Baseball Strike and the Fans

Three cheers for your editorial “Doesn’t Anyone Care About the Fans?” (July 30). It’s time the fans’ interest got recognized. However, our grievance goes beyond the closing of the ballparks while the millionaires (owners and players) slice up an ever-expanding pie. The fans deserve something more than the continuity of the 1994 season. Most economists say the players deserve more because collectively they produce the increasing revenue.

Most products, free of monopoly, become less expensive as they are mass produced. Not baseball, however, which became mass produced through television. Why not a decrease in the admission price, free parking, decrease in the hot dog prices (the owners can subsidize the concessionaires) and free day games for kids?

And why not decrease the advertising time on TV? Perhaps the fans can see an uninterrupted inning of baseball, i.e., the infielders warming up, the groundskeeper dragging the infield and, of course, the seventh-inning stretch. These are things that create the charm of the game. Also, some contribution to a home for old-time players who may be down on their luck.

If this is done, the owners and the players will be sharing their prosperity with the third member of the partnership--the ever-loyal fan.

GEORGE BRENNER

Beverly Hills

* Your editorial places the blame for the impending baseball strike on the wrong parties. It is the American sports public that has willingly supplied “their hard-earned cash for the revenue streams of the game.” The owners and players have just done what is perfectly natural for them--they’ve taken the fans’ steady supply of money and run.

It is the sports-crazy public that is the problem. And, the only way fans’ interest will ever be taken seriously is when they do the impossible--boycott the game, its sponsors and TV long enough to create a serious obstacle to the flow of ticket money, concessions and big TV bucks.

LAWRENCE M. KATES

Los Angeles