With a players strike now all but assured for late summer, it appears the Boston Red Sox “Babe Ruth Jinks” is firmly intact.
You see, it is rumored that a curse was placed over the franchise since they traded the Babe away in the ill-fated trade that made him the icon of baseball. Until the trade the Red Sox had won several pennants and were a yearly contender. Since then there has been…. “The Big Red Machine” to steal the World Series away in 1975 in what should have been Carlton Fisk’s World Series MVP chance. Then who could forget Bill Buckner? The play that once again cost them another World Series. And more recently, they have been sitting pretty for the playoffs only to go into late season choke mode. And now, not only might the Series be called off due to a strike, some of their best players have been injured. It seems the Babe is smiling down and saying “I told ya so!”
Speaking of strikes. Let it be known that I, for one, am on boycott from attending Major League games this season, because I suspect the games ultimately will not matter anyway. No champion will be crowned if we continue without an agreement. One concern I have is that the Owners of the clubs state they “will not lock out the players”. Sounds like the owners are tired of being the scapegoat and are going to try to have the players take the fall for the ruining of baseball. If you read my first article of the season, I feel much must be changed to bring baseball back to being our pasttime. I consider NASCAR as the new America’s game. Being a baseball purist, over the past few weeks I have come to the conclusion that the only way Major League Baseball is going to solve their money and competition problem is to either let the league die out and start again (which the owners might be trying to do, looking at their behavior recently.) Or the Commissioners office must impose a few rules. One is to institute a salary cap. Allow one exemption per team. The player pool needs to be divided up so that one team doesn’t have an unfair advantage over all the others. Competition is good for baseball. I think it’s safe to say I am not for saying you can only make this much money and no more, but a salary cap allows fair competition through more competitive markets. And Until next time, “take ‘em up the middle!”

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