On the American Pastime

[vsp]

It's not as if drug use on the field is a new phenomenon. Jim Bouton wrote about it thirty years ago in Ball Four. ("Greenie up, greenie up, men, greenie up for the big one!") Lenny Dykstra used to joke with reporters about his "special vitamins." Muscleheads like Dean Palmer had all sorts of inexplicable injuries (for example, when Dean's tendon spontaneously detached and rolled up his bicep like a window-shade) hinting at steroid use. Dock Ellis pitched a no-hitter while under the influence of LSD. (Okay, the last one's not that typical.)

I do not have a knee-jerk reaction to high player salaries, because they're not entirely the players' doing. Baseball has no commissioner (Selig does not even remotely count), and the owners have no incentive or accountability to restrain spending. The agents use every precedent and dirty trick imaginable to jack their players' perceived values up, and the owners are dumb enough to fall for it every time. (The owners are legally forbidden to collude as a unit; when left to their own devices, they inevitably collapse into bidding wars.) The players' union has grown to be the strongest union in professional sports today, and is as unwilling as the owners to give the slightest concession. Every time a contract is up, a strike is viewed as a near-inevitability instead of something to be avoided.

Meanwhile, waves of expansion have dulled the talent pool. Rising salaries make it more and more difficult to hang onto talented players for any length of time, increasing the gap between the haves and have-nots. World Series games go deep into the night for television's sake, eliminating the chance for all but the most faithful to watch the climactic moments. (Likewise, all televised games drag on and on thanks to commercials.) And, like in the old days, the Yankees are favored to win every year.

And then I could get into what's wrong with the PHILLIES, but...