Baseballhead:
Fire Bud

Michael Cox

Try not to jump around too much, wouldya? We're still suffering from a magnificently-timed bout of the Sumo flu (it just knocks you the hell out of the damn circle), so it's an abbreviated version of the ol' Baseballhead this week.

Before we take on our main subject, let's first give a sarcastic cheer to the judicial officials of Maricopa County, AZ, who managed to get Bobby Chouinard to cop to his Chrismastime spousal abuse, but then gave him a sentence that appears to amount to winter room and board.

Good news: Chouinard, who plead guilty to charges that included hitting his wife, then holding a loaded gun to her head while she begged for her life, will receive one year in prison. Bad news: that year will be served in three-month increments, entirely during the offseason and presumably not beginning until next year. Also, while in the slam he'll spend five hours per day working out with Rockies personnel instead of pulling kitchen duty or cleaning the toilets.

What I don't understand is how a baseball player rates the ability to "maintain his income and abilities" when the rest of us would be lucky to emerge from the clink with any job at all.

Does the union have a collective bargaining agreement with the penal system?

Steam thus vented, let's proceed to build up a little more. If you read the baseball-related headlines over the past couple of weeks, you remember that Commissioner-for-life Bud Selig recently testified at a federal hearing, an event apparently held only because the subcommittee chairman was pissed that the Reds sucked this year.

This forum was turned into a platform for Selig to complain about how hard it is for small-market owners, and all the things we've heard for so long without any real action, but then he began making bold pronouncements: "I can assure you this system will be changed," and more ominously, "I am hopeful that in our upcoming negotiations for a new collective bargaining agreement, both sides will work together to create a new economic structure in which everyone will benefit."

In other words, enjoy the 2001 season, because it may be the last baseball you see for a while.

Of course, rational people realize that every single lockout and strike in MLB history has ended only after the owners gave in and the players scored new gains. However, Selig seems to have erased history from his mind.

The only way to stop this: have Selig impeached. Or fired. Or whatever they do to a commissioner.

Over the next year or so, you'll see "fan associations" or "fan unions" who pledge to help the common guy by "fighting the power of the greedy owners and players." Usually this involves signing petitions, handing out flyers like Hare Krishnas at an airport (and if you've ever seen these fan groups hand out petitions, they're treated like Hare Krishnas), or leaving before a game is over (which could never work on the West coast).

My suggestion is to get all these groups together and working in unison on a political campaign. March with signs at every ballpark, every game. Call into sports radio shows. Call your congressperson and ask the Judiciary Committee to replace Selig with an impartial commish. Plant yard signs. Whatever it takes.

But what has Selig done to deserve this, you ask? If nothing else, he sent the game teetering closer to ruin with the 1994-5 lockout than it had ever been before, Black Sox scandal included. He shows financial favoritism to owners over players by attempting to negotiate a salary cap before full revenue sharing is in place. There's more, but I'm sick.

So go out and convince UsFans.com to hire Bob Dole to campaign against Selig. Hold demonstrations like an election's at stake. Don't let up. Make it a big deal -- and do it before we lose the game for a year or more, not after.

It's easy to react, but it's better to not have to. Hey, maybe there're a few Teamsters who could use some work...?

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