Texas-Sized Deal

Baseball shuffles through cracked peanut shells into a sterile room Monday, where it is asked to lick the nacho cheese off its fingers and sit down.

Across a desk sits a man wearing a pressed suit that has never squeezed into a bleacher, tapping a mechanical pencil that has never scrawled across a scorecard.

“It’s official,” the man tells baseball.

“You are dying.”

Baseball sinks back into its oversized nylon logo jacket. It looks down at its stiff blue souvenir glove, unfit for catching foul balls, unbeatable as a child’s pillow.

“How long?” baseball asks.

The man looks over at a shiny calculator that has never been soaked in beer while trying to compute a ninth-inning slugging percentage.

“One year,” says the man.

“Why?” baseball asks.

“Clogged arteries,” says the man.

Baseball thinks for a second. Clogged arteries? I run. I leap against fences. I dance around bases. With the exception of a few fat guys in Oakland, I spend six months a year exercising in the sun.

“Clogged with what?” baseball asks.

“With green,” says the man.

“Clogged with $25 million a year for a player who will fail nearly 70% of the time at bat and touch the ball five times a game in the field.

“Clogged with $11 million a year for a pitcher with a losing record.

“Clogged with $10 million for a pitcher with arm trouble.”

“All of this happened today?” asks baseball.

“Today,” says the man.

“Alex Rodriguez. Darren Dreifort. Kevin Appier.”

“But hasn’t this happened before?” asks baseball. “What about Kevin Brown and $15 million? Or Ken Griffey Jr. and $12.5 million?”

“True,” says the man. “But never before has a player been paid more than the estimated value of the last two small-market World Series championship teams combined, like Rodriguez.

“Never before has a pitcher been guaranteed $55 million, despite never having won more than 13 games in a season, like Dreifort.

“Never before has a pitcher been guaranteed more millions in the next four years, 42, than his wins in the last four years, 41, like Appier.

“And never before has all of this happened in the final year of the basic agreement between the union and the players.”

“Oh no,” baseball says, burying its head in a giant Styrofoam hand. “So I’m going to die during a strike?”

“No,” says the man, “much worse. You will die during a lockout.

“The small-market owners--led by Commissioner Bud Selig--are going to shut down the sport in hopes of instituting a salary cap that will stop this spending that is ruining your heart.”

“My heart feels fine,” says baseball.

“Not for long,” says the man.

“Young fans won’t pay $60 a ticket to see a shortstop, no matter how nicely Rodriguez smiles. Old fans will tire of listening to the Dodgers brag about how Dreifort walked ‘only’ five batters in his last no decision.

“Advertisers will follow those fans out the door quicker than you can say, ‘football.’

“And, really, everybody is getting tired of a World Series that hasn’t been won by a small-market team in nine years.

“That team was the Minnesota Twins. Today, the Twins wake up with zero chance to make next year’s World Series. Like the Pittsburgh Pirates. Like the Montreal Expos. Like about all but five or six teams.

“For you to survive, baseball, you must become like the NFL, where everyone has a chance. The owners will lock out the players in hopes that they will agree to the salary structure that works in the NFL.”

“So I’ll get better?” asks baseball.

“No,” says the man. “Because the players will not agree to the salary cap. The players like giving back money as much as they like giving autographs.”

“But won’t this labor problem eventually disappear, like other labor problems?” asks baseball.

“No,” says the man. “The money is too much. The bitterness is too deep.

“The owners will fight among themselves, with the big-market guys trying to fold the franchises of the small-market guys. The players will become so incensed, heroes like Mark McGwire will retire.

“After an entire season is erased, all but the hard-core seamheads will abandon you.”

The man sighs.

“When you do come back, baseball, you will no longer be a mainstream sport, but a midnight movie.

“You will not be baseball. You will be dead.”

“Hmmm,” says baseball, digging into its pockets for some sunflower seeds. “McGwire was something, remember? He and Sammy Sosa? Two summers ago, I never felt better.

“Tell me, does Alex Rodriguez make more than Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa?”

“He makes more than both of them combined,” says the man.

There is a pause. Baseball stands up and stretches.

“For a minute there, I thought it was the seventh inning,” says baseball.

“I’m so sorry,” says the man.

“I also remember Orel Hershiser,” says baseball. “When you mention Dodger pitchers, I think about Hershiser and the summer of 1988 and, well, he was never paid like Dreifort, right?”

“Right,” says the man.

“What, exactly, has Darren Dreifort done that warrants his money clogging up my arteries?” baseball asks.

“You need to sit down again,” says the man.

“The highlight of Dreifort’s career here occurred not with his glove, but with his bat. On Aug. 8, against the Chicago Cubs at Dodger Stadium last year, he hit two home runs.”

“What’s so big about that?” asks baseball.

“The home runs were so exciting, two lesbians sitting behind home plate began French-kissing and . . . “

“Oh yeah,” says baseball, “I think I heard about that. Or did I watch it on video?”

Baseball rummages around its logoed beach bag for a box of Cracker Jack. It pulls out the prize, a tiny whistle in the shape of a little green diamond.

“This is neat,” says baseball.

“Be serious,” says the man.

“So what kind of doctor are you, anyway?” asks baseball.

“I’m no doctor,” says the man. “I’m Scott Boras.”

Baseball turns bluer than a Vero Beach sky, begins shaking like Yankee Stadium in October.

“Just relax,” says the man. “You won’t feel a thing.”

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Bill Plaschke can be reached at his e-mail address: bill.plaschke@latimes.com.