To Selig, Sky Is Always Falling

Don’t you want to just scream?

Don’t you want to just shout?

Don’t you want to just say, “Stop, Bud. We understand. We get the message. We may not always believe it and we may be skeptical of the timing, but we hear you. Please, you don’t have to keep promoting doomsday.”

It’s just incredible.

It’s mid-July, and the man hasn’t stopped since last November, when only 48 hours after a glorious World Series he couldn’t wait to say his business was in such bad shape that two major league teams would have to be eliminated.

Everyone in the free world knew it couldn’t happen, knew there were too many legal issues, and yet there was Allan H. (Bud) Selig, the commissioner of baseball, having already pulled the negotiating rug from under his chief operating officer, Paul Beeston (who would soon be shown the door), wasting months of valuable collective bargaining time in pursuit of a plan destined to end up in the courts and arbitration.

There is no use re-chronicling familiar events.

It is enough to say that here we are at the start of the second half of the 2002 season, his beat goes on, and we have yet to see any of the wolves he continues to cry about.

That’s not to say that an occasional howl or two shouldn’t be heard in the distance.

Are some clubs having financial problems? Of course.

Have some had to take loans to meet expenses and payrolls, as clubs always have--even when the commissioner at the time wasn’t selling a daily dose of doom? Certainly.

Is it possible that baseball’s line of credit has been strained? Sure.

I don’t have to be convinced, as sources laid out, that the Tampa Bay Devil Rays and Detroit Tigers obtained loans to meet their June 15 payrolls by using distributions from baseball’s central funds as collateral. Or that the Tigers also obtained a commercial loan, secured by a guarantee from team owner and pizza entrepreneur Mike Illitch, so that they could meet Monday’s payroll.

There is validity to that and a measure of validity to all of it, but is it necessary to keep selling it at the expense of letting a little light shine through?

Has any commissioner in any sport ever engaged in so much “negative promotion,” as Marvin Miller described it in a recent interview?

In May, Selig told Times editors and reporters during a meeting that six to eight clubs might go under in the near future.

On Wednesday, meeting with reporters in Milwaukee while absorbing national abuse for calling the Tuesday night All-Star game after 11 innings with the score tied, 7-7, Selig said one club (Detroit) may not be able to meet its Monday payroll while another (Tampa Bay) could collapse before the season ended.

It took only one day, however, for that crisis to be averted, with Bob DuPuy, baseball’s new COO, saying there was no immediate problem for any team, creating speculation that the president may call these guys the next time he needs help in crisis management.

The impression was that doomsday had become a convenient way for Selig to shift the spotlight from the All-Star controversy, and a negotiating ploy as talks with the union were scheduled to begin the next day.

Selig insists baseball’s economic problems go far beyond a negotiating ploy, but a National League owner, asked if the doomsday theme hadn’t become a tired recording at a time when baseball could use a positive message, said, “Well, he hasn’t convinced the [union] yet of the problems that we’ve got, so I guess he’s entitled to keep making these points until he can convince them. I think he’s also trying to convince the public, as well as the other side, that the arguments he is making have validity to them.

“So, possibly, the best way to get the other side to move is for the other side to feel that the public understands the positions that the commissioner has been taking. I’m sure there are a lot of people in the business who get tired of hearing these same sort of statements week after week after week, but there are a lot of casual fans out there, and it’s important to try and influence them as well.”

Perhaps, but it’s more likely that skeptical fans, turned off by work stoppages, soaring salaries and other issues detracting from the game on the field, have tuned out a commissioner they have widely ridiculed and that a similarly skeptical union won’t be swayed by doomsday prophecies alone.

There is one hard fact that disputes doomsday.

The industry had revenue of between $3.5 billion and $3.7 billion last year.

If the 30 teams truly had operating losses of $500 million on that revenue, as management insists, then there would seem to be widespread mismanagement, or the industry represents the worst investment this side of Wall Street and should be shut down entirely.

It is difficult to believe that successful businessmen could lose so much with that amount of revenue, even with the average player salary now $2.4 million and the clubs owing about $1.7 billion in new stadium debt.

Of course, not all of that revenue is distributed evenly, and the issues of increased revenue sharing and a luxury tax on high payrolls are at the heart of the negotiations.

Although it is hard to find much optimism, and the union, concerned that owners may be intent on unilaterally implementing new work rules, is likely to set a strike date by the end of the month, San Francisco Giant managing general partner Peter Magowan said Friday he is “convinced sanity will prevail and we’ll have an agreement.”

Magowan said owners and players both have revenue sharing numbers on the table and should be able to reach a compromise, and, since the union recognized the “plight of the clubs” in agreeing to a modest luxury tax experiment in the last contract, the union should “certainly see the logic in agreeing to it now since the economic plight of the clubs is so much worse than it was in 1994.”

Magowan wasn’t painting a doomsday picture. He’ll leave that to Selig, a true artist.