THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, July 31, 1994 TAG: 9407310190
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: C1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BOB MOLINARO
LENGTH: Medium: 68 lines
Baseball fans mean business. They feel they've been betrayed. They are fed up. They are mad as hell and they aren't going to take it anymore.
This time, the fans will be heard. They will strike back at the owners and players.
This time, insist the fans, it will be different.
If only this were true and not just another baseball fan-tasy. Another set of true lies.
Baseball knows better than to believe that you the fan will mutiny.
The owners and players are about to go to battle, each with millions of dollars in their war chests. The rest of us can't relate. On the bottom line, the games, not the money, are what move us.
Baseball, after all, is only big business to the players and owners. For fans, it is a kind of drug. ``In America,'' columnist Russell Baker once wrote, ``it is sports that is the opiate of the masses.''
With a date set for a player strike, is it any wonder that fans react to baseball's labor strife with anger and resentment? The long, hot summer is no time to go cold turkey.
But fans shouldn't be wasting their time making idle threats against baseball. Nobody is listening. In Cleveland and New York, two organizations have been formed to rally the masses against the players and owners. First, there was talk of a fan boycott of games. Now that the strike date is Aug. 12, the fan groups are mulling ballpark protests.
Says Frank Sullivan, a Cleveland Indians season-ticket holder and leader of Fans First: ``This time, fans won't be ignored.''
Who do they think they're kidding?
A strike would be baseball's eighth work stoppage in the last 22 years. In 1981, the players went out for 50 days; in 1982, baseball set attendance records.
It is too late to send a message to the owners and players. The message has already been heard, loud an clear:. There is nothing baseball can do to keep fans from loving this game.
Although the owners are 0-for-7 in previous labor actions, the fans are the biggest losers. But the fans have always had a funny way of showing their irritation. Attendance rises. Sales of merchandise climb. TV ratings hold firm.
The owners and players could not display such arrogance or show such disregard for the public if they thought their callous behavior would affect gate receipts or television ratings. It is this absolute belief in the inability of fans to turn their resentment into action that allows owners and players to deal from strength.
Beginning Aug. 12, movies may replace baseball on TV. But for as long as the strike continues, both sides in this dispute know that you the fan will have an itchy finger on the remote control.
Many who are disgusted with the prospects of a baseball strike are the same people who watched NFL scab football a few years ago rather than give up their Sunday worship service. They want the baseball players to surrender concessions gained over the last 18 years.
In other words, more fan-tasy stuff. Better that you the fan don't take sides. That way, at least, you run less of a risk of deluding yourself into believing that the owners or players care what anybody thinks.
For sure, when baseball finishes mucking up this wonderful season, you the fan will again be its top priority.
Baseball is always there when it needs you. And you are always there for the game. Baseball is counting on it. by CNB