THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, August 10, 1994 TAG: 9408100011
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A10 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Editorial
LENGTH: Short : 46 lines
One good thing about the impending strike is that when it's over, the Red Sox will be rested and ready to win their first World Series since 1918. With the aid of the strike-induced rest, maybe the Sox could muster up the strength to overcome the ``Curse of the Bambino,'' which Babe Ruth slapped on the Sox when they traded him to the Yankees and has kept the Sox away from a title ever since.
Hope springs eternal. When the season begins again after the strike, it will be like a rebirth in Boston. Many a Red Sox fan will renew bets that this is the year for the Old Towne Team.
Besides a Red Sox revival, another bonus to the strike is that the Yankees will see their best season in more than a decade go down the tubes. Rooting for the Sox and decrying the Yanks is one and the same.
Yet another bonus is that baseball may become a game again.
Words like arbitration, buyouts and salary caps crop up in baseball talk much too often. Business, unions and labor disputes are American as apple pie, but making baseball more businesslike instead of keeping it a field of dreams seems to make the game less of a game.
It's hard to pin blame for the pending strike on either the players or the owners. It's the fans who consistently pay the higher and higher prices at the parks, who watch the game endlessly on television and buy the memorabilia, all of which makes the game so lucrative. With so much money floating around, no wonder the players and owners all want to capitalize.
Would a strike rein in baseball's corporate zest for the profit margin? One may hope so. In the interim, fans might go to minor-league parks or summer leagues to quench their baseball thirst. In those parks they may find that the essence of baseball still thrives. Players there play because they love the game.
Fans might then awaken and see that the game is just a game, a national ``pass time.'' The awakening might make the fans demand that the major leagues worry more about the integrity of the game than the bottom line. But we won't hold our breath. by CNB