Condition critical

Right now, at this very moment in Major League Baseball, the commissioners office and player union are collectively agreeing upon the newest way to destroy the game of baseball.

While they contemplate their newest disagreements, the rest of us lay in waiting.

What will these meetings produce you ask?

Based on their track record, I seriously doubt anything but a new strike date will surface. After all, devising new methods of alienating millions of fans as they did in 1994 is hard work.

In the meantime, at your local ballpark, you and I pay four bucks for a bottle of water while smaller market teams struggle to make payroll. This is what has happened to "our" great American game. Sad but true.

If there is an alternative to imposing a salary cap, I'd love to hear it. To put it simply, there is only one George Steinbrenner, one Jerry Colangelo and one Rupert Murdoch.

Exactly which team is expected to compete against owners who toss blank paychecks at players? Which player aspires to play for a city that draws eighteen thousand people to their home games?

The fact remains, aside from the top ten highest paid teams in the league, the rest of the flock represent nothing more than cannon fodder to the elite franchises. When the Kansas City Royals or Pittsburgh Pirates win the World Series, you may then call me a liar.

Let's even the playing field. Let's give the general managers a chance to shine. There has got to be at least one Ron Wolf of baseball. If you gave Jim Bowden an additional sixty million dollars to spend on team salary, do you think he could field a team that would beat the Yankee's in a series? If the Padres drew more than flies, could they sweep the Diamondbacks? If the Brewers were able to buy a starting rotation, would that make Atlanta nervous? It all makes you wonder, doesn't it?

So who would oppose a salary cap besides the players?

If owners were forced to spend a minimum on team salaries, we would no longer have to witness teams like Tampa Bay take the field. Conversely, if players were forced to earn their salaries, the era of ball players who bat .225 and earn five million dollars a year would finally come to an end. Frankly, I am tired of watching players have a "career year" only during the final year of their contracts.

In 1997, the Florida Marlins won the World Series. The next year, they dumped virtually every player that got them there, and lost over one hundred games as their reward. Has anyone noticed what has become of that team since then?

I see an imposed salary cap as a win-win situation.

At the risk of sounding mean spirited, would Kevin Brown and Ken Griffey Jr. continue to "ride the pine" if their contracts we based on productivity? Injuries happen, but my guess is we would see the fifteen-day disable list shrink from several players on each team to a few players in the league. Does your disability plan pay you one hundred percent of your salary? Why should ball players have it any different?

The NFL has the right idea. Even though they too have their share of problems, at least we can see which team drafts and spends their money wisely.

If the league forced its owners to pay their players proportionately to his efforts, the fans would return. Speaking for myself, it's a lot more fun being a fan than a cynic.