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Impending strike? I say BRING IT ON!!!
I know many people here worry about how the strike will impact the PB game, I say don't. They can just provide "estimated" stats for the lost year based on previous seasons and trending. I wouldn't care, there are bigger fish to fry that this hobby.
Personally, I want a LONG and HARSH baseball strike. I want the greedy players and dumb owners to totally blow the sport up. Let the whole house of card fall to the ground. Why? I hate the way that the game is being played.
There is no middle ground in baseball anymore. You have the haves, and you have the have nots. That is it. It has become as boring as F1 and its parade of "champions" that poses as a car race. You have the same contenders year after year after year.
There is something wrong with a sport when there are teams that you know do not have a snowballs chance at a playoff spot not only at the beginning of this year, but you know that they will never have a chance in any year.
Baseball is sick. What I find particularly stupid is that the baseball players support Donald Fehr and his attempts to ensure that players can secure the highest salaries they can. The problem is so large that you are beginning to see a real disparity in baseball salaries. You have the few who are making multi-millions, and then the majority of players who are making little. In fact, many of the "middle of the ground" players who normally would have been kept on rosters for their experience are being dumped to bring up farm hands who are cheaper under the pretence of "getting them experience."
I agree that the baseball union had a place at one time, but no longer. The way I see it, the owners take all the risk to make money with the game. If their team can net billions of dollars, then good for them. They don't need to shell it all out to players. I know my company certainly isn't forced to shell out millions to their employees.
Do baseball players need to make 9 million a year? Don't give me that "they only play for a short time" piece of crap, even if they played 4 years a million or 2 a year would be enough. Hell, I make it by on a LOT less than that.
The owners are just at fault. The Yankee idiot, who fiddles like Nero while Rome burned, is a classic example of an out of control owner excalating salaries so other teams can't compete. Texas can also be blamed (that Gonzalez contract really brought them a lot of success eh? <sarc>Filled the stadium!</sarc>
Now, with two team close to death (and I suggest that there are more than just two on the brink) we enter possibly a long lock out.
I for one hope it hits and destroys the game. I I hope it kills the playoffs this year, and the whole season the next. I hope that TV revenues dry up, and the fan base shrivels. I'd like to see 6-8 team blow away, and salaries crash. I'd like baseball to return to the people, and out of the hands of the greedy. I want it to be a sport again, and not one primarily focused on sponsors and business.
I want to see a solid salary cap, with severe penalties for those who cross the line (ala NBA)
I want to see a national and regional TV contract pool, where all monies from all tv contracts are pooled and split among all teams fairly. (NFL) Of course the regional teams will retain a certain portion of their regional contract - say 70% of it, but the rest goes to major league baseball for the benefit of the game and balance.
furthermore I want to see a return to sanity. I want to see more teams have a chance when spring training starts, I want a season with penant races that aren't over in May, and a season where I don't know who will make the playoffs after the first week.
I want baseball the way it was when I was a kid.
So go ahead Donald, dig those boots in