DALLAS -- The beauty of baseball is its unpredictability. The beauty of
offseason baseball is its never-ending predictability.
The (pick one) richest, longest, craziest, zaniest, dumbest, goofiest
contract in baseball history is now an annual offseason event. Destined to
happen. Take it to Vegas.
|
“ |
As an industry, we may bend. But we don't break. It's a great game, a lot of times in spite of ourselves. Not matter how we humans try to break it, it's deeply rooted. And it always responds. And it will now, too -- and thrive. ” |
|
|
— John Schuerholz, Braves GM |
And then put your two bucks down on the inevitable second half of this
daily double:
Five minutes after contract details spread, you can bet your copy of
"The Life and Times of Bowie Kuhn" that somebody will use them as the perfect
excuse to announce the demise of baseball as we've known and theoretically
loved it.
So the hue, the cry, the wails and the moans you heard during the final
credits of the most expensive winter meetings in the history of baseball were
no surprise. Heck, they were practically an annual tradition -- right up there
with Brad Ausmus getting traded to (or is it from?) the Astros.
But never before have those hues, those cries, those wails or those moans
followed a $252 million signing (Alex Rodriguez), a $160 million signing
(Manny Rodriguez) and a $121 million signing (Mike Hampton) -- all of which
were fired out of the financial cannon in a wild, exhausting span of 72 hours.
So the question the grand and mighty sport of baseball now faces -- the
question, in fact, that all of those who love it face -- is this:
Was this finally Armageddon?
Were these finally the signings that plunge this sport into such serious
financial peril that baseball, as it's been operated in the free-agent era,
can no longer survive?
Did they raise the economic disparities in this game to such an absurd
level that another long and lengthy work stoppage is now a near-certainty?
|
Selig's reaction
|
|
MILWAUKEE -- Bud Selig is convinced baseball's economic
structure is broken. How to fix it is another thing.
"The system has to be changed and it will be changed," the
baseball commissioner said Wednesday.
Selig said he was not surprised by the signings of several free
agents to huge contracts during the last week. Leading the way was
Alex Rodriguez's 10-year, $252 million pact with the Texas Rangers.
"The inequity in this system is now so apparent," Selig said.
"The question is, how do we fix it and what do we do?"
Selig said he was confident a new framework can be put in place.
But he did not go into any details during a news conference Tuesday
to announce the 2002 All-Star Game will be played July 9 at Miller
Park, the Milwaukee Brewers' new stadium scheduled to open in
April.
--Associated Press
|
Or were they just the usual erroneous reports that the blue economic sky
is falling?
Were they just proof that the game clearly must be healthier than commish
Selig keeps saying it is?
Did they just suggest that baseball's problems have nothing to do with
owners and players -- but everything to do with owners and owners?
Pick a theory. They're all out there. And here's the scary part: They might all be right.
Paying a baseball player $25 million a year is stupid.
Except in the case of the Texas Rangers, you can make a case that it's
also brilliant.
(Of course, it would have been equally brilliant had the amazing Scott
Boras not hoodwinked the Rangers into thinking they needed to pay at least
$60 million more than any other club was offering. But that's another story.)
"I would predict," said longtime agent Tom Reich, "that over the long
haul, the Texas Rangers will make money on this deal. Texas wanted this guy
real bad. And this was the premium they paid, a premium that was based on how
it affects the value of the franchise. They're looking at this having a huge
impact on the equity value of the franchise, based on the power of this guy
and how he changes the value of this team.
"That's why they pay Stallone $20 million a picture. That's why Shaquille
O'Neal makes what he makes. He's worth it, based on how he affects the value
of the property. That's what sports is now: TV rights. Radio. Sales.
"Just check the value of this franchise a few years from now. You'll
measure the increase in nine figures (i.e., at least $100 million). People
will look back and see it as The A-Rod Effect."
On the other hand, we think it was Einstein (or possibly Mickey Rivers)
who once said: "For every action, there's a reaction." And that's where this
stuff gets complicated -- because the other 29 teams were looking at this as a
whole different kind of A-Rod Effect.
The blank looks on the faces of baseball men all across the
winter meetings landscape told you all you needed to know about the reaction
to the A-Rod and Manny Money Show.
Giants officials kidded about putting those Barry Bonds posters on
closeout sale. He can be a free agent next winter.
The A's began contemplating life without Jason Giambi. He can be a free
agent next winter.
The Astros did their best to sound hopeful about keeping Jeff Bagwell.
But of course, he can be a free agent next winter, too.
"I never felt this way about the sport before," said an executive from
one of baseball's most resourceful teams. "Before, I always thought: 'It's
just proof that someone can afford it. But it's not going to affect us.' This
time, I just had a bad feeling in my stomach for the game in general."
Commish Selig, who didn't even attend these meetings, turned off his
answering machine, saying he would be coming up with a statement within 48
hours. (Set your alarm so you don't miss it.)
But the Commish couldn't possibly issue a more powerful statement than
the one delivered by his increasingly powerful right-hand man, Sandy
Alderson, who called the Rodriguez contract "stupefying." He called it "disturbing." He
called it "unbelievable." He used a word the players' union should take
careful note of: "Crisis."
"The problem with this contract," Alderson said, "is that it will force
every team to operate in this system."
Or will it?
