Originally Posted by
stevenash
This is atremendous point.
This is in no way aback handed compliment to you Fats, but this is probably the best statementyou've made on these boards that I have personally read.
I wasn't even alivewhen the M&M boys (Mantle and Maris) were Sosa and McGwire before they wereSosa and McGwire.
Roger Maris was the"aw shucks" kid next door.
My dad told me thecommon man loved him.
When I was a kid Iloved the players, they were lunch box guys.
Guys like ThurmanMunson I loved as a boy.
Guys like that who playedbaseball for a living, a game I love almost as I love women, a game guys likeClemente and Munson played for the love of it made pretty good money but wasn'tin it for the paychecks who still had to work part time in the winter if theywanted a better life. I hated the 'evil' owners, guys like Charlie Finley,Marge Schott etc. etc.
I thought they weregreedy and evil, I was a boy I didn't no shit about business, I knew when I wasaround 8 years old I loved to play and watch baseball.
Then the Pittsburghcocaine scandals surfaced when I was in grade/high school.
Guys like KeithHernandez were named.
Guys like that whoI loved to watch playing I soured on.
Baseball playerscan't be doing coke all night I though.
This is blasphemy Ithought.
Yeah sure I know inmy dad's era and grand dads era the players were booze hounds, but even thoughbooze and coke are similar, one is legal the other is not.
It was around thenI realized like a kick to the nut sack that the players only gave a shit aboutthemselves, they aren't the kids next door anymore.
I want to writemore about my thoughts but I need to move on to more important things I need todo.
I'll cut short mythoughts just for now by saying as far as the game of baseball is concerned Istill have the same burning passion 40 years later when I was a pee-wee teeball player, that has not changed, what has changed is my opinions of theplayers have changed.
Today (withexceptions, like Trout for instance an a handful of Latin players) don't playfor the love of the game as much or at all, they play for the first classperks, the paychecks......
The players are nowjust as greedy as the owners, and I never, ever thought I would see the day where I would side with ownershipmore than the players. That day has come.
Don't get me wrong,a lot of the owners, guys like Mr. Glass for instance who just passed on theformer owner of my beloved Royals are/were greedy. Greed is not a good trait,those who believe in God will tell you greed is not good no matter what youheard about greed from Gordon Gekko.
“Thepoint is, ladies and gentlemen, that greed, for lack of a better word, is good.Greed is right. Greed works. Greed clarifies, cuts through and captures theessence of the evolutionary spirit.”
I get business, I understand business, I've established that even though I sidenow more with ownership more than players.
The reason being the owners albeit it filthy rich, still have to maintain theteam, pay the taxes, meet payrolls, and on and on and on.
Yes the filthy rich owners have a dozen or so people in the front officeworking for them to take the load off of the rich owners, but the players don'thire and pay GM's and salary cap experts, and the rest of the front officepeople the owners need to keep the franchisee running. The filthy rich ownershave that responsibility so the once no longer boy next door butgreedy ball players can play the game. Without the game the players now have toresort to being beer truck delivery people to earn a living, or accountants ifthey have a business degree or what ever.
It's a two way street people.
I love that baseball is business, some of the regular posters here know Imake a nice side living off of the business of baseball.
I have a blog for instance, I write about baseball, I specialize in thestatistical analytics of the game don't want to sound like "I'mgreat and your'e not" guy, because I am not, I apologize if I give thatimpression, but I turn a profit betting baseball.
Guys who really know me here know this, I don't want to talk about that though.
My point is it's a business, and I love the business of baseball now the sameway I love the game.
More later, I'm starting to ramble.