From: miked@pterodactyl.cis.ohio-state.edu (Michael Davey)
Subject: Re: Baseball and Billions
Organization: The Ohio State University Dept. of Computer and Info. Science
Distribution: usa
Date: Thu, 27 Aug 1992 18:04:11 GMT

In article <1992Aug27.170710.3110@adobe.com> snichols@adobe.com (Sherri Nichols) writes:

>You've made lots of claims, but seem unwilling to discuss any of those
>claims.  From reading your posts, I've gotten the impression that you
>believe that there is an obvious and objective definition of exactly what
>"The Game" ought to be, though I can't get you to actually provide this
>definition.  You seem to think that it's obvious that the DH is bad, that
>domes and turf are bad, that some changes are bad but others aren't, though
>I can't get you to give me a decision mechanism for determining whether a
>change is bad or not.  I assume that you believe that anybody who disagrees
>with your choices as to what is obviously bad must not be a baseball fan.  
	There is no obvious and objective definition of what the game ought
to be.  And your wrong, your a baseball fan and I disagree with you and other
people I know who are baseball fans. I just do not think that your 
"don't spend money on what you don't like" factor is realistic. I 
have no choice but to sit in an ashtray shaped stadium with artificial turf 
when I attend a Reds game, and many fans that I 
have talked to liked Crosley Field better, and do not like Riverfront, but
we still go to games and spend money. If you think most people do not prefer
a more, shall we say, asthetically correct (Ha, Ha) ballpark, I would
say Camden Yards and the new stadiums being built in Cleveland, Denver
and Arlington are evidence that your wrong. 

>What are the tenets and traditions of "The Game" that are important, and
>should be preserved?
	This is not the issue. And your still trying to comparet the past to
the present do defend the present, and I have never invoked the past as
representative of how things should be.

>Since you think the commissioner ought to have more power than the owners,
>exactly what is it that you think he ought to do?  How should he decide
>what it is he ought to do?  What if the fans don't like the decisions he
>makes?  How does giving the commissioner more power give any additional
>power to the fans at all?
	I would like to see a commissioner that tries to weigh  all three 
elements, players, owners and fans alike in any decision that affects the game.
Bart Giammatti said that it was unreasonable to expect cities to build a
stadium just for baseball when they need to hold other events there to make
it financially viable. I understand and agree with this, but it seems
that the cities of Cleveland, Denver, Baltimore and Arlington figured
it was possible to finance baseball-only stadiums and none of these are
huge markets. Further, although I have never been to either place, both
Atlanta-Fulton County and Anaheim are two-sport stadium that are supposedly
very asthetically correct. These would be a nice compromise between the
Camden Yards and the Three Rivers/Riverfronts of the world.

>No, I'm not arguing that at all.  I've made *no* statement in this
>discussion about whether the state of the game was good or bad.  You've
>claimed that the state of the game is bad, and it's because of the owners.
>I'm trying to get you to be more specific about what about the state of the
>game is bad, and *why* it's bad, and who decides it's bad.
	No, but you contiually try to invoke the past to compare it to
the present to defend the owners. The owners are not solely responsible for
the problems affecting the game. But they do play a role and without taking
away some, I said SOME of their power, they are never held accountable.
Next year, in all likelyhood, the owners will lock out the players and some
people (writers, commentators, etc) have indicated the owners are ready to 
lose a whole year's revenue in order to re-open the basic agreement and 
restructure the present free-agency system, salary-structure, etc. If this is 
the case, hopefully, all the issues will finally get resolved by salary-caps
(an inevitability), shared t.v. revenue (a possibility), and maybe ten
years could go by without a strike or lock-out shortened season. The point
is the owners are just as responsible for the conditions that exist now  that
they feel will force them to initiate the lock out, and self-regulation 
by the owners has not worked, strikes by the players have not worked, 
and fans are still going to games (although attendence is down, see 
this weeks BB weekly) and it would be nice if a strong commissioner 
like Landis (not that I want us to go back to the golden days of old!) 
could emerge to help initiate the type of restructuring that is going to be
needed.