home *** CD-ROM | disk | FTP | other *** search
- THE WEEK, Page 24CULTUREThe Baseball Barons' Bread and Circuses
-
-
- The sport's owners contend with hard times, racism and sudden
- death
-
-
- Is baseball still the national pastime? Sure, if the sport is
- meant to reflect the greed, rancor, farce and tragedy that can
- be found -- along with the athletic grace and thrill of
- competition -- in real life.
-
- The grace and thrills come on the field between April and
- October. All the other stuff was on display at the owners'
- winter meetings in Louisville, Kentucky, where baseball's barons
- went on a daft pre-Christmas shopping spree for talent --
- including $43 million for six years of outfielder Barry Bonds'
- services -- while moaning they were near bankruptcy.
-
- Suicidal profligacy was the least of the owners' sins. The
- Cincinnati Reds' Marge Schott scrambled to apologize for slurs
- against "Jew bastards" and "million-dollar niggers." (Jesse
- Jackson called the phrases "shots heard around the world" and
- promised further protests.) The moguls also voted to try
- renegotiating the players' union contract, though a spring
- lockout would cripple already ailing attendance. In a horrifying
- climax, Florida Marlins president Carl Barger suffered an
- aneurysm during the owners' final meeting and died a few hours
- later.
-
- Another fatality may be baseball's unique antitrust
- exemption, which a U.S. Senate panel, in separate hearings, was
- threatening to revoke. But would a lifting of baseball's
- monopoly be enough to stir sufficient rowdy capitalist
- competition to save the sport? The owners have made the game
- such a tragicomic disaster area that one hardly knows whether
- to call in the Marines or send in the clowns.
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-