign with the Dodgers. Sure Nomo and Sasaki did well when they came over but I'm not sold on this guy. I truly believe the Dodgers are making another mistake here and that money would be better spent developing there own talent. Why are they doing this? Corporate ownership may once again be driving the decision making process that team management is forced to win now and the heck with tomorrow. By golly that is the same attitude that got the Dodgers in the sad shape they are today. Is the problem local to just the Dodgers? No way. Look around at all the corporate owned teams. They are all operating that way. What does this do to the support system/farm teams/amateurs? It forces them down the same path. Do I blame the players for trying to get all they can? Sorry but no. They are not the ones responsible for setting the business of baseball up. You have to look hard at the ownership to see where the root cause of this degradation of the game is coming from. Is there a way out? Well if the owners do not do it on their own, and I simply do not see them doing that, then someone else will have to step in and do it for them. I think the first move in that direction will be the lifting of the anti trust exemption. At least this would force the corporate ownership to manage their businesses in a regulated environment. The problem with that may be, what would prevent a team from operating like Enron? They got away with it and the baam! The hammer comes down. Nope, it has to start with a change of Commish that is not selected by the owners. It will have to be force fed to them and they will be held accountable. I'll give you a prime example of how out of control they really are right now. John Henry owns parts of three teams at the same time! What up with that? It is a clear rules violation but the rest of ownership is choosing to ignore the rules for now. The Commish isn’t saying anything. It will all be worked out. Well how in the world did it ever get that way in the first place? Corporate greed! Who suffers? You got that right, the fan! Who can change it, the voter! You make sure your representative knows how you feel about the state of the game and it will be changed. Votes are too valuable to be ignored. Make it an issue and it will be. If we don't I fear for the future of this great game. We were on a roll now but things were just warming up it seems! Bear followed with; Nice rant, Kingfish!! Vintage stuff! While I agree with both you and Rockiebill and James, I must take issue with one very important thing you suggest: "Do I blame the players for trying to get all they can? Sorry but no. They are not the ones responsible for setting the business of baseball up." I too, do not blame the players for trying to get all they can--as long as it is not taking something important away from the game itself. While it is technically true that the players are not responsible for the business side, it is they-the players-who for some unknown reason has to ALLOW the owners to change the draft, change the rookie rules, and change the way money is spent! That's like you and I vetoing our company's investment plan, their choice of moving to a new building when they outgrow the old facility, the corporate structure, the date for the shareholder's meeting, th--well, you get the picture! Some fun, eh? A quick shot to the jaw! JamesMetFan Agreed!! Its not really the players fault...After all we as people will always try to get as much as possible...It is the responsibility of our bosses, or in the case of MLB players, the owners, to keep salaries at a reasonable rate.... Nothing wrong with asking, but owners should not pay these ridiculous amounts... Great points by all Countering with a punishing hook to the body! KingFish Hmmmmm… Point taken Bear but... (There is always a but isn't there?) After the recent Enron fiasco, the analogy to business practices of corporations and employee ability to effect them may not be the best to use to attack the players for what they do to the game. It turns out that it may be very appropriate for employees to veto a lot of what corporate business does ala forced purchase of company owned stock. That is a major issue with the company I am with right now. In fact I wish we would of had the ability to veto them shutting down our manufacturing at our LA site. The plan was to build a machining facility in So Carolina to take advantage of much lower labor rate and huge tax breaks offered by the state. Looks good on the surface for sure. To bad there are zero available Aerospace, out of work skilled machinists in that state. To bad there are not any skilled machinists that are willing to take huge pay cuts to leave sunny California to live and work in the lush tropical paradise of South Carolina. This was a short sighted, quick profit management move doomed to fail and we are now taking a multi-million dollar hits for what the employees knew was a major mistake. During the time that the decision was passed down to us I and several other veteran managers gained the mark of being "resistor's to change" because we were vocal in our disagreement with the plan at the time. We knew it was wrong. I am now the last of those managers. The rest are all gone and while I have achieved cult hero status with the employees for my heroic stand, I'm history as far as our new-enlightened management is concerned. I state again, I do not blame/fault the players. They