Even Hampton's agent, Mark Rodgers, wasn't so sure. He, too, went looking
for a word to describe the A-Rod deal. Interestingly, for a guy who had just
negotiated history's richest pitching contract, the word he chose was
"aberration."
"This is a once-in-a-lifetime player, I think," Rodgers said. "Some
people would say he's in the prime of his career. But how can you say that a
player, at 25 years old, is in the prime of his career? I mean, he's got 10,
12, 15 years of great baseball left in him.
"So sure, you'd like to think that some day, other players would one day
command that type of money. But realistically, this is that one special
player that can get to that level."
But a front-office man from a successful National League team wasn't
buying that.
"Maybe nobody ever gets to $25 million again," he conceded. "That's
possible. But I can hear the other guys now, saying: 'You mean I'm not half
that good? C'mon. Pay me $12 million. I've gotta be half that good.'"
And this was from a man who runs a good team, a profitable team -- not somebody who runs the Twins or Expos. He knows his business. He knows what's
coming.
But what we all know is also coming is the end of the current labor deal.
And when it comes time to discuss the next labor deal, it will be all about
contracts like this. It will be all about this fundamental question:
How can we have teams giving one player $25 million a year when you
have other teams barely paying that much for their whole roster?
"There has to be some attention paid to this problem," Alderson said.
"There will be people who say, 'Stop the whining.' But clearly, we have a
crisis situation in the game. And it's time for us to deal with it."
But the one thing he -- and everyone in management -- needs to remember
is that it isn't just his side who recognizes "this problem."
It's in the long-term best interests of everyone -- union, management,
players, clubs -- to address the problems and make the game as healthy as it
can be. What sensible person wouldn't recognize that?
"Look, the problems are obvious," Reich said. "But the question is:
What's the solution? Shut down the game? If they do that, the new NASDAQ will
be baseball.
"So that's the conundrum: What's the solution? And the solution is a lot
more complicated than: Lock out the players."
It's a clichè by now to complain about the "large-market teams"
dominating the game while the "small-market teams" throw up the white flag
every Groundhog Day. If it was really that simplistic, how do we explain
what happened in the negotiations for A-Rod and Hampton?
"They always say there are only three or four teams who can afford this
kind of player," Reich said. "Next thing you know, there are eight, 10, 12
bidders.
"Who signed Hampton? Who signed A-Rod? It wasn't the New York Mets. It
wasn't the New York Yankees. It was Colorado. It was Texas. There are always
teams coming into play. And there always have been, since the beginning of
free agency."
Until they walked onto the podium to hand out their A-Rod releases, no
one alive would have considered the Texas Rangers one of the "big-market"
titans. Now they are.
And how did they get there? They laid the textbook modern-baseball
foundation:
They built a beautiful new ballpark.
They were bought by a savvy media magnate.
They negotiated a $50-million-a-year cable deal.
Then they completed the package with a corporate acquisition of The A-Rod
Group.
So before everyone starts opening fire on the Rangers, they might want to
acknowledge that they were just following the handy-dandy Remember The Titans
directions the game had painted for them.
You can even argue the Rangers might have been pointing their downcast
brethren toward the new direction of the game. But even if they weren't,
they've inalterably changed the way franchises now will have to play that
game
Alderson talked after A-Rod about how baseball always carved its niche as
"the family game," the affordable game, while the other sports headed off
toward the world of star power, show biz and the $85 ticket.
Well, we can promise we're no fan of the $85 ticket. We're sad to
announce this sport is now careening in that direction. But that doesn't mean
it can't survive, either. It simply will have to survive in a different kind
of way.
It's the way of the other major sports -- sports that have opted to
create a buzz by building around that time-honored show-biz principle: star power.
Rangers owner Tom Hicks, who also owns the Dallas Stars, came from
one of those other sports. Now he's willing to bet the future of his
baseball franchise on that star power.
We also are heading steadily for a day in which very few teams will be
playing in ballparks that aren't state-of-the-art money machines. There's
hope for those teams just in that knowledge.
The rest ought to look for the nearest cable conglomerate and sell them
as big a piece of the action as they want to buy.
Then it's the owners, not the players, who need to get together and
figure out how to smooth out the differences in revenue that divide them --
and force the low-revenue teams to spend that revenue-sharing money on
players, not profits.
But obviously, it isn't that simple, either. Not in Minnesota. Not in
Montreal. So the deep thinkers have their work cut out for them. But the game
of baseball is going to survive.
It will survive the deep thinking. It will survive the A-Rod deal. It
will survive the most expensive winter meetings ever staged.
"It has for a long, long time," said Braves GM John Schuerholz. "As an
industry, we may bend. But we don't break. It's a great game, a lot of times
in spite of ourselves. Not matter how we humans try to break it, it's deeply
rooted. And it always responds.
"And it will now, too -- and thrive. That's my prediction."
And the more we all share it, the better off we'll be.
Jayson Stark is a Senior Writer at ESPN.com.
| |
ALSO SEE
Jayson Stark archive
Rangers go for broke: A-Rod deal worth $252M
Stark: $252 million? Believe it or not
Chart: Baseball's salary explosion
AthletesDirect: A-Rod tells story in his words
AUDIO/VIDEO
 Alex Rodriguez sits down with Roy Firestone after his record-breaking deal with the Texas Rangers.
RealVideo: 28.8
|
