Taking the Strike Before the Bar

Sure, the baseball strike is over now, but on Tuesday night, when it had just been called and there was no telling how long it would last, people were taking it personally.

I had meandered down to the neighborhood bar in a Costa Mesa shopping center, and there were some words being said there. The quick resumption of the season may not be enough to persuade those guys to both forgive and forget.

I was a little sore myself, so I sat down next to the person most likely to commiserate with me--a guy at the bar wearing an Angels’ cap. I didn’t even have to bring up the topic; he and his friend were already deep into analyzing it.

“Look,” said the guy with the baseball cap, who turned out to be Les, a middle-aged electrician from Buena Park just off work from a job nearby. His friend Dennis was working the same job.

“Look,” he said, “there’s only one thing that matters to them--the owners and the players--and that’s this.” He picked up a $10 bill from the bar and held it up.

“They want to be protected from the antitrust laws because they’re supposed to be in it for more than just money--you know, a national institution, our American heritage and all that. And then they close down the ‘national institution’ over what?” He held up the $10 bill again. “They’re underpaid.”

“You know, I been rooting for Pete Rose all season to break that batting record. Then you see the sports commentators on TV crying because now he may not get a chance to break it this year.

“Well, he went out on strike ! Why? Because he doesn’t think he makes enough money. What’s he make? They said the average player--the average player--makes $350,000. You know Pete Rose makes more than that.

“I don’t care if the greedy (obscenity) ever gets to bat again. You know why? Because there’s not one man alive anywhere that’s worth $350,000 a year. I don’t care what he does.”

Dennis was grinning. “Calm down,” he said with mock concern. “He gets so excited. It’s only a game, Les.”

“You don’t follow baseball much?” I asked Dennis.

“I do,” he said, “but I don’t think they’re any different than anyone else. I mean, they play baseball better than anyone else, but they just want to get as much money as they can, like everybody does. I can’t blame them for that. If I could hit like Rod Carew, I’d squeeze ‘em for money, too.

“Les is upset because he really loves baseball and he was going to take Wednesday off and go to the game.”

“You wanna buy some tickets?” Les said, grinning.

That hit home. I was going to do the same thing. It was going to be the last of only two workday daylight games at Anaheim Stadium, and I had been planning to go for months. Now it was sure to be canceled, even if the strike only lasted one day.

“I’ll tell you what gets to you,” said Les, who was addressing a group that now included the bartender and two other bar dwellers.

“You get damned little fun in life, and baseball’s fun. It’s fun now, it was fun when you were a kid, it’s fun to remember. . Then they just stop it over money, like shuttin’ off the electricity.

“You get mad, and then you get really mad because there’s absolutely nothing you can do. If you don’t go to any more games, what’s it to them? If there’s 40,000 people there that night, what difference does it make if there’s 40,001? At least if you go to the game, you can shout at Pete Rose.”

“They take advantage of the fact that lots of people are hooked on baseball,” said a guy in coat and tie farther down the bar.

“They’re like kids that go to stay with their grandparents and the grandparents let them do anything they want and buy them anything they want because they love them so much and they start thinking that they really are that important.

“They hit a ball into center field and people stand up and cheer, and after a while that makes you think you’re hot stuff. They’re arrogant as hell, and they need to be ignored for a little while.”

“We don’t need ‘em,” said a bald-headed guy, who apparently had been at the bar longer than anyone else. “We’ll watch football.”

“Maybe we need a fans’ union,” I said.

“Yeah,” said Les. “You know what I’d like to see? It’ll never happen, but I’d love to see it, and it wouldn’t cost anybody anything.

“Just one day, nobody goes or watches it on TV. Just one day. They play 13 games and nobody’s there. They’re televising one of the games, but the ratings come up zero. It would scare everybody. Like you said, a fans’ union. We could show them that we can strike, too.”

“Yeah!” said the bald-headed guy.

The strike was settled less than 24 hours later, but Les and I missed our day game.

And despite Les’ militancy, I think I know what he did in the meantime.

He telephoned the Angels’ ticket office, where he heard a recording inform him that he must mail his tickets in for a refund. The same recording also informed him that the Angels would be back in town Aug. 16 and that tickets for that home stand are available 9 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. Mondays through Saturdays at the stadium box office. And he went to the stadium and bought some tickets. For like so many of us, Les and baseball are married, and things just aren’t bad enough yet for a divorce.