Spring is in the air (well, sort of, it's actually raining right now). I usually have a little more bounce in my step this time of year. It's warmer, I can smell the flowers starting to bloom, and baseball season has started. Baseball is the greatest sport ever invented (sorry if it's seems slow and too cerebral to many of you, but it really is.) Opening day was almost like Christmas or my birthday. I would count the days and could hardly sleep the night before. Why am I not this excited any more?
One reason is that I now have a life/wife. :) There's no getting around that. Sports of any kind doesn't quite rule my life the way it once did. Yet, as my interest in sports has declined somewhat, baseball has been the biggest casualty in this decline. I can really only come up with one reason: FREE AGENCY! Yes, it exists in one form or another in every major professional sport but baseball has it big time.
I remember a Seinfeld episode where Jerry Seinfeld deduces that fans don't cheer players, they cheer the uniforms. Unfortunately, there is a lot of truth to this and I, personally just can't follow sports that way. On the other hand, many fans now resort to rooting for individual players and it doesn't matter what team they are on. People who don't give a hoot about the Green Bay Packers just love Brett Favre. Even worse, some "fans" only follow individual players because they belong to their own fantasy team. I am not of this ilk either.
Call me old fashioned but I want to root for a team. I used to live and die with the 1970's and 80's editions of the Dodgers. I rooted for Sutton, Lopes, Garvey, Smith, Yeager, Guerrero, Scoscia, and Valenzuela. When Bill Buckner was traded in 1977, I was saddened and felt like I'd lost a good friend. These teams weren't always the greatest but I felt they were my team and when they lost, it hurt me and when they won, it was so great. I care so much less for the current flavor of the Dodgers because there's no one on the team I can identify with. 75% of the roster seems to change every year. I realize a lot of this has to do with the fact the Dodgers haven't been very good for a while but it's out of control free agency that is turning rosters around all over Major League Baseball. Am I supposed to like Jeff Kent now? I hated him all of his career until last year when he was a member of those filthy, slimy, maggots known as the San Francisco Giants. It's probably okay, though, he'll likely belong to another club within a year or two because that is how baseball works now.
Let's look at his in another way:
Sandy Koufax: A Dodger who has legendary status in Los Angeles.
Randy Johnson: What team(s) did he play for? What city will remember him best, Seattle, Phoenix, New York, his next team?
Johnny Bench: A catcher who hit with power and drove in a lot of runs and will always be remembered in Cincinnati. A prominent member of the "Big Red Machine" of the 1970's. (Man, I hated him.)
Mike Piazza: A catcher who hit with power and drove in a lot of runs. He was great as a Dodger, he helped the Mets get to the World Series, he is now a Padre and was briefly, a Marlin. What uniform will he be wearing when he gets elected to the Hall of Fame?
For those who follow players, who is a fan of Reggie Sanders? He's a pretty good player who has played for the Reds, Padres, Braves, Diamondbacks, Giants, Pirates, Cardinals, and now the Royals. If you're a Reggie Sanders fan, does that mean you once rooted for all these teams?
7 comments:
I understand the complaint about free agency but here's the thing- you have the right to chose when and where you want to work based on your field of choice why shouldn't they? Now don't get me wrong many things stink about free agency for instance I hate the guys who sign contracts and hold out afterwards that bothers me to no end but if your contract is up and someone is offering you more money you can't say that anyone of us would say no to that.
I agree with you in principle but professional sports is hardly representative of the real world anyways.
Free agency, I believe, hurts sports. I read a while ago that about 50% of the fans who attend Laker games are doctors and lawyers. Dodger games are heading in the same direction. Paying $10 to park, paying $25 for 4 hotdogs and 2 pretzels, and 2 Cokes, and then hearing some player whine that management doesn't respect him because they only pay him $7 million instead of $10 million has convinced me to go to, maybe 1 game a year, if that. I can't even see how families, who aren't doctors or lawyers can even justify this at all.
But as long as owners are willing to pay them, as long as fans pay for the tix salaries are going to get higher and higher. You are the one who said on my site it's a free market. I agree with you by the way I don't like free agency BUT the prinicple applies if someone is offering you one amount and another is offering more 99% of us will take more.
By the way one error Randy Johnson also pitched for Montreal.
Again, I agree with you in principle. America must strive to remain a free market. If you noticed, I didn't suggest we change that in any way. I'm just saying that the free agency situation is unfortunate. The only possible way this could or should be changed id if more fans out there agreed with my point of view and don't go to games or buy overpriced jerseys and such.
I don't buy jersey's never did. I have cut back on games I used to go to at least 30 Dodgers games a year now I'm lucky I go to 5, I used to go out to the Forum for Lakers games now I can't afford to get into the door.
Now, if only the doctors and lawyers would follow in turn.
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