Originally published September 20, 1994, by Mike Barnicle for The Boston Globe
So, I am lying on the couch last night watching Ken Burns’ marvelous documentary, “Baseball,” when I am seized by nervousness over the fact it’s been 12 hours since Bill Clinton announced it’s OK for the babykillers to hang around PortauPrince until the middle of October. PBS would never interrupt a great show for a bulletin and, for all I knew, Clinton might have changed his mind and decided to simply kill Cedras, who looks like a night doorman at some secondrate midtown hotel, to get a quick bump in the polls.
Reluctantly, I surfed over to CNN, where they had clips from yesterday’s White House press conference, and there was the CommanderInChief, Colin Powell. Standing next to him was the president of the United States, and it appeared to me he was shrinking before my eyes with each sentence Powell uttered.
Man, this was something to see: Jimmy Carter, who doesn’t like Clinton to begin with, and Colin Powell, who is A MAN, trying to make sure they put the proper spin on their mission, which was, in effect, to save Bill Clinton from himself. The idea of sending 15,000 American troops to fight in a place where there are more witch doctors than pediatricians was ludicrous. How would you like to have been the parent of the only Marine killed in a battle over credibility?
Now, the casualties of Haiti include health care and welfare reform because the only focus of Congress and the country will be that tiny island and our people on the ground there. It is a poor, sad place always has been, always will be whose principal export is something I didn’t miss that much until Ken Burns’ wonderful epic on TV: Baseball.
Actually, his film isn’t about a sport so much as it is about our history. It is a wonderful, sprawling video essay on the best game ever created, one that disappeared six weeks ago, kidnapped by greed.
When you see “Baseball” the documentary, you realize it’s not the Red Sox or White Sox, the Orioles or Yankees that have left your life. Today’s teams have become homes for 25 individual corporations: the players who no longer have much loyalty to a town or its fans.
What you miss the most is stuff like box scores in the morning paper and the magic of sitting in a ballpark where you can talk about the game the whole history of the game as one unfurls in front of you. It is a sport that lends itself to stories, anecdotes and observation better than any others.
You miss knowing whether Ken Griffey Jr., Matt Williams or Frank Thomas could have approached 61 home runs. You miss seeing Jeff Bagwell, Barry Bonds, the Atlanta Braves but you miss the actual game more than any of the guys who think they are latterday descendants of Walter Reuther.
The parties on both sides of this conspiracy called a strike are morons. Many of the players, were it not for the fact they were born blessed with an amazing ability to throw or hit a baseball, would this morning be standing at the end of your driveway with leafblowers in their hands.
And the owners aren’t much better. For years, they have acted like arrogant fools because their product was protected by Congress and their profits were guaranteed by people like me who would buy season tickets, hot dogs and caps for the kids even though the level of skill diminished season after season to the point where the major leagues are, in some instances, the same as TripleA.
The whole mess is pathetic. You have .230 hitters making $3 million a year. You have owners willing to pay it, too. And you have a game with nobody in charge; no commissioner, no strong hand capable of doing what is best for the sport.
If Jimmy Carter and Colin Powell were able in 24 hours to get this country, Haiti too, out of harm’s way, then the idea that Donald Fehr and the lords of baseball couldn’t have found a way to play a World Series is absurd. We’re not talking diplomacy or rocket science here, boys and girls.
Know what would be great for our national pastime? Provide the players with the same economic security enjoyed by the vast majority of citizens: oneyear contracts. If they have a great year, they get their $7 million salaries. If not, they get paid chump change. Same with the owners: They can hike prices for tickets and hot dogs annually if the club is competitive; if not, see you later.
One thing is certain: Management and labor combined to kill this game. And while life will go on without it and a lot of people won’t think twice about the hole left in fall without a World Series, sitting and watching “Baseball” on PBS makes you realize how much of America is invested in this simple sport now being so badly abused by a handful of shortsighted fools.
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