Lockout’s Only a Bad Memory for Baseball Fans

Lockout? What lockout? Did somebody say lockout?

Such was the sentiment among Anaheim Stadium fans at Monday night’s season opener against Seattle.

As a ragtime quartet was playing outside the Big A, vendors hawked peanuts, popcorn and ice cream, and suddenly everything was good with baseball again.

There was no talk of salary arbitration, pensions, minimum salaries and roster sizes. No one had to run to the dictionary to see what the term “collusion protection” meant--isn’t that some kind of waiver on your car insurance?

It was almost as if the 32-day lockout that shortened spring training and delayed the start of the season for a week never even happened.

“Sure, it affects my attitude toward the game when things like this happen,” said Steve Guilford, a 41-year-old Anaheim resident who runs a computer business. “Until they holler, ‘Play ball!’

“When you first walk into the stadium, it’s like you’re going into a whole new world. It’s like a mini-vacation for a while. You can eat hot dogs and drink beer. I wish politics weren’t such a big part of the game, because all I really want is the fun of being here.”

A few weeks ago, Bert Haley, a 23-year-old bartender from Santa Barbara, was pretty disgusted with his favorite sport, and even considered doing something to voice his discontent. But come Monday, Haley was tailgating with his buddies in the Anaheim Stadium parking lot, celebrating the return of baseball.

“At first, I said, ‘That’s it,’ I’m not going to watch baseball for a while just to show them,” Haley said. “The whole lockout thing upset me, but after a while, it was like one guy said: ‘Baseball is bigger than all of us.’ I love to go to games, and the lockout didn’t really matter.”

A forgiving bunch, these fans.

Players went on strike for 51 days in 1981, seemingly alienating many supporters. The players walked off the job for a day in 1985 and then bickered with the owners in 1990, a feud that led to the lockout and more criticism.

Both the players and owners have been called greedy.

Yet people keep coming back to the ballpark. Baseball attendance continues to increase, and the Angels have sold a club-record 18,747 season tickets this year.

It would take a lot more than a little lockout to keep them away.

“I don’t think they could do anything that would make me stop coming to the park,” said Linda Nicholson, a 44-year-old Garden Grove resident and longtime Angel fan. “I just love the team.”

There had been discussion on radio talk-shows this past week of fans trying to organize a boycott of opening day or the first week of the season. But there were no picket signs at Anaheim Stadium Monday night.

If there’s one thing fans have learned during the last decade of labor disputes, it’s that major league baseball is hardly a game.

“It’s a business like everything else,” said Dave Wallfort, a 24-year-old policeman from Westminster. “The players don’t have that long to make money, and they’re just going for whatever they can get. But once the season starts, it’s play ball like always. All that other stuff is in the past.”

Said Linda Rahl, a 49-year-old secretary from Seal Beach: “It’s disappointing when everyone is demanding so much money, both the players and the owners. There’s far too much business involved, but when it comes right down to it, I’m here. I don’t think any less of the game.”