Cooperstown the Beautiful

I’m finding myself more and more prone to get up in the morning, fire up the computer and immediately go check the standings in Major League baseball, and I don’t know why because I have no dog in the fight. Living, as I do, in the cultural wasteland known as mid-Missouri, I suppose I ought to declare an allegiance to one of the two teams situated on either side of the state, but I’m slow to do so due, at least in part, to my short tenure as a Missourian. I’d hate to develop an affinity for the wrong team only to have my allegiance questioned by this or that local who happens to support the team on the opposite side of the state. I’d hate to be the only Democrat in a sea of Republicans…

It should also be stated that becoming a Kansas City Royals fan would likely subject a person to a lifetime of abuse by any casual fan who witnessed any demonstration of such loyalty, such as the wearing of a T-shirt with the team logo emblazoned upon it. The Royals have fallen into disrepair since their glory years of two decades past, the result of mismanagement by an owner (the heir to the Wal-Mart fortune) richer than Croesus and stingier than Midas. Since the franchise is run like a business instead of a rich man’s dalliance, salaries are limited and very few, if any, premier players can be kept in the organization past their apprenticeship years. They come into the league, show flashes of brilliance, and sign contracts with the Yankees or Red Sox or Mets for twice what they made in Kansas City. Sorry, Royals fans, but you understand… it’s the American way. So the rich get richer, the poor get poorer (comparatively speaking, of course… there are no poverty-stricken franchises or players) and the beat goes on.

Before you draw the conclusion that I’m some sort of anti-free enterprise, Socialist wacko, I should point out that I rather enjoy the drama created by the disparities in salaries, especially when the Yankees (complete with payroll nearly triple that of the Royals) fall flat on their collective asses and stink up the stadium with play so inept that using the term ‘amateurish’ to describe it carries the risk of hyperbole. Besides, professional football and basketball both have salary caps to ‘level the playing field’ (I want to throw up every time I hear that phrase). There are thirty-two teams in each league and the same five or six teams still win the championship every year.

Professional baseball is America in microcosm. Immigrants now make up a huge percentage of the rosters, labor has a token union to speak for it that is closely controlled by management, the consumer pays ever-increasing, inflated rates for consumption of the product without any retreat of a free-market economy, powerful families control the destiny of the venture, free expression of dissent are not tolerated without banishment, franchises occasionally become homeless, and the decline of the middle class has become the hallmark of the venture. I guess the Iraq mess is the one real difference, although border skirmishes break out whenever the Yankees and Red Sox meet at either venue, but at least, unlike our government’s efforts, the league is able to control the sectarian violence with a minimum of loss and there is the promise that the war might someday conclude.

So, I’ll continue to read the stats sheet and check the standings, but become a fan of a specific team? Sorry… can’t afford it.

Bob Church©6/24/07