There isn't going to be a World Series this year

The comments from baseball owners, player union representatives, and a couple players has me convinced that Major League Baseball is headed towards another strike after the All-Star Game which I believe will not be resolved by the end of the season.


The players' union has already begun discussing setting a strike date which would almost certainly be in August. Given how far apart the two sides are, I don't think there is any chance a labor deal will be made without a work stoppage.


Almost everything about the current labor problems reminds me of 1994- especially the hard-headed attitudes of both sides.

Sad but true...I have to agree. On second thought I really don't care because I stop betting on baseball around the time the strike is supposed to come. Thanks fellas!


This could be the strike to end all strikes. I see a full year of time off, no kidding. They aren't just off, they are FAR off. The only hope is that the lesser players stand up and tell Fehr and his mafia to get lost. I really think the only way it gets resolved is if the rank and file vote to oust the leaders and go against the wishes of the top 25 earners. Those are the guys served by Don Fehr and his hard line stance. The lesser guys don't get any favors by the current structure its all skewed to the top players and the top franchises. If teams are paying two guys over $10 million and a couple more in the 5-10 million range, they only can fill out the team with guys under a million. If the teams were financially sound they could field more lower level guys around that magic one million dollar level. Imagine, you are a solid player, have a few years experience. In the past 10 teams might have offered you a million and change, but now only 5 teams can afford you and they don't see the point in offering that kind of money. Its just starting like that now, but it won't be long until the market completely dries up for that middle tier talent as many teams lose money and start going all big money or all pocket change.


Best thing for the non-big market owners is to just shut down, during that time maybe 4 or 6 franchises do go under and the players realize they are in more trouble than they started, especially when another strike completely dooms future TV ratings and insures the next TV contract earns the league as much as the NHL gets. While I am not crying much for the owners, I think the players are more at fault. They claim the owners lie about their finances, but anyone with a pad and paper can figure out unless you are the Yankees, Red Sox, Dodgers...you can't make any money as an owner of a team if the current economics continue. The players have been bailed out last few times by generous cities building revenue machine ballparks and stupid TV networks doing anything to save their falling ratings, but I think their luck has run out.


What may eventually happen, as much as people can't imagine it, is a real two league split with a new class of "almost" majors. It seems improbable, but I don't see baseball surviving without breaking the current arrangement into a league where the big money is and a second league where salary caps live. After all that is what you see now, the big money teams are always on TV, always in the playoffs, and always getting the best players when they are up for bid. The lesser teams get the young talent, the washed up vets, the guys that don't come up with the big hit...sounds just like the minors. They could turn this into being just like European soccer where the lesser league sells their best players to the bigger league for a fee and the players benefit by getting the bigger salaries. If you had just 12 teams in the top league, those teams would always have marquee opponents drawing bigger crowds and great TV matchups every week. The lesser league would be cheaper for ESPN and the other networks to show endless matchups for filler instead of lumberjack championships and cheerleading competition. I think its an idea whose time has come...even if it has to go over the objection of the sentimentalists and the purists.

Being a lifelong Bostonian, like yourself (you can take the kid out of Boston but not the Boston out of the kid), I figure it is a mortal lock that the players go on strike and we don't have a World Series.


By no means a lock, but this Boston team has a real chance to advance to the World Series. It's very early in the season but they don't seem to be intimidated by anyone. Pedro looks healthy, Lowe is a quality 2 starter, and Burkett is showing the same form he had with Atlanta.


I'm not normally a pessimist or fatalist, not your normal Boston psyche, but if the Sox are up by a handful in August, I will bet my lungs on a strike.


You will probably see my name in the news after they announce. I'll be the one being carted away after I run over Donald Fehr with my car. With any kind of luck, he will be standing with Tom Finneran, our resident dictator...I mean Speaker of the Massachusetts house. Two birds one stone or one Tauras in this case.