Life Goes On, so Who Really Cares Whether Baseball’s on Strike?

The baseball strike is a week old and the world has not ended. In fact, does anyone really care that the overpaid players can’t agree with the fat-cat owners again?

For more than 20 years, the owners have claimed insolvency. How does an industry stay in business losing money every year?

Do the players think anyone cares that they think they should make even more money. Is their product so valuable? How are they damaging the owners by saving them millions of dollars in payroll?

DAN F. COMORRE

Sunland

*

There is crying in baseball.

DAVID SWAN

Montrose, Calif.

*

For quite a while now we have been treated to a daily dose of news about the baseball strike. We read about what the players make per day. We find out how important baseball business is to some local doughnut shop near a ballpark. And we are treated periodically to the rhapsodic musings of Jim Murray (who also is rewarded handsomely per day) about times long ago when baseball was about baseball and not about money.

Baseball has always been about money to the owners. It is a business to them now and it has always been so. It is a veritable license to steal from a gullible public of young children and those who would relive those childhood years. If Phineas Taylor Barnum were alive today, he’d be a baseball owner. Too bad Charles Keating went into the wrong business: He would never have had to go to jail.

DANIEL H. McBRIDE

Van Nuys

*

Baseball is committing suicide--and nobody will go to the funeral.

STEVE LaROCHELLE

Toluca Lake

*

The average baseball fan to the owner of his favorite team: “How come you won’t go out and spend the money to get the good players?”

The same fan to the player his team has just signed: “Players make way too much money.”

With baseball prices increasing only modestly through the last 10 years, the only real question becomes: Who do you want to get the money, the millionaire owners or the blue-collar players?

JOSHUA STONE

Los Angeles

*

I hope Fehr Strikes Out so the players are denied their Yield of Dreams.

MICHAEL JAMESON

Valencia

*

Baseball players have no concept of what the union movement is all about. When their brother umpires or concession workers were on strike, the players blithely crossed the picket lines with no concern for fellow unions.

The players’ union is a disgrace to the memory of Samuel Gompers.

PHILIP R. BLUSTEIN

Beverly Hills

*

Here’s the solution to the baseball strike:

1. Pay all players $150,000 a season.

2. At season’s end, have an auditor determine the teams’ profits.

3. The owners get 50% of the profits.

4. The players get 50% of the profits.

5. The players determine, among themselves, which player gets how much.

So everyone’s happy, unless the players have trouble deciding who’s valuable and who isn’t. But how could they strike? They would have no one to blame but themselves. I guess this isn’t such a good idea after all.

RAY UHLER

Irvine

*

Why don’t we withhold the paychecks of Fehr and Ravitch until they come up with an agreement?

DERNIE LAMAS

Newbury Park

*

The owners say they care about the fans. The players say they are concerned about the fans. If everyone is so concerned, let’s play ball. While the parties remain apart on issues:

1. Place all the receipts from gate, TV, promotions, etc., into an escrow account.

2. Appoint an independent accounting firm to monitor receipts and to continue to pay the ushers, vendors and all those workers who are victims of the strike.

3. Owners and players would not receive any of the proceeds until a settlement is reached.

ARTHUR B. BIEDERMAN

Redondo Beach

*

OK. As a fan, I’m willing to go along with the baseball owners on a salary cap on one condition: They agree to a “profit cap” on their teams. If the team income should exceed the profit cap, then ticket prices and concession prices must be lowered the next season.

DOUGLAS GOULD

Marina del Rey

*

I am ambivalent about the baseball strike.

I don’t see any reason for the owners to make more or less than they do now.

I don’t see any reason for the players to make more or less than they do now.

I don’t see any reason for the advertisers to pay more or less than they do now.

I don’t see any reason for the fans to pay more or less than they do now.

And I certainly don’t think the government should tell any of the four involved parties what to do with their money. What’s left to decide?

JAMES T. HUMBERD

La Quinta

*

What’s the difference between a lawyer and a major league baseball player? One’s a quick-talking money grubber who is full of himself--and the other is an attorney.

DAVID McKENNA

Santa Monica

*

Please, Jim Murray, give me a break. Mike Piazza was drafted in the very low rounds and had to prove himself in the minors before being given a chance in the majors. Peter O’Malley never had to prove himself to anyone. He made his money the old-fashioned way--he inherited it.

RALPH BRAX

Lancaster

*

I read in the paper that the average big league baseball player gets about $5,400 a game. To put that into perspective, my 70-year-old sister in Colorado has an income of about that amount every six months.

I must admit that she has a little trouble hitting the curveball, but then so do many of the players.

CHUCK PINCKNEY

Westchester