Baseballhead:
Induced Labor

Michael Cox

We begin this episode of Baseballhead by saluting the fine film XXX, where a volatile mixture of a star who looks and acts like a bald Andrew Dice Clay, special-effects-enhanced "extreme sports," lots of things blowing up, and a logo bought at the XFL's bankruptcy sale all added up to boffo box office this past weekend. Yeah, that 16-30 year-old audience can smell marketing manipulation a mile away, all righty.

At press time, the MLB Players Association was planning on setting their strike date today, mercifully ending the months-long cavalcade of sports reporters asking everyone from managers to mascots when they think the players will strike. So, across this great nation, baseball pundits are about to stop talking about Barry Bonds' 600th (hey, congrats, Barry) or the possibility of Schilling winning 25 (good going, Curt), and begin grousing.

In the spirit of education, this week's column is primarily devoted to a few misconceptions, which in the coming days and weeks many will nevertheless treat as conceptions. Or something.

Revenue sharing and a luxury tax will solve MLB's financial problems.

Okay, let's suspend our disbelief (and laughter) for a moment and take at face value Bud Selig's claim that combined, all MLB teams lost $232 million last year. If 100 percent revenue sharing had existed in 2001, every team would have lost $7.7 million. Not really helping, huh?

Running numbers on a luxury tax is moot, because it would simply redistribute those losses.

Those numbers don't work, for two reasons:

• The numbers Selig gave to Congress are about as legitimate as the books cooked up for the warden in The Shawshank Redemption. We can only hope that one day Selig's bookkeeper escapes through the sewer and mails the real figures to the press.
  
• What Selig really wants to do is heavily tax the Yankees, and anyone else who happens upon enough money to run a high payroll, to induce them to pocket their profits instead of spending them on players.

When the owners finally get their small amount of revenue sharing and luxury tax, it will help no one. The Yankees will continue to spend, because they can. Small-market owners like Carl "Money Store" Pohlad will continue to cash their revenue-sharing checks and move the money directly into vacation property in Cancun, just like they're doing now, while continuing to use GAAP to make it look like their teams are bleeding red.

(If you're not sure what GAAP stands for, perform a Google search for "WorldCom.")

In the end, even if the players were to capitulate entirely and give the owners all the revenue sharing and luxury tax they want, in three to four years Selig will be declaring that the only remaining way to "save baseball" is to adopt a salary cap.

MLB needs competitive balance to survive.

Think about it: there are 30 teams in baseball. All the "competitive balance" in the world will not assure that your team will win a World Series before you're old and gray. And if you're already old and gray, it won't assure a Series win in your lifetime. Even if Muppet Labs were to produce 30 identical copies of the 1992 Blue Jays, pure chance would dictate that some of those clones would retire without ever playing in a Series, while others would monopolize the postseason.

"Competitive balance" is a ruse. A cheat. Nothing more than a way to attempt to wrestle some more profits out of the pockets of players. In fact, there's actually more competitive balance today than ever, thanks to six divisions, the wild card, and unbalanced schedules.

Somebody has to lose. Sorry if it's your team.

Setting a strike date prior to September 11 will cause irreparable harm.

This theory is gaining steam as more sportswriters say it to other sportswriters. Like many sportswriter-concocted theories, it holds about as much water as a child on a car trip. We went over this a couple of weeks ago, suffice to say that if on that particular anniversary you're spending the day worrying about baseball, you'd better find yourself a new set of priorities.

Not to mention that the mere suggestion tells you a lot about the ego of the average sportswriter.

Players and owners today are greedy.

If you can find a record of a time when players and owners weren't greedy, please contact me at the e-mail address below. There could be a Pulitzer in a scoop like that.

I remember when it used to be a game.

Sure, grandpa. You also remember when movie stars never had brushes with the law.

Blinded By The Light: Watching Barry Bonds' recent at-bats in his pursuit of number 600, one thought: what kind of bonehead uses flash photography at a baseball game? Every swing, the entire ballpark lit up with ineffectual, 30-foot-effective-distance flashes, none of which will produce anything but washed-out pictures of the backs of the heads of the people sitting a few rows in front.

In effect, failing to disable your flash at a professional sports event is the equivalent of leaving your VCR clock flashing 12:00, only you're doing it in public.

Sky Continues Falling, News At 11: In papers submitted to the court in the bitter dispute between Mets owners Doubleday and Fred Wilpon, it was revealed this week that MLB's accountant, Robert Starkey (no relation to Ringo) projected losses for 28 of the 30 teams this year (Mr. Starkey has a way with numbers, we hear). The profitable teams were not identified.

Oh, come on. Like we can't frickin' guess.

about the author

Michael Cox is willing to mediate MLB's labor discussions. Suggest that slipping a completed agreement into Selig's pile of unsigned papers isn't the masterstroke that it looked like when Radar did it on M*A*S*H at mc@strikethree.com.