Baseballhead:
Bitter Bud Face

Michael Cox

Uff da! Velkommen Til Baseballhead, where we aren't actually Norwegian, but we dig the fish.

This week, in the absence of any good baseball news, the continuing story continues to be Bud Selig's attempt to fold two unnamed teams. Of course, if the Twins weren't certain to be one of those teams, then Selig is sure going to a lot of trouble just to keep his options open.

Selig's attempt to speed an appeal through the Minnesota court system was rebuffed by the state Supreme Court, likely on the grounds that the only person who believes time is of the essence is Selig himself. However, he does have a bit of a point, in that if he can't contract this season it will really mess things up for the commish-for-life, for two reasons:

- After this season, the window of opportunity for moving the Diamondbacks from the NL West to the AL West against their will is closed, throwing Selig's entire plan into chaos and turmoil because the only team currently willing to switch leagues is the Rangers, and a three-team AL West is George Steinbrenner's greatest fear;

- MLB will have to divide their 2002 TV revenues 30 ways instead of 28, which is the whole reason the owners want contraction to begin with.

That second point isn't something you see brought up much, because the media is generally too busy reporting exactly what they're told (such as: "it's all because of players' salaries," "most teams are losing money," and the funniest of all, "Selig is a former team owner"). The math is pretty easy to do. Of course, poor math skills are the most likely reason sportswriters rely on batting average as the litmus test of a hitter.

First, the two teams to be "contracted" aren't the ones overpaying for free agents. Teams like the Brewers, who throw money at mediocrities like Jeffrey Hammonds, are the problem there. And thanks to those frugal ways, both the Expos and Twins have made a profit in recent years, so they haven't been a drag on the sport.

The real issue is that those two teams are getting full shares of national TV money, merchandising revenue, and other shared income streams. At this point the other owners would be willing to take on Carl Pohlad and Jeffrey Loria in a steel cage match to get a larger chunk of that guaranteed dough. For this reason, no one should be surprised that the owners wanted to delete four teams rather than two, because that would result in a more than 15% increase in those revenues for each remaining team.

To sum up, Selig is not trying to fix the system, he's trying to milk the existing system. And it only needs fixing if you believe the current system is as bad as Selig says it is (hint: it isn't).

Also last week, the other owners unanimously gave Selig three more years as Lord High Commissioner of All He Surveys. The question: why?

Let's review his record:

- Selig has been at the forefront of every labor negotiation since he stole the Seattle Pilots and made them the Brewers in 1970, and every time he has gone head-to-head with the players he has not only failed to achieve his objectives, but he has lost ground to the players' union.

- Selig's closest allies are often the very owners who set new precedents in player contracts. His supposed "best friend," ChiSox owner Jerry Reinsdorf, once signed Albert Belle to a groundbreaking deal that not only paved the way for Alex Rodriguez' escalator-clause potpourri, but also offered Reinsdorf the ability to escape the deal himself when it no longer amused him (and it took an entire year for that to happen). Reinsdorf's stated reason for making the deal was to spite the other owners. With friends like that...

- Selig's attempt at running MLB's own television enterprise (what, you don't remember The Baseball Network?) failed as quickly as the XFL.

- Selig's latest TV deal with FOX will earn MLB approximately half of what he had intended to reap in broadcast revenues, and to get even that much entailed giving FOX complete control over postseason scheduling and possibly the option to add the cast of Boston Public to playoff rosters.

- Selig is the most uncharismatic leader of any major sport since Judge Landis roamed the Earth. He is singularly unattractive (his status as most unattractive man on the planet is uncertain, pending further study of Keith Richards) and a sleep-inducing public speaker, two factors that were made unbearably clear when he created his own halftime show during this year's All-Star Game.

- Under Selig's watch, by his own accounting, 25 of the 30 teams in his organization are losing money.

Now that's inspiring leadership.

And we can now add a new chapter to Selig's history, because with his attempt at steamrolling through with contraction, he appears to have undone all his highly-touted nicey-nice with players' union head Don Fehr. Just in time for a labor negotiation, too!

