Baseball: To lock out… or not to lock out?

Hockey fans learned the hard way two years ago that change sometimes comes with a steep price. That price was a heavy one, in the form of a while season being cancelled. An entire season wipped off the books. A full year without hockey, and had one side not blinked it could have easily been two seasons. But when the smoke cleared, the owners took the union to the cleaners and put in place what they’ve been dying to get: a hard salary cap. The result of this cap brought in an new era in the NHL. Teams all had an even playing field and the wallets of the owners no longer dictated who controled the free agent market or the standings. Teams like Columbus, Nashville and even small market teams like Calgary and Edmonton signed huge free agents and were able to compete with teams that before were too high to reach for like the Rangers and the Red Wings. A year of tough love paid off huge for the league as the NHL had one of their best seasons in a long time and are back on track as if the lockout never happened.

With such a successful campaign to save the league, now it’s time for another sport to take a page out of the NHL playbook. It’s time for Major League Baseball to have to the courage and refuse walk into a season without a contract and lock out the players. While they were able to avoid a strike the last time a contract expired, the strike of 94 was ugly and in my opinion worst labor stoppage in sports history. Yes, that year was even worse than the recent hockey lockout. There’s no comparison… cause with the NHL lockout it just seemed like a really, really long off season. The baseball strike was worse cause they played out two thirds of a season and then just pulled the plug and cancelled everything. That was the ultimate tease, and that angered the fans and was the main reason why there was such a nasty backlash the next season and the few seasons after that. If it wasn’t for McGwire and Sosa tearing up the league like the did in 98, I don’t think baseball ever would have recovered and teams would have folded.

Now had the owners locked out the players in 94 instead of letting them play, knowing full well that the players were going to strike… then I don’t think the fans would have been as hard as they were on MLB. We wouldn’t have seen Matt Williams hit 53 homers before Aug 12th, and be less than ten homers away from breaking Maris’ major league record. We wouldn’t have watched a magnificent squad in Montreal tear up the league and be a heavy favorite to win the series. Getting a glimpse of what could have one of the best seasons in decades is what made the 94 strike such a bitter pill for fans to swallow. The union picked a bad year to walk out on, and while they managed to avoid a salary cap which is what the owners were fighting for that year, this time out I think the owners know what they have to do if they want to get it this time. There is no other way but to follow the NHL path exactly. The need to lock out the players at the beginning of next season and keep they locked out until they agree to a hard salary cap.

I can’t speak for everyone else… but I’d would be more than willing to give up a season of baseball to get a salary cap. Word was MLB owners were watching the NHL lockout very closely to see what happened, and I’m sure they were impressed with the result. If MLB owners want to put a hard cap into place say around the 100 million dollar range, then sitting out a year would be more than worth it. A cap around 100M and a salary floor around 50M-60M would be more than acceptable, and force teams like the Yankees and Red Sox to work the entire system to compete, not just pillage the free agent market.

If there’s no CBA by training camp, MLB would be stupid to start the season… because it would guarentee a player’s strike just like 94. I don’t think the fans could endure another season like that so a lockout is definitely the way to go. Don’t pay the players a dime and owners would save so much money by not paying the players that they would not go into the red which is why so many NHL teams didn’t go under during the lockout. For many teams, player salary is their biggest expendature and cutting them out would clear out a lot of where the team’s money goes. But playing just a single game opens the odds of the labour stoppage being a strike that would give the players more power and ground to work with and in the long run owners would lose a lot of money if the gambled on a season with a possible strike looming.

When I talked to someone else about this, some had some harsh words for me when I stated my side. They said if I was willing to sit out an entire season in order to put a salary cap in place, than I wasn’t a real fan of the game. It was a hard thing to say but I think he’s dead wrong. I happen to think that because I’m willing to go without baseball for a year to see the game improve makes me a good fan, not a bad one.

Then there are others who think that a cap isn’t needed in baseball. If someone really believes that then I got some swampland and enron stocks I’d love to sell ya. There are teams like Boston that have a player payrole of $125 million dollars. That is only the second highest in baseball, as the George Steinbrenners Yankees have a team that makes over $200 million dollars a year. That’s just obscene people, and spending like that is ruining the game. If a cap is put into place and teams are not allowed to spend anymore than 100M each, it would force teams like Boston and New York to use their farm systems instead of trying to buy their way into the playoffs every year. This would provide baseball with a competitive balance, allow teams like Tampa Bay or Milwaukee complete with jauggernauts like both New York Teams or Los Angeles. It would be very good for all of baseball, not just a select few cities. Teams like The yankees have proven beyound a resonable doubt that luxary taxes will not keep their payrolls in check. If a cap isn’t brought in, I have no doubt George is going to push the NY payroll to $250 or even $300 million in the near future. That’s why I think MLB needs a cap, and it needs one right now.

Here are the facts: there is going to be a labor stoppage, whether it come through a lock out or strike… it’s not a matter of if but when it will occur. After all the tension from the steriod scandal and the current MLB investigation, there is more than enough hostility to cause a stoppage. If the owners were smart, the would lock out the players and set the ground rules and bunker down. It’s called tough love people, and the Union and George Steinbrenner need a lot of it. Lets hope the owners have the testicular fordatude (and greed) in them to do it.

Peter