Home >  Sports >  Columnists

Monday, July 23, 2001

The nearly decade-old words of the great philosopher/center fielder Andy Van Slyke ring as true today as they did when first spoken. Looking hard at yet another baseball labor dispute in which there was a hard push to limit salaries, Van Slyke said, "There will be peace in the Middle East before there's a salary cap in baseball."

At the time, Van Slyke seemed nothing more than a mouthpiece for the strident players' union. A salary cap, surely, was the wave of the future.

But Van Slyke understood the situation and sensed the resolve of his fellow players better than most. He knew the Major League Baseball Players Association, the strongest union in professional sports, would not easily cave under whatever pressure it faced. Subsequent events proved Van Slyke correct. A salary cap is not on baseball's horizon, nor should it be.

This is not to dispute that a cap would be the best economic remedy for baseball. It works famously in football and almost as well in basketball. In the NFL and NBA, small-market cities like San Antonio, Portland, Charlotte, Jacksonville, Nashville and Green Bay thrive. None of those cities could succeed in baseball, as it is presently organized.

But a salary cap is not the answer because it would come at too great a cost. Baseball doesn't have the stomach, and wisely so, for the kind of fan-destroying, economically-insane labor confrontation that would result in owners shoving a salary cap down the throat of the players' union. It would take a long and bitter work stoppage for the players to accept a salary cap and it simply would not be worth it.

Baseball is in a furious battle for entertainment dollars, and not just with other sports. A business that shuts down, particularly a seasonal one, for any length of time is risking near-destruction. Yes, baseball came back from the 1994 strike, but none too quickly. A second such stoppage would be even more difficult to overcome.

Even if baseball wanted a stoppage that in the long-term might bring a more stable economic system to the game, there's no guarantee the league's teams could afford it in the short-term.

How, for example, could the San Francisco Giants afford a work stoppage? Pacific Bell Park, the Giants' home, was privately financed. It has an annual mortgage payment of about $23 million. Where does owner Peter Magowan come up with this money if there's no baseball?

The Pirates, to cite another example, are in the midst of unprecedented prosperity. Fans are flocking to PNC Park in record numbers despite some of the worst baseball imaginable. There is plenty of reason to believe that the crowds won't fall off that much, if at all, next season. Is Kevin McClatchy going to want to walk away from that?

What about all the little people who make their money off major-league baseball, like vendors? What does it do to them? What about all the not-so-little people, like the restaurant and bar owners, who have sunk their fortunes into businesses that can only thrive with busy game days?

What about the taxpayers in the cities with new baseball parks? There's already plenty of anger from citizens about the use of their money to build these stadiums. How much greater would that anger be if the ballparks were not used and the tax revenue they're producing -- which in the case of Pittsburgh is millions -- was not forthcoming?

There has to be a better way to level the playing field so team like the Pirates can expect to be competitive the way small-market teams in the NBA and NFL are.

The most commonly mentioned alternative is a more pronounced type of revenue sharing, one that would come, in part, from a payroll tax. The blue-ribbon panel commissioned by baseball recommended a 50 percent tax on all payrolls that exceed $84 million. If, for example, the New York Yankees had a payroll of $110 million, they would pay a tax of $13 million, which would be distributed to small-market teams. If 50 percent isn't enough, raise it to 75 percent or even 100 percent.

The panel also recommended giving Commissioner Bud Selig the power to redistribute money from baseball's Central Fund with the hope that there would be a $40 million floor and an $80 million ceiling on payrolls.

The union, which wants nothing but the status quo, does not like revenue sharing, although it likes it more than a salary cap. It correctly sees revenue sharing as diverting money that big-market teams might use on payroll to small-market teams that might use it for any number of things other than payroll.

What baseball must do is convince the union it needs a partner, not a foe. It has to show the players there's a real need to redistribute the money. For now, the union claims only to see the highest revenues in history and small-market teams like Oakland and Minnesota being successful and says there's not much wrong with baseball.

There is plenty wrong with baseball and what the owners have to do is prove that to the union. Reasonable men can compromise. Baseball as we knew it is at stake. Something has to give, but a salary cap, unfortunately, is not the answer.

Bob Smizik can be reached at bsmizik@post-gazette.com.