Demonboys notepad for future postings
The State of Baseball Address
Baseball was America's favorite sport years ago... now it's second - a very distant second - Football is now the king and has been for about 10 years or more.
The strike of 1994 really killed the sport and it's STILL recovering 13 years later. When I was growing up, there was always a 'pick up game' going on - same goes for virtually every neighborhood in every city. Today, you'll be lucky to find just 1 or 2 games in a whole city.
Baseball has it's problems and problem type players, but so does every sport. However, my concern is that while in the other sports, their problems are not effecting them; in baseball, their problems are effecting the sport. Yes, the attendance is up but it's still not enough.
Money
Long since the time when MLB players played the same simply because they liked to. Now it's more for the money.
Take Alex Rodriguez for example. Yes, he IS a great player and maybe a first or second ballot hall of famer, but way back in 2001, he signed with the Texas Rangers for 225 Million dollars. He was then dealt to the Yankees in 2004 - I'm quiet sure that the Rangers are still feeling the effects on that signing. They (Rangers) probably could have signed 3 or 4 good or great players to make that club better instead of 1 ARod.
Take this years signing as a another example: Gil Meche signs with the Kansas City Royals for 55 Million doallars. Gil Meche for 55 million??? Alfonso Soriano for 120 Million! Ted Lilly for 40 Million!? While Lilly is a servicable pitcher, he's not worth 10 million a year!
Now I'm all for getting as much as you can for what you do for a living, but come on now, these salaries are ridiculous. I blame the owners for this. They fork over all this money to attract the biggest and best free agents. If all the owners were a little tighter with the money, maybe we wouldn't be seeing these stratospheric salaries.
This past offseason, we also saw another good signing but one of a different sort. Ryan Howard of the Phillies signed a moderate exention for only 900,000. By doing this, I definately applaud him. He could've raked the Phillies for well over 5 to maybe even 10 million.
Because of these high salaries, owners are forced to raise prices. Now a family of 4 cannot go to the game for less than $250. For decent seats, there's $40 - $50 per seat, the parking, drinks and a few hot dogs. In order to afford this, you must either - save and plan, not care about the costs or be rich. There is no more - We're not doing anything today let's go to the game.
My fix - First, have a salary cap. YES A SALARY CAP!! Why? So teams like the New York Yankees, Boston Red Sox and whoever else, can't outbid for a player to try and "buy a championship". While the Yanks haven't bought one in a few years, they're always trying to. They were even able to lure Johnny Damon away from the Red Sox and now fans at times still call him a traitor.
This would also force for a more level field. It's working in other sports - why not here? Smaller market teams just can't compete right now due to this. If there was a salary cap of let's say 90 million, the Yankees (2006 - 195 million), Boston (2006 - 120 million), Angels (2006 - 103.5 million), White Sox (2006 - 102.75 million), Mets (2006 - 101.08 million), Dodgers (2006 - 98.4 million), Cubs (2006 - 94.4 million), Astros (2006 - 92.5 million), Braves (2006 - 90.1 million) and Giants (2006 - 90.06 million) would be forced to get rid of some players.
For those of you that say that this can't be done - just look at the following teams from 2006 - Tigers (2006 - 82.1 million), Cardinals (2006 - 88.9 million), Twins (2006 - 63.4 million) and the Athletics (2006 - 62.2 million) were all in the playoffs last year.
Loyalty
It was just 20 - 30 years ago, that most players didn't care about how much they got paid. They played for the love of the game. Most players were loyal to their club - they were on that roster for years. Today, you're lucky to find 2 or 3 players on almost any club that has been with that club 5 years even rarer to find a player on the same roster for 10 years.
The Dodgers have 18 players that were either signed as free agents or were traded for within the last 18 months. The Cubs only have 4 players now that were also active in 2003 when they won the NL Central - Mark Prior, Kerry Wood, Aramis Ramirez and Carlos Zambrano.
There are a few exceptions to this. Craig Biggio has 20 years with the Houston Astros as well as John Smoltz with the Atlanta Braves. Chipper Jones has 14 years with the Braves.
The only other exception to this, are the players that recently signed a 6 or 7 year deal but if it look at those players contracts, it also goes back to the money issue - 7 year 100 million, etc. Take yet another Cub player - Carlos Zambrano, in order for the Cubs to keep him, it's going to take a 6 or 7 year deal between the 90 - 110 million dollar range.
