Strike Brings Sliver of Hope to Angel Fans

As I look out the window on this, The Day After, I see no mushroom clouds. No scorched earth. No low-level radiation. No Mad Max types in bombed-out dune buggies, scavenging through the rubble for tattered remnants of Southpaw and Ribbie and smoldering Angel-Mariner ticket stubs.

If this was the end of the World Series as we know it, then I feel fine, because no more major league baseball in 1994 also means:

--No outside distractions for baseball fans as they wheel in the cases of light beer and the industrial-strength-sized bins of pork rinds and curl up for all 18 1/2 hours of Ken Burns’ “Baseball” documarathon, basking in warm sepia-tone memories of how grand the old game was before Budhead Selig and his murderer’s row of small-market bobos got their hands on it.

--No more haranguing over whether a third tier of playoffs would ravage “the integrity of the game.” Purists got their wish--there will be no wild-card teams in the postseason tournament this fall. How’s that integrity thing holding up, guys?

--Still no team with a losing record in the playoffs. A 25-year tradition is saved.

--No more World Series games starting so late that the very fans the sport now desperately needs to court--aged 12 and under--can’t stay up to watch them.

--And, because Gene Autry is fed up with the current state of the game, a new ownership group for the Angels will soon be in place--very likely, some time in 1995.

In baseball, as in life, it is good for the spirit to look at the bright side whenever possible.

Sure, it’s a shame that the fans in Cleveland have waited 40 years for nothing, that Montreal’s wildly successful do-it-yourself program won’t have the chance to keep the World Series trophy in Canada, that Padre supporters have been denied the only joy they have known since 1984--Tony Gwynn’s eminently plausible run at .400.

But this is big league baseball, post-apocalypse, where the words to survive by are Every Man For Himself. The owners are in it only for the owners. The players care only about the common good of the players. If either of these statements were untrue, a full schedule of American and National League games would be on tap tonight.

No, altruism is out, self-absorption is in. Extend the same ground rules to the fans and the Orange County ticket buyer is going to find little reason to don a black armband in support of his or her brethren in Cleveland or Cincinnati. The Orange County ticket buyer is going to ask, “What’s in it for me?” and the answer will come ringing back: “More than you ever could have dreamed.”

If the collapse of the 1994 baseball season was enough to drive the Autrys to sell, then every Angel fan should have the front page of Thursday’s doomsday sports section framed and mounted over the fireplace. A flicker of hope, finally.

You know it, I know it, the American people know it--there’s only one way the sad situation with the Angels is ever going to improve, and that is with a change in ownership. Managers get sacked, players are dumped and general managers play musical office chairs, but responsibility for what hasn’t happened with this franchise the last 35 years rests with those who pay the bills--and who, most recently, have refused to pay the going rate for presentable talent.

The Autrys lost interest some time around 1991, when they spent huge sums to have Dave Parker and Gary Gaetti anchor a can’t-miss pennant chase--and the ship wound up on the ocean floor, with the crew sleeping with the fishes.

It’s tough to fault Gene on that one, the disappointment of ’91 coming on the heels of the disillusionment of ‘87, coming on the heels of the despair of ‘86, coming on the heels of the frustration of ‘85, coming on the heels of the aggravation of ‘82, coming on the heels of the first 20 years of unfulfilled promises.

Had the Autrys sold the team then, most fans would have nodded and commiserated. The Cowboy gave it his best shot, let the poor man finally have some peace.

Instead, Gene and Jackie held on grudgingly for three more seasons, slashed the payroll nearly in half, spread the misery and soured their ever-resilient fan base to the point where the strike was not only welcomed but applauded. At last, something to break the monotony.

This is how far the bottom line has fallen in Anaheim: Included in the owners’ salary-cap proposal was also a salary floor--a minimum that teams must spend each year on talent, somewhere between $26 million and $28 million. The Angels’ payroll for 1994 was $23.3 million, meaning that they would have needed to spend about $3 million more just to reach the owner-implemented salary minimum.

So far, much of the requiem reportage on television and in the newspaper has attended to the “winners” and “losers” of the strike. Such discussion reminds me of 1980s Cold War rhetoric--remember this old favorite: “Is a nuclear war winnable?”--and I cringe every time I hear that the owners “won.”

What, exactly, did they win?

If turning the ballgame over to the lawyers, burying the Baseball Encyclopedia in truckloads of legal briefs, gambling that their life-giving antitrust exemption won’t be revoked by Congress and risking total anarchy when 700 ballplayers refuse to sign contracts and declare themselves free agents is to be considered “victory,” then Philadelphia won the World Series last year, the Texas Rangers are a dynasty and Anthony Young is a modern-day folk hero.

Sorry, the owners lost this one, the players lost this one and the fans, for the most part, lost this one.

Except, maybe, for a plucky group of hardcores in Orange County, who have steeled themselves for years with the thought that before things got better, they most likely had to get worse.

Two pennant races and a World Series have been canceled. Worse has been attained.

The Angel fan looks out the window again, thinking about what has been sacrificed and what might be gained, down the road, as a consequence.

The cloud cover seems to be lifting. Could that be the sun, getting ready to break on through?