A Boycott by Fans Just Wouldn’t Seem Like the Real Thing

First, we brought the Coca-Cola empire to its knees, forcing the corporate tyrants to give us back our real thing.

Now our grass-roots activists are mobilizing us into baseball fan strikes, so we can lash back at the greed-crazed major league players.

Surely this will go down in social history as the summer of the consumer revolt.

Lest these noble uprisings be forgotten by future generations, we should commemorate this summer by re-arming the Statue of Liberty. In one hand, Ms. Liberty will hold a crunched can of new Coke. In the other she’ll hold aloft the perpetual flame of liberty, which will eternally barbecue a box seat ticket to a Yankee game.

I got a phone call Tuesday from a radio DJ in Ventura, filling me in on one fan boycott. This particular organization calls itself USA DJs for Baseball.

Sounds like a cause Lionel Ritchie and Michael Jackson might get behind: “We Are the World, We Spin the Turnstiles.”

“They (the players) burned us in the ’81 strike,” the DJ said. “Fans are always the losers. This time we want to give it to the players like they gave it to us.”

The DJs’ plan is to boycott major league baseball games from Aug. 1-6, the week before the strike date.

There are half a dozen or so other strike organizations, featuring various strategies of sticking it to baseball’s greedsters.

Pardon my yawn.

True, an effective, extended boycott of baseball games would give owners and players a sobering dose of reality.

But it won’t happen. This talk about baseball strikes is, as William (the Avon Express) Shakespeare would say, “ . . . sound and fury, signifying nothing.”

The true baseball fan won’t be able to stay away from the ballpark merely because the players are threatening to strike. And the casual fan isn’t all that upset about this whole strike business.

Before or after a strike, fans aren’t going to deprive themselves of the simple pleasure of attending a baseball game. Where else can you drink too much, eat too much, second-guess, criticize, pontificate, belch, bluster and scream silly things at men playing a game? All in the name of civic pride and sportsmanship.

No, baseball runs too deep in the American psyche to be boycotted just because the players take an unscheduled break to dig for gold.

That’s another thing--the money. If you believe the players are greedy and overpaid, why walk out of the stands now? You should have been boycotting 10 years ago.

And if you think only the players are greedy, you should consider joining an ostrich colony. Why is it that owners tend to be regarded by fans as kindly sportsmen being held hostage by player-terrorists? Shoot, the owners invented greed. Their greed created the players’ union.

I reject out of hand the USA-DJs protest group, because the DJs want to lay all the strike guilt on the players.

I don’t know what the average salary is for a major league disc jockey, but I hear they drive nice cars and occasionally jump from station to station in order to earn more money. And nobody boycotts radio.

These guys should stick to the traditional form of disc jockey social protest--sitting on top of flag poles and refusing to shave or eat until they get their way.

Might as well. The standard form of boycott isn’t going to work this time. The fans with the most clout, corporate season ticket-holders, won’t boycott. These are people who admire and appreciate true greed. Besides, they aren’t about to throw away a valuable tax write-off.

As for the rest of the fans, they are a confused lot when it comes to financial matters. They rise up in protest if the home club fails to sign high-priced superstars, then they grumble in their morning coffee when they read about the slugger’s new contract.

One thing you protesters should be aware of: You forced a mighty corporation to bring back original-formula Coke, but no amount of protest is going to bring back original-formula baseball.

In the old days, ballplayers were plucked off farms and out of high schools, and they played for peanuts because the only alternative was to get a real job.

Then players started coming out of colleges, and you started to see a bad element hanging around clubhouses--lawyers, stockbrokers, agents. Players began to realize how much money owners were raking in and how little they were doling out. Players decided to get in on the raking part.

Now that the players have a taste of money and freedom, not to forget power, there’s no turning back. And it’s not just baseball. Players on the beach volleyball tournament circuit went on strike last year. Professional surfers were threatening to surf off the job.

Still, I wish you baseball boycotters lots of luck. Yours is a courageous stand, in the American tradition. And if a lot of you boycott, I can get better seats.