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| Wednesday, November 7 Hey, not so fast, Bud By Jim Caple ESPN.com |
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Given the choice between taking the high and proper road during a national crisis, Bud Selig and his owners chose again to get right down in the manure and disgrace themselves. Two days after an extraordinary World Series reduced cuticles to the bone while raising TV ratings to the ozone, Selig announced that he will rip the heart out of two communities before next season.
Most expect that the teams to be eliminated are the Expos and Twins, though Selig couldn't be bothered to name them. After all, until he does, baseball can still hold a gun to Montreal, Minnesota and Florida, warning them they have one last chance - and we really mean it this time! -- to build $400 million stadiums for billionaire owners in the middle of a recession and a war. There have been contraction rumors for months, but the suddenness of this decision is stunning. Fifteen weeks ago, the Twins were in first place. If Selig has his way, when position players arrive at spring training in 15 weeks, the Twins will no longer exist. That's a ludicrous timetable to a reprehensible plan (just wait until we get the first lawsuits) but never underestimate Selig. He hasn't been able to win a world championship in three decades in Milwaukee, where they haven't been able to even manage a winning season in nine years, but he can work wonders when properly motivated. Keep in mind his efforts in 1970 when the Pilots left Seattle for spring training and never returned, winding up in Milwaukee instead. Whichever two teams he eventually names, it will be a disgrace. The Twins were two-time world champions, the first American League team to draw three million fans and one of the best stories in baseball this year, leading their division much of the season while attendance soared. Fans supported the team for decades, buying tickets and building stadiums, shivering outside each late spring to cheer Harmon Killebrew at Met Stadium and walking inside each summer to cheer Kirby Puckett in the Metrodome. Twins fans should be applauding the Gold Gloves that Torii Hunter and Doug Mientkiewicz received Tuesday. Instead, they are reading about how their owner sold them out with the help of baseball's commissioner. The only reason the Twins are being included in this scheme is because they are owned by a frustrated old man who has devoted his entire life to the aquisition of money. Carl Pohlad heard money was being given out and he jumped to the front of the line. There are groups that want to buy the Twins and keep them alive but Pohlad won't return the phone calls. He just wants the cash. Everyone is down on the Expos and I'll grant you there are some major problems there. Perhaps the team could benefit from a move. But the biggest problem in Montreal is not Montreal. It's owner Jeffrey Loria, who has single-handedly crippled baseball's popularity in that city. Loria wouldn't even allow English language radio or TV broadcasts much of the 2000 season, thinking it would boost attendance. Instead it fell to barely 600,000 this year. And now part of Selig's contraction scheme is to let him ruin another team? That's like a surgeon removing cancer from one patient, discarding the patient and placing the cancer in someone else. Then we have the Florida teams, who joined the majors in the 1993 and 1998 expansions. The Marlins won the World Series in 1997, which is the sort of systematic failure Red Sox and Cubs fans could only dream about. Tampa Bay, meanwhile, has finished in last place its first four seasons. But so did the Mets. The Devil Rays haven't been successful yet, but what expansion club ever has been expected to be a success after just four years? Contraction won't solve anything, it will just cost hundred of jobs in two communities and turn off fans by the hundreds of thousands. If baseball was really serious about addressing economic disparities, it would put the Expos in New York, where there are more than enough fans and corporate sponsors to support a third team. That also would reduce George Steinbrenner's competitive advantage over every other team. But the owners won't do that. They would rather to kill off baseball in two communities than work toward a meaningful solution. No one thought Selig could top canceling the World Series, but he is lowering the bar once again. He is giving baseball -- and himself -- a bigger black eye than Tony Conigliaro ever had. The union will fight all this, of course, and the owners will use it as the powerful bargaining lever in negotiations that they mean it to be. Donald Fehr already fired the first warning, saying the announcement was inconsistent with "the law, our contract and the longterm welfare of the sport." In other words, we have another ugly fight brewing between ownership and the union, just when the public has the least stomach or tolerance for it. If Selig has his way, two communities won't have baseball teams next year. But as one Twins player told me, what difference will it make if no one else is playing, either?
Box score line of the week
Eight of the first nine batters he faced had a hit against him and six scored. He allowed a record eight hits in one inning. He recorded only four outs, one of which was when a runner was thrown out at the plate. Even when Witasick pitched well things went wrong -- he struck out Jay Bell to lead off the fourth inning but Bell reached first base when the ball went past catcher Jorge Posada for a wild pitch. Witasick's line: 1.1 IP, 10 H, 9 R, 8 ER, 0 BB, 4 K At least Witasick kept the game in perspective. He said he is aided by the requisite of all relievers, "a short-term memory." Asked whether he ever felt miserable on the mound, he replied, "I bet a lot of people would love to be in my shoes to be pitching in the World Series. Even though I wasn't very effective."
From left field
Jim Caple is a senior writer for ESPN.com. |
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