Going, Going. . . : Disillusion Pushes Even Lifelong Fans Away From Game

It was a love affair between Steve Brunner and baseball, beginning with their first date, a Milwaukee Brewers’ game in County Stadium in 1970.

The relationship blossomed through Brunner’s childhood, with Steve gobbling up trading cards and idolizing players, and continued through high school and college, with Brunner going to about 25 games a year.

But Brunner and the game have drifted apart in recent years, and this spring they’ve gone their separate ways, falling victim to irreconcilable differences.

“Right now I’m a lost soul,” said Brunner, 30, vice president of a Richmond, Va., marketing company. “I don’t even watch baseball anymore. When I see it in TV Guide, I pass it over like a bowling tournament.”

All of baseball’s woes--gambling and drug scandals, racism, collusion, strikes, lockouts, arbitration, inflated player salaries and ticket prices among them--have taken a toll on Brunner, one of a growing number of fans who have become disenchanted with the game.

Attendance is high at major league parks, with records being set in six of the past eight seasons, but the wave of fans passing through turnstiles from Fenway Park to Dodger Stadium is now accompanied by a strong undertow of discontent.

Fans are tired of outrageous salaries and .230 hitters making $2 million a year; players spending two or three years with a team, then jumping ship for more money; players charging for autographs; World Series games ending at 1 a.m. in the East; the high cost of bringing their family to the park, and boring, 3 1/2-hour games.

And their frustrations are beginning to show:

* Major league attendance dipped by about 1 million in 1992 after making dramatic gains the previous five seasons.

* Nielsen television ratings for the Saturday Game of the Week--a.k.a. Game of the Whenever CBS Feels Like Showing One--fell from a high of 6.5 in 1985 to 3.4 in 1992.

* In a recent Gallup Poll, only 12% of men ages 18 to 29 said baseball was their favorite spectator sport, compared to 20% who picked basketball and 42% who named football.

* Locally, season ticket sales are down in Anaheim, Los Angeles and San Diego.

“More than anything else, baseball has lost its innocence,” said Tom Martin, 38, branch manager for a bank in Evansville, Ind. “Big bucks, television and the entertainment part of it is driving the sport, whereas most baseball fans just enjoy the game itself.”

Baseball is hardly on its deathbed. It received a healthy infusion this year with new teams in Colorado and Florida, where season ticket and merchandise sales are soaring, and many cities would still kill for a major league franchise. Just ask Tampa/St. Petersburg.

The game is thriving in cities such as Atlanta and Toronto, which have winning teams, and Baltimore, which has a classic new stadium. And if you know a Rotisserie League player, you know there are still plenty of hard-core fans.

But Pittsburgh couldn’t even sell out Three Rivers Stadium for several of its playoff games in 1991 and ’92. And television demographics indicate that fewer than 1 million males in the 18-to-35 age bracket, the core of the sport’s advertising market, watch a regular-season nationally televised game.

Clearly, something is wrong.

“There’s this 40-year-old-plus base of people that have handed baseball down to their kids, but there seems to be a lost generation between 20 and 40 now,” Brunner said. “The older people are still following it, but there’s a generation gap, and part of that lost generation are followers who have redirected to other sports.”

For Brunner, baseball is too boring. He’d rather spend his time and money on an NBA game. Bob Blasingame of Park Hills, Ky., doesn’t go to as many Cincinnati Reds games because they’re simply too expensive.

John Kaliszewski of East Haven, Conn., won’t bring his kids to New York Mets or Yankees games for fear of unruly crowds. Randy Loats of Huntington Beach canceled his Dodger season tickets after nine years, in part because he’s tired of the constant turnover in player personnel, in part because he feels too many players, with their bloated salaries and egos, have become bigger than the game.

“It’s not like it used to be,” Loats said. “It’s not as much fun.”

It’s still baseball, though, and as teams celebrate opening day around the country, the game will likely regain its nostalgic grip on followers, who will faithfully flock to the park.

But that grip doesn’t seem as tight as it once was.

DOLLARS AND NO SENSE

Ask any baseball fan what’s wrong with the game, and invariably, the first word out of his or her mouth is “money.” The consensus: Players make too much of it.

Salaries began to jump with the advent of free agency in the late 1970s, but in the past three years, as the arbitration process spiraled out of control, they have skyrocketed, nearly doubling from an average of $589,483 in 1990 to $1,085,190 in 1992.

It’s difficult to fathom Chicago Cub second baseman Ryne Sandberg or San Francisco Giant outfielder Barry Bonds making $7 million a year.

But many fans don’t begrudge superstars the big money. Baseball is entertainment, they say, and its star attractions, much like those in the movie or music business, deserve a bigger piece of the pie.

It’s the bit players, the supporting-cast members who make far more than they’re worth, who seem to stick in the fans’ craw. Utility infielders, long-relief pitchers, defensive specialists who barely hit .200--it seems every ballplayer is a millionaire these days.