are only doing what all employees do. They try to get the most income they can. They try to get all that the employer is willing to pay. If employers do not pay it, the employees simply cannot expect to get more. Employers set their wage scales based on what they can afford and baseline them against similar business entities to ensure their pay levels are high enough to attract good employees and low enough to not negatively effect the bottom line profit margins. The current state of affairs in baseball is a forced situation and the responsibility for it falls squarely on the slouching shoulders of ownership and the Commish's slippery back. The current accounting methods employed by ownership is geared to show loss. Magic pencils at work and a bean counters heaven. The Commish is as wrapped up in it as any other owner. My gosh, he is an owner for crimeanee's sake. He is knee deep in the muck now and he will suck the game down with him and the rest of the greedy bastards. So the players are to blame? I think not. I'm a Six Sigma Black Belt (loosely translated it means I am a business problem solving expert) and take my word for it when I say, "A vast majority of today’s business leaders are degreed Masters of Business majors with little or no real world experience or business ability." They very simply do not have a clue of how to go about building or running a business. They are textbook brilliant and business stupid. The focus of most their efforts is short-term profit and/or immediate increased stock value, neither of which may have anything to do with a running a sound, thriving business. My apologies to any of you Business grads out there and I have met a few that are actually good business managers. They are rare though, very rare indeed. Will removing the anti-trust laws change this? We'll again take Enron as an example. Enron had to live with the anti-trust regulations but that did not prevent them from destroying thousands of families and their hard earned retirement incomes. At least the law was there to prevent this from happening and criminal proceedings can and most likely will begin although it will take years to settle all the cases. So what can be done for the game? Followed by two quick jabs in succession I wish el cheapo AOL Time Warner would start blowing money so the Braves could buy themselves another World Series... Then a right! Then a right! KingFish Yep… Profits my son, it all comes down to profit. If they thought they could make money the investment would be there ala Sheffield. And then a roundhouse power punch from out of nowhere! Trots Good points all the way around, gang. Allow me to add my two cents. First the Ishii deal. I really don't care if he comes or not. If he wants to play here, he will. If not, he can stay in Japan. I agree with KingFish, I am dubious about Ishii's value. The Dodgers would have been better off giving Sheffield the cash. As for the business analogies, I won't even pretend to understand economics, but what if MLB went the same way as Enron? Or died a slower death, ala K-Mart? What harm would be done? No, really. Think about it. If MLB fell over from it's own weight/stupidity/greed what would we lose? We'd lose the greedy, moronic, double-talking owners we are presently saddled with. We'd have to survive without Bud Selig, too. Sure we might lose the history associated with team names like Red Sox, Yankees and Dodgers, but something tells me we would still have the game. There are just too many of us baseball geeks left in the world for the game to go away. While baseball's popularity continues it's decline in the US, it gains in Latin America, Asia and other places around the globe. I have to believe in this global marketplace somebody would start up a new league pretty quickly after MLB collapsed. There is still a large market for the sport, albeit smaller and less passionate here than fifty years ago, and we have a seemingly endless source of labor and lots of new stadiums that would be left empty if MLB crumbled. Somebody would start a new league, with some new rules (especially in regards to the draft and probably salary structure) and we would all follow along. While we all lament the condition of baseball at the start of this century, we should remember that people did the same thing at the start of the previous century, as well. Players were viewed then as overpaid whiners, just as they are today. The AL was just getting off the ground, McGraw wouldn't even let the Giants play against them, and Commissioner Ban Johnson owned a piece of nearly every team in the league. (There is a great story of how Johnson, annoyed with an owner, sold the guy's team away from him while he was on vacation in Europe. He got a telegram from Johnson basically saying "you're fired".) Yet, somehow, in spite of it all, the game made it to today. I'd love to see the equity (without the government intervention) most of you passionately desire, but I just don't think it's going to happen. After all, since the beginning of organized baseball, it’s ALWAYS been about profits. The only differences between 2002 and 1902 is that the numbers are bigger, the players get more of the money and we know more about the "business" of the game than our grandfathers or great-grandfathers did. I've said this here about twenty times, but I love the game lots more than I love MLB. If the owners of MLB can't figure out how to run