THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, March 29, 1995 TAG: 9503290561
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: C3 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Column
SOURCE: Bob Molinaro
LENGTH: Medium: 66 lines
If the major league baseball season began Sunday, I'd be surprised.
Not ebullient. Not terribly relieved.
Just mildly surprised.
The big leaguers could not possibly be ready in time to open a season that starts in just four days, even if the owners and the players' union were to reach some sort of uneasy detente.
As for the use of replacement players, management won't need to be hit twice over the head with a court injunction to realize that bartender baseball is a bad bluff.
If and when the season opens, it will begin with major leaguers, but three weeks late. Early games will either be postponed or canceled.
This is only one scenario that's swirling around like hot dog wrappers at a ball park.
But don't ask what I think will happen, or mistake my comments for deep concern or actual remorse. I long ago fogged over reading about baseball's labor boors.
When possible, I prefer not to think of big league baseball at all. I believe this makes me a member of what the government would call a disaffected minority. Or is it majority?
In the last 7 1/2 months there have been charges and countercharges, followed by meetings for the purpose of planning meetings that led to nowhere and interested no one who may have an actual life.
As expected, there will be a flurry of 11th-hour activity. That's the way labor negotiations work, if they work at all.
It's too late, though. Not for some sort of 1995 season, maybe. Just too late to care. Too late to immerse yourself in a debate that is as complicated as the tax code, and about as much fun.
Neither side in this argument can realize what it is doing to itself and the game. Otherwise, they would not have allowed things to go so far.
Fan hostility, which existed for a time, is giving way to an I-don't-care attitude, a far greater threat to baseball's health.
If people are angry, it means they still feel something. It is not a good thing for baseball when resentment and irritation turn to apathy.
After 7 1/2 months of nonsense, what people have discovered is that baseball is a habit that can be replaced by another. Baseball has given people too much time to question why the game ever fascinated them enough to dissect a box score.
This isn't everyone, of course. But collectively, fans do not appear to be grieving. The national mourning that was anticipated has not materialized.
The threat of replacement players has managed to distract some of us some of the time, but as a gimmick, this, too, has run its course.
The owners likely will send their replacements packing before opening day. This will be done not for reasons of integrity, but because - surprise! - of financial considerations. If the replacements play even a single regular-season game, the owners owe them bonuses and severance pay.
But enough. Why wallow in the minutiae of baseball's big mess when the first instinct is to tune out?
Let the Final Four eclipse Opening Day. Let baseball surrender the rest of the spring and some of the summer to the NBA and NHL playoffs, and to days at the beach.
Let's see how many people feel a real loss, and how many feel nothing. by CNB