https://www.austinchronicle.com/columns/2002-08-16/100213/

Page Two

By Nick Barbaro, August 16, 2002, Columns

So, here we are, a couple of weeks until September, great pennant races going on throughout both major leagues, and what are the sports headlines talking about? (Not in the Statesman, where they're all about preseason foosball -- I mean in real newspapers.) Why, the headlines are all about the upcoming baseball players' strike, of course.

Well, no one's asked me, but if they did, I could fix all of baseball's problems by the end of the week.

By all rights, Major League Baseball -- coming off one of the best-played, most entertaining, most emotional World Series in history -- should be enjoying a banner year. And indeed, whatever is wrong with the sport isn't on the field. Consider:

After several seasons of ridiculous offensive output, some minor rules tweaks have brought back a reasonable pitcher/batter equilibrium, and yielded closer, quicker, more exciting games;

There's a bevy of talented, charismatic athletes in the game, and the biggest stars -- Sosa, Bonds, A-Rod, Schilling, Pedro, Ichiro -- are still thriving under the new rules;

There are a surprising number of really good teams, playing various styles of ball;

There are close races in four of six divisions, and in both wild-card races -- the AL has six teams flirting with a .600 winning percentage, and the NL has at least 10 of 16 teams still in the playoff hunt;

Traditional rivalries are as tight and fierce as they've ever been, on both coasts and in the heartland.

Nor is the problem with the game itself. Non-fans complain about the deliberate pace, and wonder if the sport is out of place in this X-Age. Bull. In the lower levels, baseball is doing fine. The minor leagues are as healthy as they've been in 50 years. Just up I-35, the RR Express keeps setting attendance records each season of its existence, even if they can't fight their way off of page D-8 (more on that in a moment). College baseball continues to grow in popularity, college softball is starting to catch up, and even Little League gets solid cable-TV ratings. If the big boys really don't play this October, the twin World Series in Williamsport and Omaha will still do just fine, thanks. No, this problem lies squarely on the shoulders of MLB.

In the big leagues, average attendance is down by more than 1,000 fans a game. Polls show that fan confidence is way down -- and likely to crater completely if there is indeed a ninth play stoppage this year. No postseason? No World Series? Then why did we bother supporting our favorite teams through the long, hot summer? And why should we trust them again?

Do we blame the players? The owners? Frankly, I don't think anyone outside the game really cares; if there's a strike, or a lockout, no one's going to feel to sorry for either set of millionaires. Come on, guys, this isn't Palestine. Work it out.

Oddly, there are a couple of issues on which everyone agrees: First, big payrolls win pennants, and there's a huge imbalance between big-market and small-market teams. Second, the price structure of the modern game has knocked the casual fan, and the habitual fan, out of the ballpark. Except for die-hards and corporate season-ticket-holders, going to a baseball game is a special occasion these days, not something you do on a whim, and not something you do 10-15 times in the course of a 162-game season. (And I won't even start on the sterility and commercialism of the modern stadium, where Joe Fan is reduced to background noise and color for the luxury box fans who pay the bills ...)

But while they may agree on the problems, no one seems to have a solution. Well, except me. Here it is:

What baseball needs to do is take a lesson from the only other sport that has as big an image problem in this country as they do: soccer. Or rather, world football, because what I'm talking about is the system of relegation and promotion that's used in every major soccer league in the world.

How it works is, each year, the bottom teams in the major league (typically four -- say, two from the AL and two from the NL) get demoted to minor-league status for the next season, and the four top teams in the top minor league get promoted to the majors. Continue this on down through the various levels of minor leagues, and you get both serious competition, even among the also-rans in every league, and also a fluid, truly competitive, free-market system, where every franchise -- free of servitude to a big-league master -- can rise or fall to the level it's willing to commit to.

Are the Yankees still going to buy the best all-star team they can field? Sure, but face it, they're a fun team to watch, and when they come to town as the visiting team, they bring out fans. Meanwhile, everyone else has something serious to play for, too. Is Alex Rodriguez worthy of being MVP? Under the current system he's got nothing to play for but stats; facing relegation, he earns his honors if he keeps his sorry-ass Rangers out of the International League next season, and himself out of bus trips to Scranton and Toledo. There's some major-league incentive for a team that's otherwise just going through the motions for the last 100 games of the season.

Meanwhile, closer to home, those spunky kids up in Round Rock are suddenly playing for real, too -- not just for their own individual potential, but as our team, with our future on the line, too. Right now, the Express are in a tight pennant race with their archrival San Antonio Missions. But so what? Nobody follows the Texas League standings, because, win or lose, their top players will move on next year, the Express will be back with a new crop of prospects, and this year's results will be quickly forgotten.

But suppose there were really something on the line. Suppose winning the Texas League meant that next year they'd be in Triple-A, and maybe the majors the year after that. Then I guarantee you people would be following the standings. And the team would be a team, too. We'd still get to see Kirk Saarloos work his way up to the majors, but we'd get to see him doing it by pulling his whole team along with him. And maybe, in a few years, we'd get a chance to see that Yankees traveling all-star squad playing right here in River City. Don't you think that kind of incentive might help the baseball doldrums?

Now, multiply that enthusiasm by the approximately 185 minor-league teams spread throughout the land, and, well, baseball becomes our national pastime again, virtually overnight. But like I said, no one asked me.