Campy's Editorial Page

Hey Cincinnati, Boycott This!!!

A message to Major League Baseball from the Fans

June 30th, 2002

By: Matt McGowan

    As many of you know by now, we here at Campanello's are baseball fans. We not only love our hometown Cincinnati Reds, but we are also fans of the game itself. But like many baseball fans across this great nation, we are getting more than a little fed up with the business of baseball.

    The Major League Baseball Players Union met today to discuss the possibility of a "work" stoppage before the end of this season. This is similar to what happened in 1994, when the union's executive board met in Pittsburgh on the day before the All-Star Game. The executive board then held a conference call 17 days later and set a strike date of Aug. 12. That strike lasted until April 1995 and wiped out the World Series for the first time since 1904. 

    The player's union seems to think that baseball could survive another strike. They say people will always come back to the game, just as they have in the past. I think they could not be more wrong. Since 1972, negotiations between Major League Baseball and the Players Association have resulted in eight different "work" stoppages, either by strike or a lockout. I personally know many people who still don't go to games as a result of the strike of 1994-95, and I myself didn't come back until 1998. If the players do strike again this fall, some fans may come back. But I won't. Not this time. 

    You see, baseball (unlike the other major sports) has been under the control of it's players union since long before 1994, and the results have been bad. Yet the problems that affect baseball do not seem to affect other professional sports, at least not to this degree.  For example, professional football has a salary cap, full revenue sharing and, not surprisingly, great competitive balance. As a result, the NFL is doing extremely well, even in our current economic climate. But the baseball players union will have none of this, and as a result, baseball has no competitive balance. More than half the teams go into Opening Day knowing they do not even have a shot at the postseason, much less the World Series. And it seems that as soon as a star does emerge in a city like Kansas City, Montreal, or Oakland, he gets snapped up by boatloads of large-market cash, leaving his original team to start over from scratch.  It is a recipe for disaster.

    Baseball fans see all this and begin lose interest in the game altogether. People are staying away from the sport in droves, and small-market teams are feeling it the most. Yet despite the obvious economic and competitive imbalance, I personally decided to give baseball one last chance after 1994. But I won't do it again. If the players go on strike and ruin another season, cancel another World Series and, once again, ignore the voice of the fans, that will be about all I can take. And I am not alone. If fans like myself do not come back (the ones who attend 20-30 games a year, buy expensive merchandise, $4 smokies, $5 beers, etc.), then the sport is truly doomed. No matter what the players or even some misguided owners may think, professional baseball could not possibly withstand another strike.

    Like most fans, however, I don't want it to come to this. I want to let Major League Baseball know how I feel before we get to the point of no return. Several groups of fans are uniting for a two game boycott of all Major League Baseball games across the country to show the owners and players that baseball fans demand to have their voices heard. Since Cincinnati is in the constant grips of "Boycott Fever", this one should be easy for us to do. If you love the game of baseball, then visit baseballfansunite.org for more information on how to protest the impending work stoppage, and quite possibly help save the game you love.

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