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From: rossiter@cornell.UUCP (David G. Rossiter)
Newsgroups: net.sport.baseball
Subject: Re: Future of the game?
Message-ID: <320@cornell.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 18-Mar-85 12:55:25 EST
Article-I.D.: cornell.320
Posted: Mon Mar 18 12:55:25 1985
Date-Received: Tue, 19-Mar-85 05:55:46 EST
References: <4500026@hpmtla.UUCP>
Reply-To: rossiter@gvax.UUCP (David G. Rossiter)
Organization: Cornell Univ. CS Dept.
Lines: 46
Summary: 

In article <4500026@hpmtla.UUCP> roy@hpmtla.UUCP (roy) writes:
>It could be said that as long as there are enough ego-maniac
>millionaires out there, there will be a league, but is this really
>baseball?
>
>I would like to hear from all you hard cores out there. Should we
>all start watching indoor soccer?

I certainly consider myself a hard-core fan (weaned on Brooklyn Dodgers,
raised on Milwaukee Braves), and I see nothing wrong with huge salaries.
If you're looking for purity of motive for playing sport, baseball has always
been the wrong place to look!  It's a professional sport (and some would say,
professional entertainment).  You pay to watch the best players, and you pay
to watch winning teams (and mystically identify with their corporate entity,
but that's the subject for another discussion...).  So, within the free agency
rules, this is supply and demand at its purest.  Reggie Jackson was worth
almost any figure he named, because he put people in seats.  Same with Dr. K --
I made a special trip to NY to see him pitch last summer -- no way I would have
done that for Walt Terrel (no offence, Walt, but there's something about seeing
the non-Brooklyn lapsed Dodgers humiliated 12 times...).  One might object that
some players are not worth what they get (Foster?) but after all, that's
management's decision... if they spend too much they'll go broke.

Contrast the situation now with years past, when players like Musial didn't
come close to getting rich, and when players were virtual slaves of the
owners.

Where this argument begins to come apart is when we consider baseball, even
as entertainment, as a whole (the same may be said about laissez-faire capit-
alism, it looks fine until you consider the big picture [no flames please] :-).
When one market is much larger than another, and especially with the cable TV
superstations, there is a real danger of division into about 8 strong teams
and about 18 (+ expansion) weak ones.  Should that happen, baseball will become
almost an exhibition sport.  Consider NBA basketball.  I suspect that people
go to see the Lakers, Celtics, and 76ers as much for entertainment (it's
almost like watching a stylized men's gymnastics) as for the competitive sport.
Parity is a real factor in keeping fan interest sport-wide.  The NFL has been
successful in this regard, basketball (despite the same draft) less so.

Since baseball depends so much on team `chemistry', it still takes a good
GM to put it all together, even with the $$.

See you at Shea!