Take my sport, please

As the deadline looms for a likely MLB player strike, I can only hope labor and management not only wake up, come to an agreement and avoid a ridiculous, self-involved work stoppage, but that any such deal actually solves the problems facing the sport today.

Merely agreeing to a new CBA before the players pack up their designer travel gear and hop in their private jets this Friday is not enough; the endless cycle of labor wars must cease now, with the recurring issues that cause both sides to draw their swords in anger every four years addressed, both finally and equitably.

This must happen not to avoid a work stoppage on the anniversary of September 11, and not to ensure a player's right to earn the highest wage possible remains unencumbered, and not to keep the Brewers involved in a pennant race beyond June 1. No, a workable solution to baseball's labor problem must occur for me. And I don't mean baseball or small-market fans in general, I mean me. Literally. Timothy Edward Gutowski.

Baseball owes me. Sure, it might owe you, too, but this is my column, and it owes me. I've been watching the game in earnest since I was knee-high to a Sunday hop, and I've been paying to attend at least a half-dozen games per year since the late '70s (hey, this is a web column, so that's longer than it sounds). I eat lousy nachos and purchase incredibly expensive beer on every trip to the park. I've purchased approximately 42,000 baseball cards in my lifetime. I've spent thousands of dollars on MLB-sponsored goods and services. I buy preseason annuals and STATS, Inc. scouting notebooks. I listen to flagship stations more than I do NPR.

I watch the same, boring playoff series every year (Braves vs. Astros, Rangers vs. Yankees, Braves vs. Yankees, Braves vs. Cards, Yankees vs. Indians) -- in primetime -- and I am of the male, 25-to-34-year-old demographic. To an advertiser, I am Zeus himself.

When my intelligent friends call the sport boring, I object and defend it. When the common, everyday fan calls it predictable, too long or predetermined, I argue the game's merits. When my wife tells me there is certainly a better way to spend my time than watching a bunch of rich, pampered and shockingly out-of-touch millionaires chase a ball around, I try to describe to her the game as I see it, as I remember it, as I naively still consider it. Or, I should say, used to consider it.

Baseball of lore is dead. Forget Willie, Mickey and the Duke, or even Cal, Rockin' Robin or the Ignitor. They and what they represented to the game are gone, and the sport needs shock treatment to be resuscitated in their absence. I'm tired of reading Roger Angell and David Halberstam books to remember the sport I used to actually care about. I'm tired of Donald Fehr's smug face and $10 haircut acting as if he's defending orphaned children's rights, not the ability of multimillionaires to hold cities and fans hostage for a few extra dollar bills.

I'm tired of "internal memos" (read: leaks) on both sides that somehow end up on the front page of the Washington Post. I'm tired of PR moves, contraction threats and cooked-books (accused, real or otherwise). I'm tired of Rob Manfred sound bytes instead of Robb Nen highlights. I'm tired of the whole idea that I should care greatly about something that certainly doesn't give a damn about me.

What if baseball held a strike and nobody cared? What if the NFL started and the World Series was canceled and only a couple of fat guys in the Bronx wearing Derek Jeter jerseys shed a tear? What if the sport shut down for this fall, next spring, the following summer and then next year's Series was canceled, too? And what if we simply forgot about it after awhile? Wouldn't that be great?

Unfortunately, of course, too many people care too much for that to happen. And, unfortunately, I'm probably one of them. For now.

But I'm not an idiot. With each labor war, each pretentious bargaining ploy, each time I'm forced to listen to players saying they don't want to strike, but they have to -- my willingness to spend my disposable income on a sport I used to truly care about shrinks, little by little. Eventually, it'll be gone. I've got car payments; I'll have a mortgage soon; I may have kids' mouths to feed at some point. Do you honestly think I'll forever pay $40 to watch a game from the upper deck in left, and pay Ticketmaster $4.75 for the privilege?

Nope. And by the time mine is gone, you can bet a whole lot of money will have preceded it out the door. Because, in all honestly, I like this collective group of self-important jerks more than most sane people do.

When the players and owners stop playing their ridiculous games for a minute, they may look up and notice no one's watching anymore. And right now, with strike threats pervading the news like terrorism scares from the Dept. of Defense, I'm looking forward to that day.