May 1995

SPEAKING OF SPORTS

by Barry Stagg

May 1995

Baseball's Revolutionary Buffoons

What in the world is going to happen to the big time business of sport? Every day now there are stories of pampered baseball players being reduced to near poverty by virtue of salary cuts of two million dollars or so a season. Can the revolution be far behind when monstrous indignities of this sort are repeated time and again?

Pat Borders, sensible former Blue Jay catcher is one of the few players content to make do with a few hundred thousand American dollars for this new baseball season. He is being criticized all through the rugged brotherhood of union solidarity that is sliding through spring Training. His sin is to be prepared to live on a "real world" wage and tap into the fortune he saved making millions off Labatt's baseball division in Toronto. He is a marked man this year. Perhaps he will be ducking high hard ones from David Cone who brings his five million dollar tag and "Joe Hill" activism to the Skydome mound for one more round. In 1996 Davy will be a free agent looking for another desperate owner to bestow an obscene signing bonus to buy the Cone loyalty one more time. Ewing Kaufmam is dead now but Davy got to him for a cool six million in the winter of 1992. That was enough of an up-front bonus to buy Cone for the Kansas City Royals for the usual five big ones a year. Small wonder Davy is a solid (and rich) activist on the collective bargaining circuit. Let us see how many new fans the outspoken one brings into the concrete tomb down on Blue Jay way this year. Better see him this year because he is a free and very expensive bird come December.

Despite the ridiculous poses of the overpaid sweathogs who play the game many of us are still big fans of baseball and will watch in spite of our righteous contempt for the bulk of the performers. The game once again transcends the ignorant coarseness of its trained performers. Still I am anxiously looking forward to that coming day when the idle rich (definition: retired millionaire pitchers) will become team owners. That will be the a very interesting spectator sport when the clever curveballer gets to match wits with supposed business failures such as Mr. Steinbrenner of New York. After all the players have spent the past year ridiculing the Georgies of the baseball world and to be consistent the richest of the retirees would want to give the fans the benefit of their real business talent when they throw down the old mitt and pick up that customized briefcase.

If I was putting any pesos on the futures of any retiring ballplayers, the cash would go on sensible fellows like Pat Borders who will likely have enough common sense to keep his savings in the bank instead of at the ballpark. Still it will be a pleasant diversion to see the likes of Roger Clemens, David Cone and Barry Bonds sweat out a few lean years at the helm of an also ran team. I sincerely hope that Don Fehr is putting together some investment clinics for his brilliant stable of thoroughbreds. Ignorance and folly mixed together is a lovely brew. Now if we can stick that pungent concoction on one pedestal the other side of the balance can be elegance and folly which can go by the brand name of "Montreal Expos." Sincerest apologies to that great Irish sportsman of yester-year, William Yeats for the imagery. For the curious I recommend a reading of the Yeats poem "The Old Stone Cross". For the record I predict the Expos will sweep through the National League like young lions with a squad of home grown prodigies that will trample the high paid cast-offs now buying purple Cadillacs in Atlanta and Colorado. The Montreal team will draw fans in droves to the truly horrible Olympic Stadium and Claude Brochu will discover that he is the managing partner of a big market team by September. I offer no opinion on any rumour that Wendel Clark will take batting practice with Cliff Floyd in early August.

Bsaeball is going to be fun this summer because there are so many talented underdogs around to mix with the over-rated and the pompous and of course the ridiculous I believe that these latter terms accurately describe the Montreal Canadiens management and coaching staff should Les Glorieux miss the playoffs. Savard and Demers will have to endure a summer of definite unemployment pickled with Expos glory. That is almost as good as a long Leaf run for the cup. Almost.

Until next month: Be proud, be prosperous.


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