This pastime that we call baseball is a child's game, or it used to be. When I was a kid, I spent my summers playing baseball.
If I'd had any money and someone had demanded payment for granting me the privilege of playing baseball, I would have paid. No questions asked.I know for a fact that my childhood idols, ballplayers such as Stan Musial and Mickey Mantle, would have paid for the privilege of playing baseball. I know because I've heard them say so.
Such brilliant athletes did not have to pay, of course. They played the game they loved and they were compensated - compensated quite handsomely, all things considered. Why, some of them were paid as much as $100,000 per year for going to the ballpark each day and living out their boyhood dreams.
That was a long time ago, of course. Things have changed. These days, the average salary for the boys of summer comes to about $1.2 million.
I know, I know. Inflation has rendered such numbers meaningless.
But a lot more has changed than the value of a dollar.
Close your eyes and try to imagine Ted Williams or Willie Mays walking a picket line. Try to picture Lou Gehrig, the New York Yankee who played 2,130 games in a row, standing outside the ballpark with a sign around his neck: "On strike."
Never in a million years.
Today's fabulously wealthy baseball prima donnas, on the other hand, plan to walk off the job Friday unless team owners back down from their insistence on doing what they should have done years ago: placing a limit on player salaries.
There's no denying that the owners got themselves into the mess they're in, forking over multimillion-dollar contracts. But the players seem to be taking the position that just because the owners have given away the ranch in the past, they are obligated to keep giving it away.
It is only a matter of time until baseball raises ticket prices $1 higher than the fans are willing to pay, until the game gouges us once too often when we step up to the concession stand.
I resent the idea that fans who have to scrimp and save to finance a family outing to the ballpark may face yet another round of price increases just so a multimillionaire like Barry Bonds can stuff another truckload of cash into his over-flow-ing bank account.
And I especially resent the idea that fans might be priced out of the national pastime so that some stumblebum utility infielder can haul down a minimum salary between $175,000 and $200,000 - which is what the players' union is demanding in the current negotiations with owners.
If these bums want to go on strike, I say let 'em strike.
Baseball was a child's game once, and it was worth caring about. Nowadays, it's all about grown-up greed.
And it's not worth a nickel.