Strike 9, you're out!

Baseball has had 8 labor negotiations in the last 25 years and there have been 8 work stoppages. They're batting 1.000.


Now the players have set an August 30 strike deadline because "The union prefers to have a late-season stoppage, when more of the owners' revenue is at stake, than a confrontation at the start of next season."


What about negotiating the day after the World Series ends? This would give them plenty of time to hammer out an agreement before the start of next season. Not to mention giving us the impression that they care a bit about us fans.

What about negotiating the day after the World Series ends?


That's exactly what the union has been doing- negotiating since the end of last year's World Series (probably earier, acutally). The CBA expired at the end of last season and the two sides have been unable to make a deal.


If the union lets the season end, the owners should be able to declare an impasse and impose new working rules (luxury tax!). This is the looming threat which has pushed the union to set a strike date.

Maybe I'm naive, but it seems to me that baseball hasn't fully recovered from it's last strike. More and more people I talk to couldn't care less about baseball these days. If they screw up this world series, that population is sure to grow.

I think baseball will be hurt tremendously if the season ends as it did in 1994. I think all of the problems between players and management has already been damaging this year. Sadly I believe the worst case scenario will come about. No doubt the owners will not budge and it doesn't look like the players will either. The question in my mind has the "pendulum" swung too far in the players direction? The players average salary is around $2.4 million a year and salarys have increased a lot since the last dispute in 1994. A good discussion of the issues can be found at:

http://espn.go.com/mlb/columns/stark_jayson/1418650.html

In a few weeks football season starts. A whole different set of fantasy leagues, a much more entertaining sport, and cheerleaders, to boot.


Let 'em strike. It'll be more entertaining watching baseball fizzle than watching the annual Yankee invitational.