their business properly, it will go the same way as Montgomery Ward, the Edsel, and Enron. Maybe, just maybe, the "game" would be better off. It was time to beat a hasty retreat to the neutral corners. The cut man had to have time to work his magic! KingFish Outdamstanding!!!!!! Great take. A real eye opener. Gotta love it and appreciated every word. Not to sure about the fans just following along meekly after a potential collapse of the ML but you may have a very valid point. Thanks a million for the astute comments! Trots KingFish The bell sounded, it was back to the center of the ring time ! Trots I fear that the younger generation is already alienated from our National Pastime. Their disassociation was created from their parents open disgust of the game they grew up with. Frankly, I think there is a strong possibility that a new league might appeal to the next generation and might even, if perceived as more equitable, bring back some of our lost older fans, as well. Fish, since we are discussing the state of the game, do you believe that baseball is held to a higher standard than the other major professional sports? It's a theory I'm starting to buy into. For some reason, perhaps just paranoia, I feel like MLB gets hammered on more frequently than any other sport and I wonder why? All leagues have criminals, over-paid performers, labor disputes, egomaniacs, stupid rules and the like, but there seems to be much more venom aimed at baseball and I'm starting to wonder if that is because we (fans and media) expect so much more from baseball than we do the other sports? Is it because of the game's history or the closer nature of the game? (As an example, football players seem to be little more than uniform numbers to most fans.) What do you think? From out of the Blue a new player wades right in! GiveHyzduaShot Excellent thread ... MLB is hammered more often because they have an inept commissioner, have no will to support the lesser teams, give outrageous contracts, have a draft that hurts the worst teams, and don't provide an equal playing field for all involved. Look at the NBA, NFL, and NHL. They all have a commissioner who really cares about the game. You have to question how much Bud cares about baseball. In the NBA, NFL, and NHL, there's a salary cap, so consequently, no $25 million dollar contracts are given. In fact, in the NBA, there is a maximum amount a player can receive. In the NHL and NFL, you can pay out as large as a contract as you wish as long as you're under the cap and can field a team. In baseball, teams have an unlimited cap. MLB is the ONLY sport where the worst team cannot select the best player. Look at the Twins taking Maurer while the Rangers and Cubs chose Teixeria and Prior respectively; the Twins taking Maurer is a direct result of a lousy draft system. Maurer would want less money, so that's who the Twins took. There's no doubt if there was a cap on how much a player gets, the Twins would have taken Teixeria or Prior. They were the best players in the draft, yet the worst teams didn't get them. Also, what other sport is out there where it's two years before the worst team has the number one pick? Look at the Cubs, there's no way they should have had the number three pick. The draft rankings should be based on the prior season. MLB also is the only sport where a player is not forced to sign with the team or sit out a year. Look at what J.D. Drew did. Did that help the lesser teams? It's ridiculous college baseball players can have an agent in their junior year, but still retain eligibility. In every other sport, if you sign with an agent you forfeit any eligibility. Also, it's not right the Pirates (and all teams, I chose the Pirates because I am most familiar with the situation) lost their rights to Jeremy Guthrie, a pitcher at Stanford who didn't sign with the team and went back to school. They should have his rights until he turns pro or enters the draft again. They should have a six month period to sign him, then let him choose to go back to school or play independent ball for a year. MLB is also the only sport where you know there are only 10 teams at best who can compete, with one surprise team each year. That turns fans off. What's the point in following baseball when you can pick it up at September and not miss a beat? In the NFL, it is extremely rare for a team to be dominant two years in a row. In MLB, it is extremely rare for a team to be dominant for less than two years in a row. The MLB is slammed the most, and rightfully so. Their system, frankly, stinks. It does nothing but appeal to the higher teams. All right, enough of my rant. If only MLB could be run by the fans instead of greedy owners. This was turning into a slugfest all right. A real street brawl! KingFish Holy Molley a barnburner! Good points all around but I have a bit of a different take on it. Baseball has been up until the recent past, the "Heart of America". It is/was argued over, applauded, cheered, booed and worshiped much as a religion and it was our game. Yes, Basketball and Football have come along as our games also but Baseball was there and in strength from the beginning. Through the best of times and the worst of times. World Wars, financial disasters, The Black Sox scandal, assassinations and political woes never stopped the beat of that heart. It lived on and became the pillar that Americans could lean theirs sometimes weary and