Spring training--it's one of those traditions that every baseball fan relishes. The thought of seeing a team's new faces and upcoming prospects brings a smile to fans of all ages . . .
Except when the "prospects" are 37-year-old beer-belly rotisserie league managers who last played baseball during the Nixon administration. And that was when they led their Little League teams to area championships.
It's hard to believe, but the American pastime has entered the world of scab athletics, where anyone who has a dream and can throw a 70 mile-per-hour fastball can wear a major league uniform with pride.
Dreams--that's what the owners think will bring the fans to the ballpark. The ordinary John Doe, who has always dreamed of walking on to Wrigley Field and running along the outfield grass upon which his heroes once treaded, will now have that chance.
I tend to think there's already a place for fans to reminisce about playing in the big leagues. It's called the Fantasy Camp (a perfect name for scab baseball)--you know, the week-long baseball extravaganza where anyone can shell out a few hundred dollars just to say that he threw Willie Mays a 55-mph curve ball, and that Mays missed (That's part of the deal--the players make the fans look good). Last time I checked, there weren't very long lines waiting to see these fantasy camp games.
Then there are the players who previously played in the majors and see this opportunity as their chance to make it back to the majors. But do we, the fans, really want them back? I think that's merely a rhetorical question.
When I did the spring training tour as a young baseball fan, I watched the games hoping to catch a glimpse of George Brett or Nolan Ryan--not a long ago washed-up Dennis "Oil Can" Boyd.
How far will the owners go with the replacement players? Probably a lot farther than you think. I mean, Reds replacement player Pedro Borbon last pitched in the mid to late 1970s, and the Reds still offered him a contract.
Baseball should take a lesson from the last professional league that tried to field replacement players--the National Football League. The year was 1987 and scab replacement players were supposed to satisfy the hungry appetites of diehard gridiron fans. It didn't work. The only fans who even considered going to those games were the ultimate media sluts--they just went to the game to wear those paper bags over their heads, hoping to get a little airtime.
Of course, then there's the question of what will happen to the grand tradition of Opening Day. The Baltimore Orioles would normally invite President Clinton to throw out the first pitch, but the Orioles aren't fielding replacements and Clinton is boycotting baseball.
What the owners need to do is realize the fans want to see Don Mattingly, not Don Johnson, on first base when they watch Yankee spring training games. Without the real thing, there should be no baseball at all.
But of course, owners never will change--owners are not exactly tuned in to reality. They want to make money, and the only way to make money is have a product to sell, no matter how watered-down it is. Simply put: baseball with replacement players is like beer without alcohol--it'll be hard for a lot of fans to swallow.
John Seelke is a Trinity junior and assistant sports editor of The Chronicle.
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