A Baseball Strike Could End Pastime

What if this time it isn’t “three strikes and you’re out” in baseball?

What if this time it’s two strikes--1994 and 2002?

When George W. Bush said Friday he’d be “furious” if a strike shut down baseball, that was the sound of one shoe dropping. The other shoe carries the sound of baseball’s once loud footsteps fading away into oblivion.

If there is a strike, and it washes out the playoffs and World Series like it did in 1994, baseball as we’ve known it will come to rest on the side of the road like a punctured tire.

Baseball was lucky to come back whole from the 1994 strike. It happened because of a serendipitous combination of circumstances. First, there was everybody’s feel-good superstar, Cal Ripken, Jr., stalking the unimaginable, unapproachable record of consecutive games set by Lou Gehrig. Ripken’s ascension up this Everest paid tribute to the everyday, workmanlike aspect of baseball; it was a character reference for the man and the game. You couldn’t help but respond positively to Ripken--especially when night after night he stayed late at the park to sign autographs for free.

A few years after that Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa thrilled the country as they went after the biggest number in the Game of Numbers, 61. Sosa’s famous laughter and his obvious joy humanized McGwire--until ultimately, at No. 62, McGwire landed on home plate and picked up his son and hugged him, showing the world that he was not just a superman athlete, but a father. Was there ever a symbol of the righteousness of baseball as powerful as that?

Finally, last year, there was a Fall Classic for the ages, going down to the last inning of the seventh game. The drama was made even more powerful by coming so closely after Sept. 11. Again, the symbolism was rich. The familiar pomp and ceremony of the nation’s pastime had helped in the nation’s recovery, and fittingly one of the teams in the World Series was the Yankees of New York, the city that had been hit the hardest.

None of those things are in play now. Ripken is retired, and there is no current baseball player who we think of as a salt of the earth. McGwire’s 70 was passed before we even got to know it. Even if Barry Bonds or Sammy Sosa hits 80, this year’s steroid stories have made us view home runs with skepticism, not honest awe. (The feeling is so pervasive that the players pledged pre-emptively to submit to steroid testing). And on Sept. 11, if there is a strike, baseball will be seen as disgracing the memory of the day--everybody else will be pulling together, and the players and owners will be pulling apart.

If it took baseball seven years to recover from the last strike, it might take 17 to recover from this one. Or 27. Or forever. Baseball has already lost much of its audience to other sports. Sometimes it seems young people only go to games when their fathers drag them. Baseball is harder to learn than basketball and football; it’s slow as molasses compared to the X games. You can’t play baseball one-on-one or three-on-three or five-on-five. Baseball requires more patience, more commitment, more love. Football, with its crash-bam syncopation, long ago left baseball behind.

Which gives me a chance to shoehorn in this Redskins interlude:

Thank God he got to the Redskins. I was beginning to worry he’d forgotten Steve Spurrier was more important to this city than 1,000 dopey baseball players.

You know those prescription drug commercials, where they tell you that just one pill a day will rid all your allergies forever. And the sun’s shining, the dogs are romping, the kids are playing and everybody’s having a great time. And then, right at the end of the commercial, in a very rapid-fire manner the announcer comes on, and rattles off a few possible side-effects, like nausea, dry mouth, spontaneous bleeding from the gums and: “ ... may cause hair to sprout from your ears.” You know, minor stuff like that.

OK, here is the pill we have, and it’s a cure for everything that ails you: The Redskins have scored 75 points in two games. They rolled 38 on the 49ers, and 37 on the Panthers. They are out of the gate like Secretariat.

Sadly, these points don’t count. These aren’t real games.

Here is the warning, complete with the possible side-effects: Nobody has shown Steve Spurrier anything close to the defenses he might see in the regular season. Wait until the Mariuccis, the Hasletts, the Fassels and the Reids start bringing real bodies in waves at the Redskins. Complicated NFL blitz packages could result in severe damage to the quarterbacks. Didn’t you ever wonder why Spurrier wants to carry four quarterbacks? He would carry eight if he could--because he knows at least two of them are going to be carted off the field during every game. It’s going to look like “Gladiator” out there.

I’m on the record suggesting the reason Danny Wuerffel and Shane Matthews never lit up the NFL is because they haven’t found a system they can excel in, like they had in Florida under Spurrier. I’m on the record suggesting that being reunited with Spurrier might give them the comfort and confidence to max out with the Redskins. And I believe that. I also believe that when the blitzes come, these two could be shish-kabob.

OK, thanks for your indulgence. I just needed to cover my behind in case the Redskins get bopped tonight by the Steelers. Now back to baseball.

There’s not much more to say about the possible strike. I understand the players believe they’ve given on a lot of issues already--especially by agreeing to permit a luxury tax. So if the players do strike they will claim the owners forced them into it.

But what is this strike about? The average salary in baseball is $2.4 million. Most of the veterans who are any good make $4 million or more. A luxury tax won’t roll back salaries; it will simply prevent an escalation of those preposterous $25 million a year A-Rod contracts. This is worth striking over? Did I miss something that happened in the last half hour that makes it impossible to live on $4 million a year?

Baseball is the goose that lays golden eggs.

Only fools would strike. Only fools.