AS THE OLD saying goes, it's better to be lucky than good. This pretty much explains the entire political life of Ronald Reagan. It also applies to Major League Baseball, which a long time ago used to be very good, but now is just very lucky.
All we read about these days is how the fans are showing baseball what's what. Attendance is down nearly 20 percent, TV viewership is down comparably and baseball merchandise isn't flying off the shelves like it once did. This we're supposed to take as a sign that the fans have stood up to the baseball monster and that the players and owners are properly chastised and they're vowing never to mess up again.
Nonsense!
(This is part of my new campaign to stop cussing in print, even when it isn't Lent. Someone told me that if I was a good enough writer, I could write "nonsense," but the reader would read something else. Please write to me and let me know if the word you read there before the exclamation point started with a "B." Like, "balderdash.")
After what Major League Baseball did last year--messing up one of the most exciting seasons in decades, halting assaults on major records, and killing the playoffs and World Series for the first time in a century over something as stupid as money--the fans' punishment should be much more severe.
Plus, they haven't done anything to significantly change the situation, except to put the players back on the field. And they even did that late, so baseball will have a shortened season, effectively eliminating the pursuit of records, one of the things making the average baseball season exciting for some and tolerable to the rest of us.
There is still no labor agreement, despite the fact that ostensibly reasonable men had more than 250 days to hammer one out. In fact, they're no closer together than they were when they went out on strike nearly a year ago.
And all that talk about players mending the fences with fans has turned out to be just that--talk. The players who were cool with the fans before the strike are still cool; the ones who were jerks (read: Barry Bonds, among others) are still jerks.
With all that in mind, attendance should be down 50 percent or more. Entire games should be boycotted completely just to show who's in charge. Television viewership should be limited to people who can't stand to watch even one more episode of Three's Company and prisoners who've committed offenses while in the joint (except in states where mandatory baseball viewership has been declared cruel and unusual punishment). And baseball merchandise should be purchased by terminally lame rappers for use in stupid videos.
Alas, the world doesn't often work the way it should. The other night, they had one of baseball's owners on TV. I don't know which one; they're all either dorks who inherited the team from Daddy or pinky-ring guys who made their money in trash disposal, then bought the team so their third wife, Trixie, would be able to shmooze with celebrities, not knowing that the biggest celebrity you'll find at a baseball game is probably Walter Matthau.
Anyway, this owner said that he wasn't worried, because they had such a good product even they couldn't mess it up.
Bu--Nonsense!! Their product's okay, but their luck is phenomenal.
Just look at this season. They're coming off a bitter strike (still unresolved), and then they start three weeks late, forcing a truncated season. And what happens?
The Chicago Cubs jump out to a blazing start, fueling early fan interest. When they inevitably cool off, look who's in first in the American League divisions: In the AL East, it's America's other beloved losers, the Boston Red Sox; in the Central, it's only the Cleveland Indians, heading for their first pennant in about 40 years; and in the West, it's the bumbling California Angels, all of a sudden playing great baseball in a tough division in which every team is over .500.
Meanwhile, back in the National League, the expansion Colorado Rockies, with the most rabid fans in the league, are leading the West, while close races are fueling excitement in the other divisions.
This has undoubtedly added to attendance, but that's not all. Besides the pennant races, baseball has struck gold in other areas, mostly through dumb luck and fortuitous timing.
During the spring, the Dodgers paid $2 million, sight unseen, for a pitcher from Japan. The guy turns out to be a lock for Rookie of the Year, has a good shot at the Cy Young Award, is prompting worldwide attention of American baseball, and is causing a huge stir in California's large Asian population.
There's no chance to break any season records? That's fine. All we have is Eddie Murray getting his 3,000th hit, only the 20th player in history to accomplish that feat. Then we have Cal Ripken, Jr. going after Lou Gehrig's long-unassailable consecutive game streak.
And finally, there's the core of baseball fans who will never go away, no matter what. They see baseball as America and apple pie. They haven't got the sense God gave a stick. But they'll probably keep baseball alive and keep Newt Gingrich in office. Heck, they kept Ronald Reagan in office, didn't they?
