By Amaury Pi-Gonzalez

Who said life is nothing but a series of

ramdon events? Was that Bud Selig

or Donald Fehr ?

We are getting close to the eighth work

stoppage in Major League Baseball

history. Who is to blame ?There is a baseball strike this season

or an owners lockout after the World

Series. Nobody can say otherwise, the

non-contract negotiations between the

players union and the owners are steering

us towards another work stoppage.

The last time was in 1994. Who is to

blame this time ? Both sides and the

word is greed. The nation has almost

6% unemployment, corporations like

Enron and WorldCom have laid off hundreds

of thousands of workers. But have you

seen a player recently sleeping inside

his car at your neighboorhood park ?

Have you seen a Major League owner

recently staying at the YMCA?

The average salary of a Major League

player at the time of this column (All Star

Break) was $2.4 million per season.

The owners (50% of them) claim they

are losing money. The World Champion

Arizona Diamondbacks are losing

money this season; or so It says their

owner Mr. Colangelo. The Giants leading

the National League in attendance are

going to lose money this season.

The players Union do not want a salary

cap and they are afraid that the “contraction

happy Commissioner” still has in his

plans to eliminate a few teams. Mr.Selig

also wants players to test for steroids.

Mr. Fehr said that would be a violation

of individual rights for the players.

The owners can’t even agree where to

have lunch and the players Union keeps

putting the pressure. They (the Union) have

won most of these labor disputes.

So….who gets hurt ? Players have an

average of $50,000 each during a strike, which is basically for them tip money.

To put it in perspective, Barry Bonds has a clause in his countract that allows him to get a bonus $100,000 for making this year’s

All Star game in Milwaukee. No player in today’s Major League baseball

has to depend on that type of money to

survive during a season. The majority of

owners have money in other businesses

and baseball is just one of their many

enterprises they have in their portfolios.

The fans ? Who cares about them ! They

just buy tickets, pay for the $7 beer the

$15 parking and the $200 that is average

cost to take a family of 4 to a game. But

that is…… priceless of course.

How about the vendors at the stadiums

accross the country, that work for hourly

wages, or other contracted people that

work only during baseball season ? Ah,

who cares, they should have other

more lucrative jobs anyway. They should all have gotten degrees from MIT.

I find it completely repulsive for Major

League Baseball (both sides) Labor and

Management to have another work

stoppage this year.

I do not care of making an “analysis”of the

situation. Baseball, as it is is over-analyzed anyway. How many times do we have to

listen to Joe Morgan on the ESPN game

each Sunday tell us that bat speed is

what generates homeruns or that the

humidified balls in Denver are responsible

for over 1.5 less runs per game at Coors Field this year.

What we need in baseball is more common

sense and less analysis.

The problem here is that common sense

is not common anymore with these

baseball executives and labor directors.

Just like Mr Selig was ridiculed in front

of Congress when the Gov. of Minnesota

Jessie Ventura told him: “Mr.Commissioner

these baseball owners are not rich because

they are stupid”(following the Commissioners

statement than 25 or 30 teams are

loosing money). We should also be aware

that the players Union is one of the

strongest in the world and they know they

can just do anything they want and win,

since that has been the pattern in previous

confrontations.

Sandy Alderson would be a brilliant baseball Commissioner. But he also shares very

strong anti-labor ideas in the current

situation between Labor and Management.

A good friend of mine told me recently,

sooner or later Major Leage Baseball will

have to be Nationalized. That type of talk

scares the hell out of mne, since I was

born and lived in Cuba during the Communist

revolution and the word Nationalize is

something that goes against the grain

of what it is Free Enterprise. Major League

Baseball is not AMTRAK or the Post Office.

Baseball should remain a free enterprise.

Nobody put a gun in these owners

heads to pay players $10, $20 million per

season. They know it, we know it.

What this game needs is a complete

overhaul. Eventually we will have to

reduce the amount of teams. It was

baseball’s failure to establish a franchise

in Tampa or for that matter in Miami.

Just like the big corporations have failed

to report billions of dollars and some

have gone bankrupt technically

defrauding thousands of their employees, baseball over-extended themselves

into cities and situations that were just

ready for failure. That was not the making

of the players Union, neither was the

Designated Hitler(yes Hitler) I hate the DH rule.

While we are awaiting for the eighth strike

in MLB history let’s all stand up in the

seventh inning and sing:

..”Take Me Out To the Ball Game”

Or better yet, God Bless America !

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Amaury Pi-González is on his eighth season as Spanish Play By Play Announcer for the

San Francisco Giants. Previously for 17

seasons the same with the Oakland Athletics.

He is on the staff of LBC(ESPN Spanish radio)during the Postseason as well as

Fox Sports. His columns also appear on

www.latinobaseball.com