THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT 
              Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: Monday, February 27, 1995              TAG: 9502240035
SECTION: FRONT                    PAGE: A6   EDITION: FINAL 
TYPE: Editorial 
                                             LENGTH: Short :   48 lines

ANOTHER STRIKE AGAINST BASEBALL NAME OF THE GAME: GREED

Major-league baseball must be using the same public-relations firm as President Clinton. Have these guys got a death wish, or what?

First, they end the most exciting season in decades in the middle by refusing to clear up a strike that pits the greedy against the obscenely greedy. No playoffs. No series. No apologies.

Then they refuse to settle for another six months, imperiling a second season. They're preparing to field minor-league scabs. Fans have gone from fury to contempt to revulsion. If the real game ever begins again, it is possible no one other than the owners, players and hot-dog vendors will show up.

You'd think this would be enough self-destruction to last the sport a lifetime, but no-o-o! Now the league has taken aim at its newest recruits. It has set out to alienate kids by telling Little League teams that want to name themselves after any big-league franchises that they're going to have to pay through the nose for the privilege.

Once the American pastime was baseball. Today, the American pastime is obviously sticking it to people who love baseball. No sentiment lingers. No love of the game. No enthusiasm for sport as opposed to commerce. It's all about how many bucks you can make how fast. How all-American!

A lawyer for the league says, ``It's an uncontestable patent. It doesn't matter if the names are block letters ironed on. Major league owns the names of all teams when used in association with baseball. We have to both make the kids happy so they can wear the uniform, but we have to protect the trademark rights.''

That may be true, but they also feel they have to collect every miserable nickel of licensing fee to which they might conceivably be entitled.

If you're a kid and call your team the Red Sox or the Orioles, you owe the greedmeisters $6 per uniform. No pay, no play. The solution is obvious. Kids should start calling their teams not the Red Sox but the Ripoffs, not the Orioles but the Vultures.

Better yet, they should make a bonfire of their bats, balls and mitts and switch to soccer or croquet. Once Americans wanted to be taken out to the ballgame. Now they don't care if the sport never comes back. by CNB