Earlier this week I criticized affluent journalist-for-hire Joe Nocera for a pair of humdrum articles in The Free Press. Nocera’s given up on Major League Baseball because it’s too slow, not in sync with America’s “short attention spans.
Can’t argue with the inane distractions that people are consumed by—that an increasing percentage of the population never reads perplexes me, but facts are facts—but this Nocera paragraph is wrong-headed, or, more charitably, romantic: “When baseball was America’s national pastime, it was partly because basketball and football hadn’t yet developed as professional sports. But it was also because, after World War II, Americans wanted a sport that relaxed them, that took them far away from the harried and difficult war years and instilled a sense of calm. Baseball did that.”
While there were fewer teams than today, MLB’s attendance in 1952 was 14 million; in 1965 the draw was 18.4 million. Last year, despite all the griping about the sport 71 million spectators went to a ballpark. That’s not a death knell.
Still, every year, stories timed for Opening Day are filled with dire predictions. In The Wall Street Journal on March 27, Jared Diamond wrote an article with this ominous—to him—headline: “Baseball’s Wealth Gap Has Become a Chasm—and Is Stretching the Sport to Its Breaking Point.” The sub-hed was worse: “As a new season gets under way, the financial disparity between MLB’s 30 teams has never been greater, alienating fans, distorting the game and making a long work stoppage all but inevitable.”
I doubt the “alienation” of fans is acute, but Diamond’s main point is that MLB has no salary cap for players, unlike other sports, a division between management and the players’ union that could come to a head after the 2026 season and, if not worked out, lead to a strike. As a lifelong fan, I’d hate that: I was furious that the 1994-’95 strike partially ruined the summer (the only comic relief was Bill Clinton, ineffectively, attempting to broker a deal between the two sides). My brother Jeff, a Yankees partisan since 1950, and frequent spectator, didn’t set foot again in Yankee Stadium until 1997.
Diamond, like others, cites the wide gulf of payroll expenditures, comparing big-market teams like Dodgers and Mets to the Rays, Marlins and White Sox. That’s true: Los Angeles has become an MLB juggernaut (using innovative methods), and Mets owner Steve Cohen has spent lavishly (inking Juan Soto in the off-season), and isn’t bothered by revenues in the red. But as the old cliché goes, “Cry me a river.” There’s not a single owner (or ownership group) in the sport that isn’t very wealthy. Some of these proprietors simply choose not to spend money on players. It’s an investment, and often a hobby for men who made their fortune in another line of business earlier in their careers. If you’re a fan, who wouldn’t want to own your favorite team? It’s weird, at least to me, that owners, financially set, wouldn’t indulge a realized fantasy and try to win every year. Unlike Cohen, and years ago, George Steinbrenner, others are skinflints.
Athletes are celebrities and who can blame them for attempting to make as much money as possible? I doubt many fans resent the players for landing $300 million contracts; that’d be like boycotting a Leonardo DiCaprio movie because of his salary.
Larding it on, Diamond writes: “All of this has left MLB facing an existential question: Can a sport survive when one team spends 600% more to build its roster than another?” Leaving his lazy use of the word “existential” to the side, MLB can and will survive; the players and owners just won’t sacrifice all that money over a labor dispute.
The accompanying photo is of my Uncles Pete and Joe one summer day in their Bronx neighborhood. Joe, on the right, looks like he’s holding the bounty of a fishing trip, but who knows, maybe it was a rabbit or two. As I’ve mentioned in the past, my mom and uncles grew up just a short walk from Yankee Stadium and saw Murderers Row in person. I doubt they worried about the financial disparity among MLB’s then-16 teams.
Look at the clues to figure out the year: John Nance Garner was Speaker of the House; Jack Benny’s radio show airs for the first time; Walt Disney’s Flowers and Trees, the first animated cartoon in Technicolor, premieres in Los Angeles; Josef von Sternberg directs Marlene Dietrich in Shanghai Express; the San Francisco Opera House opens; Johnny Cash is born and John Philip Sousa dies; Erskine Caldwell’s Tobacco Road, Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World and William Faulkner’s Light in August are published; Jimmie Rodgers’ “Roll Along, Kentucky Moon” was a popular hit; and Burgoo King wins the Kentucky Derby.
—Follow Russ Smith on Twitter: @MUGGER2023