Selig losing battles with the players has become like applying an electrical shock to Homer Simpson every time he reaches for a nearby Duff beer: Selig demands concessions, players laugh and demand more of their own, Selig caves. D'oh. Selig demands concessions, players laugh and demand more of their own, Selig caves. D'oh. Selig demands concessions, players laugh and demand more of their own, Selig caves. D'oh. Repeat ad infinitum.

Yet the owners place their full and unwavering support behind Selig each and every time. This can mean only one of two things:

1) The MLB owners are some of the stupidest businessmen to come down the pike since the guys who invested their life savings in videophones in the '50s.

2) The MLB owners know something we don't, like perhaps the fact that they're actually making money.

Spin City: In a feeble attempt at gaining public support for Selig's schemes, Larry Lucchino, a former owner of the Padres, recently babbled to reporters:

"The negative bottom line for so many teams adversely affects the fans in the form of ticket prices, concessions and parking prices. The owners are not in a great system right now, and in order to compete and make money, it seems like some franchises will start careening towards the $29 hot dog."

Ach-b*llsh*t! Sorry. I might be coming down with a cold.

To disprove Lucchino's statement, you have only to look at the teams on the financial bottom -- they have the least expensive tickets and concessions. In fact, the hard-luck franchise du jour in Minnesota has been legendary in the past few years for its thrifty promotions, such as the $99 season tickets which included a signed Kirby Puckett bat, and this year's $1 hot dog nights where the food was so cheap some fans had no problem buying a few extra and starting a food fight.

It's the teams with season-ticket waiting lists who regularly test the limits of ticket and concession prices. Fans in Cleveland, Seattle, Boston and the Bronx can back me up on this point. When seats are empty, teams lower prices to fill them. Where no one buys hot dogs, hot dogs get cheaper. Supply and demand determine prices, period. You don't have to be George Zimmer (or Don Zimmer, for that matter) to figure that one out.

To claim otherwise is an insult to the intelligence of baseball fans. Oh, by the way, Lucchino is currently a consultant to Selig. Go figure.

Justice Isn't That Blind: Speaking of insulting people's intelligence, get an eyeful of this portion of MLB's appeal to the Minnesota Supreme Court:

"The District Court, without any analysis or explanation, has ordered teams from around the country (and Canada) to send baseball players to Minnesota to perform baseball. There is no authority for such an extraordinary act and it constitutes an abuse of discretion."

It's almost as if Selig, Pohlad, and their lawyers sat around and tried to come up with the most far-fetched stretch of the District Court's ruling. Ohhh, if I only had become a Minnesota Circuit Court judge, after reading that brief I'd have made Judge Judy sound like Barney. (Coming soon for our international readers: "The Annotated Baseballhead.")

How they manage to interpret the lower court's ruling that way is creative license at best -- ordering the Twins to honor their lease does not imply any specific opponent. Pohlad could have his team play intra-squad games all year if he wants -- of course, he'd miss out on that national TV revenue slice if he did.

Any fool understands that the Twins must grant permission to be "contracted" from MLB (thus the huge payoff waiting for Pohlad at the end of the process). Until they fulfill their lease requirements, they don't have the right to grant that permission. If Selig is saying that their lease is tantamount to an order that other MLB clubs send players to "perform baseball," almost every team has such a lease (except the Expos, who can pretty much use the door with the blessing of all involved governmental bodies).

Of course, Selig is not any fool. He's a special breed of fool who professes to love the business he's been trying to kill all these years, and nobody is stopping him.

Yet.

Next week we'll do our darndest to talk about something else, like the thought that the Red Sox may finally be emerging from the Harrington Era. All bets are off if Selig actually manages to accurately aim that gun at his foot, though.

about the author

Michael Cox is an excellent choice for your new commissioner -- he's a proponent of keeping the AL and NL separate, requiring natural grass in all parks, and the 49-cent hot dog. Ask about returning 25-cent Beer Nights to Cleveland at mc@strikethree.com and he'll do his best not to laugh at you.