“In the last four years it’s gone bonkers, it’s like Fantasyland,” said George Stubblefield, 36, a sales manager from Yorba Linda.

Baseball owners are pushing for a complete overhaul of the game’s compensation system. They want revenue sharing and a salary cap, like the NBA, and they’d like to institute a pay-for-performance scale that would increase incentives for players.

The players, of course, think the system works fine. But isn’t something wrong when San Diego Padres pitcher Andy Benes goes 13-14 with a 3.35 earned-run average in 1992 and his salary, through arbitration, jumps from $475,000 to $2.05 million this year?

And when Boston Red Sox first baseman Carlos Quintana sits out the 1992 season because of an injury and asks for an $850,000 raise in arbitration?

Quintana’s 1992 salary: $340,000.

“It’s almost like there’s a sense of entitlement, where if you show up and make it through the season, you should get more money for it,” said Eric Denson, 33, a psychologist from Newark, Del. “My job doesn’t work like that.”

Bob Yehling, a 33-year-old editor of a Clearwater, Fla., publishing group, thinks large, guaranteed contracts have hurt the game. He believes there are too many Gary Gaettis putting too much strain on team payrolls and not enough runs on scoreboards.

“It happens in every walk of life--you get a lifetime contract, you relax and don’t think you have to do anything anymore,” Yehling said. “I like minor league games better because guys are hungry to move up, they give you 100%, and you know they’re not going to dog it on a grounder.”

As salaries have risen, so has the level of fan hostility toward players. Because players make so much money, fans feel they should never make mistakes, and they should always play with pain. Blow a game, and you can bet fans will blow off some steam on the radio call-in shows.

“I’ve been out of work for a month,” said Jerry Cook, a 40-year-old carpenter from Diamond Bar. “It’s tough to see a guy make $30,000 a game and take a day off because of a headache, and I’m struggling to make $40,000 a year.”

LONG-DISTANCE RELATIONSHIP

Baseball gets so much television, radio, newspaper and magazine coverage that fans know practically everything there is to know about players, from salaries and stats, to hobbies and family backgrounds, to the kinds of cars they own and their driving records.

But instead of bringing fans closer to players, the saturation of information has actually widened the gap between them.

Partly because of their huge salaries and fame, partly because of constant demands on their time, partly because of the perils of the sports memorabilia business and partly because of their egos, many major league players have distanced themselves from fans.

And fans hate this.

“The aspect of the game I don’t like is the I-am-God type of attitude players have,” said Cecile Stallings, 35, who works for a finance company in Evansville, Ind. “The money they make gives them an attitude that they’re untouchable, but they’re not.”

Plenty of players are involved in their local communities, give to charities and willingly sign autographs, but the pervasive feeling among fans is that players don’t care about them.

They see Cleveland Indian outfielder Albert Belle get so angry with a heckler that he throws a ball at him, and Cincinnati Reds reliever Rob Dibble fling a ball into the crowd in frustration.

They read about Jose Canseco’s brushes with the law and disputes with his wife (now ex-wife) and see him pulling up his jersey to reveal a T-shirt that reads: LEAVE ME ALONE!

They see a hometown favorite become a free agent and sign with another team for more money--or, as is the case presently in Orange County, the hometown team ridding itself of a Jim Abbott or a Bryan Harvey, strictly as a cost-cutting measure.

Fans feel jilted. They sense that their devotion is unrequited.

Give us your unequivocal loyalty, the teams are saying on one hand--then, with the other, they trade the local hero for three minor leaguers.

Help pay our astronomical salaries, the players are saying on one hand--then, with the other, they skip town for the next best offer, a la Jack Morris, who has played for three teams in the past three seasons.

“People are struggling, they don’t know if they’re going to have jobs, and you see all the homeless,” said Irene Brouhard, a 63-year-old San Francisco resident who works in the graphics business.

“Then you see players with these big contracts, all the jewelry, Canseco’s exotic cars, and that bothers people a lot. People would rather just enjoy the game.”

The autograph/memorabilia business situation also has strained the player-fan relationship. Players usually receive appearance fees to sign at card shows, and dealers pass those costs on to fans, a development that has turned off many a baseball traditionalist.

“It’s obscene and sacrilegious to charge for an autograph,” said Tony Joseph, 50, a free-lance writer from Ventura. “It’s smug and arrogant.”

So is the sight of players refusing to sign autographs at parks, a scene that is repeated on a daily basis throughout the major leagues.

In a way, you can’t blame players. They’ve grown suspicious of fans because so many are trying to profit from a player’s signature on a card or ball. But try telling that to a wide-eyed 7-year-old who treasures only an autograph.

