Three strikes and you're out

At this time tomorrow, the great national pastime that our fathers and grandfathers enjoyed will be taken over by the great national pastime of our generation. On Aug. 30 baseball will shut down because of the infighting between players and owners. This will be the ninth work-stoppage of Major League Baseball since 1972, and the second season in recent memory that might end without a World Series. The players, coaches and men in the front office have decided that playing a game designed to bring joy to the spectators is not as enjoyable as playing a game designed to bring joy to themselves: the game of greed.\nSince the beginning of baseball season this April, current affairs have been a troublesome portent of the 2002 season. Major corporations like Enron, Adelphia and WorldCom have all suffered traumatic financial situations due to their executives' relentless passion for lining their pockets instead of building a sturdy business. Throughout the summer, it has been shown that corporation after corporation has abused the law in order to make themselves appear more profitable. This disturbing trend has spread from one facet of Americana, that of free enterprise, to another pure center of Americana, the national pastime of baseball.\nBaseball companies are exploiting the common fan just as the financial corporations exploit the common worker. Without the fan or the worker, there is no foundation for the upper management, yet the greedy executives, players, and ball club owners think nothing of abusing this relationship in order to fuel their own personal drives. There has always been someone to support them in the past, so companies believe they have the right to such a foundation and can do with it what they see fit. It's impossible for the common worker or fan to escape such a situation because either their livelihood or enjoyment rests in the hands of huge uncaring corporations.\nThe economic law of supply and demand states the amount a consumer is willing to pay for a good or service is proportional to the scarcity of the particular good or service. However, in order to profit highly from adverse situations, the law of supply and demand can be artificially put into an imbalance. \nAfter the story of Enron broke, national news organizations released the report that Enron had forced many energy companies in California to not supply as much power as they could during the brown-out that hit the state in the summer of 2001. By reducing electricity flowing into the state, the few energy corporations had the opportunity to raise the prices of the electricity in the state in order to play the system and cheat the consumer financially. \n Major League Baseball has chosen to follow in the same practices, threatening to eliminate under-performing teams such as the Montreal Expos and the Minnesota Twins. The fewer baseball teams available, the more willing fans will have to pay for a chance to see the game they love. Artificially increasing the demand betrays the public's trust and eventually the public will turn on baseball owners the way they turned on big corporate leaders.\n Baseball was once the symbol of all that was American. It truly was our national pastime. However, somewhere in its long history, baseball became less and less about the game and more and more about the greed of those in power.