sometimes tear stained shoulders upon. The game became engrained in our culture over the decades. Generation after generation produced new legions of fans to take up the flaming torch that the game so inspired. Entire blocks, Burroughs, neighborhoods and cities across the land followed each and every move of their teams and hometown heroes. Baseball provided the biggest, best and most entertaining hero's to be had during its day. Our past shared national hero's, like the Babe and the rest laid the foundation for the game that, for the better part of the last six decades, was the one place all Americans could retreat to in times of strife and discord. All creeds and colors eventually took part in what was truly a national past time. Note that I say was, as in the past tense. Although, did anyone out there besides me see through all the media hype and get the feeling that after 9-11 the country really needed Baseball to be the game we all knew it could be? It was more than the hype. Almost genetic in nature was the feeling I perceived. Perhaps that is due in part to my bias towards loving the game. I personally know several folks that hadn't watched/attended a game in years come into work the next day after the first post 9-11 game and it was all they could talk about. The feeling is still there. The heart has not stopped. Today the diversity in sport and the business of sport has for the most part knocked baseball clear out of the limelight except during some brief flickering moments. All the while leaving behind a cadre of knowledgeable fans that thirst for the game but detest the day-to-day baloney that it is now served with. What used to be caviar is now not much more than fish eggs. I guess we the fans may be partly to blame. Can you love something too much? I guess our business leaders and politicians deserve their share of blame to but most of all I place the blame where it belongs. I just cannot bring myself to point any blame towards the players themselves. Baseball owners and Baseball's leadership now have the game in a position where it just may fail under it's own heavy load. Of course that has been said before but you know what? Not in my lifetime and I've been with this for some 50 years. I guess that is because I was born on the sixth of October and upset my mom something terrible because she missed the Series game that day. Does the game get hammered for its’ weaknesses and transgressions? Even more than other sports? I think the answer is yes on both counts and I believe it is because Baseball has for so long, been so important, for so many Americans. It may not be the most popular of games now as the youth of America partakes of it's sweet nectar less and less but it is still the most important game. It is still the heartbeat of the country. Yes it skips a beat every now and then just like my old ticker has started doing lately but so far it hasn't stopped. Life support may be in the near future for the game unless the current debate over the labor agreement can be resolved. If not, a transplant may be needed. Do I want government to take over the game? Not really but who else will have the power to force the owners to change? I'd love to think the fans could but the game draws us like moths to a burning lamp on a steamy summer night. Even if Joe Average fan and his family can no longer attend games, the corporations are already addressing that. Notice how when you attend a game today that so many seats are occupied by business groups? At Dodger Stadium it is a big to do and they flash every group up on the big diamond vision screen. There are thousands of them at times. Bought and paid for by business as perks and not for poor Joe Average fan. The only other way I can think of that would force a change to the system now would be a major financial crisis. I mean a Wall Street collapse or multiple Enrons' going off at the same time event. Something so major that Americans across the board would be suffering big time because of it. Corporate money for frivolous expenses would dry up and the owners would loose the ability to sell their tickets to other business entities and then what? Weak teams would fail, ticket prices would have to be adjusted downward and the players will have to accept lower pay if for no other reason than they would be considered by fans to be no more than a cancer feeding off of the misery of the rest of the land. Not a pretty picture that much is for certain. I guess we should all be thankful that it hasn't come to that but eventually it just may and you know what? I think the game will still be there in one form or the other for us to lean on when we will need it most. That may change in the future and that would be a tragic loss. Life is full of change, it would get real boring if it wasn't. I guess we'll all have to see how this will plays out in the long run, won't we? Well that pretty much concluded the days input to a most excellent thread on a subject that is apparently near and dear to many of our members. The contributors should all be commended for their insights and willingness to partake. I want to thank Trots and all the rest of you guys for making this a most interesting thread. Reminds me of another now defunct site where titans used to clash. At least it's still all for the game we love. That was one heck of a lot of fun guys! So Sayeth the Fish! |
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