After the bliss, the distress

Seven years ago, Major League Baseball's owners and players decided to rudely interrupt the 1994 season and have a minor little squabble over a trivial issue like money. Eventually that squabble ruined what would've potentially been one of the great seasons in the history of the game. The season was canned in early September, one month after players stopped playing and owners stopped paying them. Months later, it was announced that baseball was back. The reaction was not well received and even though baseball has been somewhat on the rebound over the past few years, it has not - and probably never will - gained the popularity it once has.

Baseball fans nearly everywhere have grown weary of the same result every season, particularly the result at the end. Four out of the last six seasons, the New York Yankees have won the World Series. There have been accusations flung that the Yankees have "bought" their World Series titles, which has primarily separated the baseball nation into two parts: Yankee fans and Yankee haters. Yankee fans revel in the fact that their team wins every season and Yankee haters love it when the Yankees lose - particularly this season, when the Arizona Diamondbacks "bought" the World Series title away from the Yankees. (Note: This doesn't go against the great accomplishments of both the D-Backs and Yankees, who had equally great seasons and gave America a great World Series.)

All arguments aside, Major League Baseball will have no time to enjoy a great World Series clash. They now have their work cut out for them as the owners and executives have some very tough decisions and battles ahead of them. They have to decide whether or not to contract franchises for the good of the sport and they also have to have a war with the players' association, one that could cost the game even the biggest of the its fans.

But let's have a retrospective on how this big mess came into place.

Baseball executives hired Bud Selig as commissioner. With all due respect to the guy, Mr. Selig has bumbled and stumbled along his way as commissioner of the longest running league in professional sports. His biggest mistake was the way he dealt with the lockout/strike/work stoppage/whatever you wanna call it back in 1994. He and his owner cronies have distanced the game from the rest of the baseball-loving nation ever since that time. This shows you that an owner should never, ever play a major part in running a league.

Baseball players distancing themselves from fans. Yes, professional athletes aren't the jolliest bunch in the universe. But as the economic scale shifts from year to year and as the pay scale increases in professional sports, it's tougher these days to think that we identify with them. On a human level, we do because they're people, too. But because they're celebrities, it's harder. People are out to take advantage of them, fans included (at least the abnormal ones anyway). Still, even if we normal fans just want to say hi or get an autograph, we shouldn't get a cold shoulder.

The expansion factor: Baseball expanded by two teams in 1998 as Arizona and Tampa Bay joined Major League Baseball and became the league's 29th and 30th teams. This came knowing that Florida, one of two expansion franchises that joined in 1993, was just coming off a record-breaking season that saw them become the fastest team to reach and win the World Series in only their fifth season of existence. One week after winning the Series, their owner, Wayne Huizenga, announced he couldn't keep the franchise and did away with the near $90 million payroll from the season before. (Which is almost the same amount he spent on buying John Elway's car franchises in Denver.) In other words, he bought himself a world title and alienated baseball fans in southern Florida the next season. And who can really say that they're a die-hard Devil Rays fan? Baseball is a dead commodity in Florida. If there are any two teams that should be eliminated, it's the Florida franchises. Baseball should've stayed at 28 franchises and Florida never should have been touched.

Now that I've pointed enough fingers on what is wrong with baseball and what needs to be fixed, let's focus on what should and shouldn't be done to fix baseball:

First of all, if Bud Selig wants to have franchise contraction so badly, eliminate the Florida franchises. The state of Florida has done no good for professional baseball except host spring training. Both of the Florida franchises, the Marlins and Devil Rays, have been nothing but big negatives for Major League Baseball. Both franchises do not have the steady financial backing to keep afloat in the Majors. Get rid of them.

Second, Major League Baseball needs to settle an owner/player pact as quickly and painlessly as possible to keep fan interest. Even this year's World Series and the record-breaking seasons of individual players haven't been enough. Baseball hasn't had the giant fan base it had from the 1980's. Even then, fan interest was dwindling, but not in the magnitude it's dropped in the past half decade. Get things settled and quickly.

Third, come up with some sort of revenue sharing plan that every ballclub can agree with. The big debate among owners over the last decade has been revenue sharing. There is a very big discrepancy among the teams in Major League Baseball when it comes to salaries; the lowest payroll was just over $20 million, the highest was almost six times as high. (And if you guessed the Yankees, you're wrong; the Dodgers topped the league in payroll.) Alex Rodriguez of Texas will make more money this season than some teams can afford to pay their entire team! When something like that occurs, you know something is wrong with the way athletes are paid.

Lastly, baseball has to do better with the way they do television. Baseball has lost fans because of the way they mess up their broadcasts. During the World Series, all games were shown during prime time. Their major target market over the last half-decade has been children and teenagers. But because of the extended television times (and Fox's over-promoting), kids have been forced to wait until the next morning to find out who won the game because they went so late. To reach out to the kiddies, they have to come on at a time when they'll actually be awake and end in time so they'll have something to talk about with their buddies at school the next day.

So in conclusion, all Major League Baseball has to do is not screw up and they'll be in existence next season!

Good luck.