Angel Fans Will Strike Back, if Only for a While

For some baseball fans, the personal has become political.

Irate over the eight-month labor dispute that has marred the national pastime, even ardent fans are vowing to put down their score cards, rise up from their recliner chairs and register their own acts of personal protest as the new season begins this week.

They are promising to boo errors, show up late, skip games and even turn away from their favorite major league teams.

“I can’t stand the idea of spoiled brat millionaires going out on strike,” said ex-Angel fan Roger Rhyne, 61, a tax preparer from Anaheim Hills, who will start following minor league baseball from now on. “They should get up every morning and thank God they have the opportunity to play baseball for a living, for crying out loud.”

But their quixotic mission to punish the players and owners probably will be foiled by the sport’s enormous ranks of loyalists, whose passion for the recently troubled game sends them through stadium turnstiles year after year.

That such powerful feelings, both positive and negative, have been generated by the return of the major leaguers further speaks to baseball’s hold on the American psyche, some fans say. The bitterness eventually will pass, they say, and baseball, as it always has, will prevail.

“I understand the need to protest, but I know it won’t last,” said Dr. Matthew Schneider, an assistant professor of English at Chapman University who teaches a course exploring baseball in American literature and film. “The beauty of the game will eventually triumph. It can’t be resisted.”

But some fans, still stinging from the first World Series cancellation in 90 years, now want to retaliate in force by administering a harsh dose of tough love. They want to strike back at the players and owners in the area they say they seem to care most about: money.

Mark Sanano of Dana Point has organized Strikebusters, a grass-roots organization networking with other fan groups across the country to rally support for a 40-game boycott of the new baseball season, one for each game the major leaguers sat out last year.

“If we just go back to the games right now, then the owners and players will think they can do anything they want and we will still come running back like little puppy dogs,” said Sanano, 35, a food marketing consultant. “I didn’t do anything after the 1990 strike. I’m not going to make that mistake again.”

Sanano, who said he has received more than 700 letters and calls of support, is also urging Angels season ticket holders to refuse to be seated for the first inning of Wednesday’s home opener.

“I want the players to see what it’s like not to have fans in the stands,” he said.

At the very least, Sanano hopes the actions, which also include not buying major league licensed products, will force the players and owners to hammer out a final settlement. The key issue of player salary caps that triggered the strike remains unresolved, he laments.

“This whole nightmare could happen again,” he said.

Though they realize a boycott is probably a lost cause, other disgruntled fans still feel compelled by conscience to lodge smaller acts of defiance. A self-described “die-hard fan,” Ruth Wardwell of Orange is nevertheless swearing off one televised major league game a week.

“Who do they think they are?,” asked Wardwell, 38, head of public relations at Chapman University. “I understand the labor principle, but, come on, let’s get real. (The players) make more money than the peanut vendor will in 30 lifetimes and they put the peanut vendor out of business last year.”

And don’t tell Wardwell about lost causes. She’s a Chicago Cubs fan.

“I just feel I have to do something,” she said. “I want to teach the owners and players a little humility.”

Also making the sacrifice is Mike Ybarra, 31, of Irvine. The parks and recreation worker is scratching out Angel home games from his personal budget this year because of the strike.

“I’m not going to the ballpark this year as my own little protest,” Ybarra said. “I know it’s minor, and I don’t know if it will really do any good. But if enough people do it, it may make a difference in the long run.”

Ybarra’s anger stems from the interruption of his daily baseball season ritual of poring over box scores and compiling statistics. Like millions of other fantasy league enthusiasts across the country, Ybarra, a fantasy baseball league addict, analyzes the data to create and modify his team roster during the baseball season. “Team owners” then compete for the best scores.

“I had literally gone into baseball hibernation because a large part of my connection to the game was through (fantasy teams),” Ybarra said. “I’ve suddenly woken up.”

The strike’s conclusion also is reviving business at Pat Boyer’s baseball card shop in Orange. Though sales held steady for old cards, new card purchases were down as much as 60% at Five Points Sport Cards during the height of the long labor dispute, he said.

“It was a big hit,” said Boyer, who notes business is picking up again. “I think the owners and players really damaged the game. . . . People feel betrayed.”

But Boyer is not only a businessman, he’s a fan, the kind on whom friends and customers rely to answer obscure baseball trivia questions. Even so, Boyer said he holds no grudge against baseball.

“I was real upset when the strike was on, but now that it’s over I’m willing to forget about it,” said Boyer, 45. “I just love the game so much. Baseball is really like a religion to me.”

One of its disciples is Seymour Menton, a 68-year-old UC Irvine professor. The teacher of Latin American literature became devoted to the game as a boy while playing in the streets of the Bronx. Ever since, Menton has been transfixed by the annual drama on the diamond.

“I’m delighted the players are back. I’ve even been following spring training,” said Menton, who can reel off every World Series winner since 1903. “I was disappointed by the strike. I feel both sides were to blame for it, but I’m excited it’s over now.”

At least publicly, however, California Angels officials aren’t banking on fans forgiving and forgetting so easily. Angel officials, who have sold only 50 season tickets since the settlement, feel fortunate they’ve kept the overall number of season ticket holders around 10,000, roughly the same figure as in years past.

“We know as an organization and as an industry, we have a lot of wounds we have to heal,” said John Sevano, an Angels spokesman. “It’s not going to happen overnight either. It may take a full season or maybe a few seasons.”

Toward that end, the Angels are offering all seats for $1 at Wednesday’s home opener against the Detroit Tigers, which starts at 7:30 p.m. Also, as part of a fan appreciation effort, the Angels are giving away a new car and a trip to accompany the team when it travels to New York to play the Yankees.

“One thing the labor dispute made both sides cognizant of is how important the fans are,” Sevano said.

In all likelihood, the major leagues eventually will woo back demoralized fans, their large and small protests doing little harm to the game in the long run. To most fans, boycotting baseball because of the strike makes about as much sense as staying away from Disneyland because the Indiana Jones ride was temporarily shut down.

“I don’t feel any animosity toward the players or owners whatsoever,” said Eric Santi, 28, of Anaheim, who plans to head out to the Big A his usual half a dozen times this season. “The game is there to give people an escape. It’s entertainment. I love the games and the crowds.”

Like Mighty Casey at the bat, the loose confederation of determined fans stepping up to the plate to rattle the major leagues seem a fitting tribute to the game.

“Baseball speaks to both the yearning for transcendence and the reality that transcendence is difficult, if not impossible to achieve,” Schneider said. “It’s about a magnificent failure.”

* BIG RELIEF: New Angel Lee Smith, all-time top reliever, saves energy. C1

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