Sports unabridged -- What lies beneath

By David Shaw Sports Central Columnist

Union unrest, fan indifference, ownership greed -- these are the things that come to mind when baseball is mentioned. President Bush himself is urging players and management to work together, posturing is being done by both sides, clever photos of fans with signs protesting the strike dot the media, and yet no one is talking about what has caused this entire process: the game of baseball.

Like a coral reef underneath the sea during a hurricane, there is beauty in the game of baseball if you ignore the debate that rages on its surface. This year, right now, history is being made in ways that should be fresh and exciting.

The greatest divisional race in 30 years is taking place, and yet phrases like luxury tax and revenue sharing obscure all of this.

There are two key questions that must be addressed -- questions that cut past all of the propaganda and business where sport and competition used to reign. What exactly is this history being made and why should you care? There's just going to be a strike anyway, isn't there? What history is being made is the easy part, why you should care is a bit trickier.

Imagine being the most dominant team in baseball, home of a fresh international star taking baseball by storm and owner of the best record in the major league. Now imagine bringing that same team into the next year and finishing third in your division, out of the playoffs. Welcome to Seattle and a divisional race that may be the most exciting since Nixon roamed the Oval Office.

That same Seattle juggernaut has met its competition in the form of the Oakland A's, a team that many thought would be weaker with the departure of not one, but two Giambi's, and an Anaheim Angels team that may have surprised even itself.

As I write this column, the three teams are separated by a total of three games. Only in this divisional race will it take one bad series to send Oakland from first to third in little more than three days. This is a race that will go down to the wire, maybe even the last day of the regular season. Normally, this is a cause for great drama and intrigue, but this year, it is only an interesting side note to the labor talks. We press on.

In the American League Central, the Minnesota Twins have such a stranglehold on the division title that they have caused not one, but two fire sales. As the White Sox and Indians burned payroll, the Twins took their lowly budget, their precarious status, and the bounty Bud Selig has placed on their collective head to 24 games above .500.

Personal milestones are being pursued all around baseball. Sammy Sosa is chasing his fifth consecutive 50-homerun season. Barry Bonds is working steadily on breaking Hank Aaron's career homerun record, a record in great jeopardy if games are lost. The Red Sox, as unlikely as it seems, might just knock off the Yankees in October, should hell freeze over.

There's one little streak that hasn't had nearly as much publicity and deserves an infinite amount more. Ernie Harwell, the voice of the Detroit Tigers for 42 years, and one of the last of the old guard of baseball announcers, is celebrating his final season behind the microphone. With the passing of Jack Buck this year and Harwell's retirement, an important link to baseball past is slowly being taken from the game.

So all of this, all of these milestones, all of this drama, all of this historical significance, is ignored and pushed aside while Don Fehr gets that much more ink, and Bud Selig's ugly face invades countless more newspapers.

While baseball at its best is being played out in the American League West, I get to hear about how the owners are insulted by another player proposal. While some of the greatest players in history chase athletic feats this world has never seen, I get to listen to a back and forth argument about luxury tax percentages and failing teams. Most of all, while one of the greatest contributors to the game of baseball rides slowly into the sunset, his moment is tarnished by Selig proving once and for all just how inept he truly is.

Simply put, the reason that this season matters, that this labor strife should be ignored lies in the sport, lies in the tradition of baseball. While so much surface anger and resentment flies back and forth, there lies buried a full season of excitement and drama just waiting to be watched. Try as they might, Fehr and Selig simply aren't enough to ruin baseball. It has remained intact, if only slight obscured.

Support your teams, support the game of baseball, and support the sport at the heart of the conglomerate of greed and mistrust we see today. Baseball, more accurately the sport of baseball, is not the perpetrator here, it is the victim. Don't ignore it.

Article courtesy of Sports Central.