Almost everyone could afford to attend. That era now is long gone. The gap between the have and have-not fans became oceanic, Price writes. Ticket prices and parking costs shot so high that only the rich could afford a day at the ballpark. It s best to snap out of those romanticized illusions because sports in the United States are not likely to be that way again.
Free agency has hit even Cuba in a big way, says Price.
In the face of astronomical salaries and bonuses, loyalty has escaped on a raft. Freedom, says Price. America s dollar-dominated, modern sports scene is not some aberrant development, a wrong road taken, Price explains in his book. It s the inevitable fruit of a society based on the principles of individualism and a free market, for good and bad. If, in the process, the United States has somehow become far more of a workers paradise than a place like Cuba, so be it.