Money makes things easier

When I heard about this on the radio yesterday, all I could say was, "Wow." I didn't even know they'd begun negotiations.

Guess both sides agreed not to put anything in the way of the manna falling from heaven.

The efforts of the negotiators are impressive. Not only did they complete a new deal before the existing contract expires, but they nearly had it done before they even had to inform the National Labor Relations Board that they were going to commence bargaining. They filed that notification only a week ago.

The clubs had an incentive to complete a deal without an extended negotiation. Under terms of the expiring contract, the luxury tax would not have been in effect next season. The Yankees would have gone for that, but the idea didn’t have much support generally.

The primary reason for the early agreement, though, was the money in which the sport is awash. The major leagues drew 76 million in attendance this season for the first time, and Selig said last week that this year’s revenue was expected to be $5.2 billion. In other words, there’s enough money for everybody without having to fight for it.

When Marvin Miller, the former players-union leader, was told yesterday about the projected revenue, he chuckled and recalled, “I remember when free agency was going to be the end of the entire American League and bring the National League down to four clubs.”

Bowie Kuhn, the commissioner at the time of the creation of free agency, said it would ruin baseball. Miller recalled that Walter O’Malley, who as owner of the Los Angeles Dodgers was baseball’s most powerful owner and told Kuhn what to do, said that free agency would “be the end of baseball as we knew it.”

Thirty years later, baseball is flourishing so brightly that the owners and the players no longer have to engage in labor wars.

Lord knows, the Vega is often critical of the late, great Bud Selig, but gotta admit, he's presided over a Golden Age for baseball. The turnstiles keep turning despite the bulking up and even more mysterious thinning down of the sluggers, the Evil Empire, "Everything that's wrong with baseball," etc.