“What really hit home is when I went to a Toronto Blue Jays spring training game (last month) and saw about 30 kids who had waited all game to get an autograph, any autograph,” Brunner said. “I was shocked that Alfredo Griffin was the only guy to come over, and he signed like one ball and left.

“To see the expressions on those kids’ faces left me with a strong impression, that maybe that’s why I’m not watching baseball anymore.”

BOREDWALK & BASEBALL

Some 20 years ago, with baseball’s popularity sagging, a local radio-show host put this question to listeners: “How can we make baseball more exciting?”

One caller’s suggestion: “Extend the outfield by 100 yards and have them play a football game on it.”

It took a scintillating, seven-game World Series between the Boston Red Sox and Cincinnati Reds in 1975 to snap baseball out of its doldrums back then. But despite the exciting Minnesota-Atlanta World Series of 1991 and the Francisco Cabrera/National League decider of 1992, baseball seems to be at an all-time low in popularity.

The game has remained essentially the same for more than a century, but competition for the sports fan’s time and money has stiffened. Pro football and basketball have boomed in the last two decades and are now deemed more action-packed and exciting in comparison with baseball’s leisurely pace. Even hockey has made significant inroads in the U.S.

Baseball’s response? Games have gone from an average of 2 hours 28 minutes in 1977 to 2:49 in 1992. And expansion means more meaningless games in September.

At least baseball is trying to do something about it. A three-division realignment and expanded playoff system, expected to be instituted in 1995, will keep more teams in the hunt in September, thus increasing interest.

And in response to a fan survey, baseball executives recently issued guidelines that they hope will shorten games by about 20 minutes. Among the recommendations: Batters remain in the box, pitchers work quicker, catchers make fewer trips to the mound.

“Unless a guy has a broken leg, he shouldn’t be allowed to leave the batter’s box,” Martin said. “And one of my pet peeves is when a guy charges the mound after a brush-back pitch. The game should just be forfeited right there.”

The beefs don’t stop here.

Baseball still offers the cheapest ticket in professional sports, with an average price of $9.37 per seat, but that doesn’t mean going to a game is inexpensive. Ticket prices have risen steadily every year, and with parking, concessions and a souvenir or two, a family of four can expect to spend $80-100 for a trip to the park.

According to Team Marketing Report, a Chicago sports business publication, the cost of bringing a family of four to a park was 10.4% higher last season--in a recession--than it was in 1991.

“I don’t go to near as many games because it’s too expensive,” said Blasingame, who owns a bar near Cincinnati. “The only time I go is when I get some freebie tickets.”

The atmosphere at some parks has also kept fans away.

“The last time I went to a Dodger game, it was a big beer bust, everyone was loaded,” said Ralph Emerson, a 62-year-old Ventura gift shop owner. “I have the money to take my grandchildren to games, but I’m not going to take them on a regular basis.”

A DYING GAME?

This isn’t the first time fans have been angry at baseball.

Many swore they’d never come back after the strike of 1981 and the drug scandals of the early 1980s. They did.

Fans threatened to boycott baseball after the spring lockout of 1990. Two weeks later, they were sitting in the terrace level, scarfing hotdogs and peanuts and root, root, rooting for the home team.

Perhaps, they can’t stay away because they’re gullible--because they remember when baseball was special and they’re trying to recapture that feeling. Or, perhaps the game itself is good enough to withstand, as Robert Lipsyte writes in this month’s Esquire, “the swine who own it, the clods who manage it and the thugs who play it.”

Baseball is losing many followers, and it doesn’t seem to be attracting many new fans, but, fortunately for the game, its devotees are a resilient bunch.

“I guess you have to be naive,” Emerson said. “If you look too closely at it, you get upset, but if you put the blinders on . . . It’s like going to a movie and seeing a great performance, then finding out the actor’s a child-molester. Does that change the performance? No.

“If you go to a game and don’t know a lot of things about the players you can get excited. But if you know what’s really going on with some guys, it colors your appreciation for what they’re doing on the field.”

Salary Gap Individual income has progressed nicely during the last two decades in Orange and Los Angeles counties. But the pace of baseball’s average salary far outstrips both. *

1972-92 % Per capita income 1972 1982 1992 increase Orange County $3,884 $9,569 $19,890 412 Los Angeles County 3,899 8,317 16,149 314 Average player salary Major league $34,527 $245,000 $1,085,190 3,043

*Rating Games For a decade, the number of TV baseball watchers has been dropping. In fact, the 1992 Neilsen ratings for the Saturday game of the week are nearly half of what they were in 1982. *1982: 6.3 1983: 5.9 1984: 6.4 1985: 6.5 1986: 6.4 1987: 5.9 1988: 5.5 1989: 4.9 1990: 4.7 1991: 4.1 1992: 3.4 Sources: Neilsen Media Research, Team Marketing Report, Major League Baseball and U.S. Census; Researched by APRIL JACKSON / Los Angeles Times