My fix-
Corporate Partners
I also remember when you heard the name of a ballpark and you instantaniously knew who played there. Now it's all about corporate sponsorships for naming rights. There's AT&T Park, U.S. Cellular Field, SBC Park, Comerica Park (Comerica Bank), Minute Maid Park, PETCO Park & Ameriquest Field in Arlington. How would Yankee fan like it if the naming rights were sold and instead of Yankee Stadium, they would see a game at GoDaddy.Com Field? While that is funny to write & read, it's also sad.
Recently, Ameriquest Field was renamed to Rangers Ballpark in Arlington. Finally, the Texas Rangers did sommething right! way to go Rangers! Now if only the rest would follow.
My fix -
Accessability
Back in the 80's and prior, when the gates opened to the fans for that days game, the players were out on the field taking fielding & batting practice as well as signing autographs for the fans. The fans were crowded around the the stadium walls to the field screaming out to the players for thier autograph on a baseball or cap and more times than not, that player would come over and sign for about 5 or 10 minutes and talk to the fans. I've met and talked to many Cub players that way including Hall of Famer Ryne Sandberg, Lee Smith, Leon Durham and even fan favorite (at the time) Jodi Davis.
Today, you'll be lucky to get 3 or 4 autographs in a year nevermind in a single day unless of course you go to an event and you have to pay to get the autograph. When I was growing up in Chicago, I had at least 6 baseballs that were covered in autographs from not only Cub players, but also their opponents - Mike Schmidt, Joe Niekro, Phil Niekro & Ozzie Smith to name a few. Oh to go back in time knowning then what I know now about the price tags of autographs.
My fix -
Swelled Head Syndrom
Don't you know who I am? Why should I have to do this? We've all heard comments like this from pro players of all sports. Ok, maybe not those exact words in most cases but close enough. Yes these players get paid a lot of money, but that doesn't mean they can blow off the fundamentals (Practice? Practice? We're not talking about the game I live and die for! We're talking about practice!) or interaction or even interviews. The biggest case of this Swelled Head Syndrom is...... can you guess it? I bet you can............. if you guessed Barry Bonds you won. I don't know exactly what you won - but you did.
I Get Paid for Hitting not Fielding!
How many times have you gone to a game in years past and long before the first pitch, the teams were on the field taking batting and fielding practice? I bet it was all the time right? Today - it's hardly ever that the teams are still on the field when the gates open to the fans.
Even IF the teams are still on the field, ever notice that they're not doing fielding practice? The focus in today's game is on offense and scoring the runs - not preventing them. Home runs have gone up, ERA's have gone up and so have the errors. Today's players are paid for how many runs they can drive in - not on thier defensive skills (except a few players like Cesar Izturis).
My fix - Practice, practice, practice! Defense also wins championships not just offense or pitching. A team can drive in 15 runs, but if they loose 16-15 and made 5 errors, what good are those 15 runs? Nothing drive a manager of a team - and thier fans, more crazy than to see that team commit errors, especially those routine plays (see Alex A. Gonzalez's 2003 kicked ball during the NLCS). Almost anyone can make those great diving plays but baseball is a game of repeativness.
Performance Enhancing
We all know the stories and accusations. We all know what's going on --- alledgedly. It's gotten to the point where it's not just a few people we suspect, collectivelly, we're starting to suspect everyone and the rest just have to prove thier innocence. That in my humble opinion, is just wrong.
My fix - This my sound very strange but, I would personally wipe the slate clean. Everyone associated with baseball would be exonerated. Get rid of all these inquiries and congressional inquisitions.
However, from this point forward, if I was the Commissioner of Baseball, I would hire a special assistant or 2 for every major league team and 1 special assistant for every minor league team. These assistants would be with the team constantly and they would oversee anything that is coming into the clubhouses this would especially include anything medical related.
They would also be responsible for holding the drug testing. This would be done on every player (even if on the DL) once every 2 months. If a player is found to have anything illegal, the first offense would be a 50 game suspension, the second offense would be banned from baseball all together with zero chance to return. Extreme? Yes very - but at least now there would be no question on if these stats were done legit or not. This would also act a deteriant. I don't think that any player would risk an entire career on a chance that would get busted.
