THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, April 16, 1995 TAG: 9504130185
SECTION: CAROLINA COAST PAGE: 07 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY MIKE SINGPIEL
LENGTH: Medium: 72 lines
Between my family, job, golf, and renewed interest in basketball (professional and college) because of the baseball strike, I've read about the progress (or lack of) in the baseball negotiations in trying to get the owners and players together to resolve their differences.
I guess I was classifying myself as a casual baseball fan and was becoming more and more put off by the situation, almost to the point of total disgust. But, who am I? Just a casual fan whose devotion and dollars are not going to be sorely missed by the baseball industry.
But then I thought back to when I was a kid growing up in Rapid City, S.D., in the '50s and '60s. Believe it or not, we had organized youth baseball out there in them ``thar days,'' and I played four years of Little League and junior league ball. We not only had organized youth baseball, but Rapid City had a Los Angeles Dodger farm club called The Rapid City Chiefs!
Back then, as a kid, I could hardly afford a ``pop,'' let alone get into a game. And we could be found peeping through cracks and proverbial knotholes in the huge wooden fence that surrounded the outfield. The big event, however, was when our youth team was called up to shag foul and home run balls during a home game. With our uniforms on, we would run around chasing those balls, and fans were instructed to hand over the ones we couldn't get to quick enough.
The farm team was so strapped that they needed those balls returned for practice, and in some cases - if they weren't too bruised - to resume play. Needless to say, not all the balls made it back to the dugout. A little-known fact: Frank Howard played his minor league ball with the Chiefs, and he was a baseball hero to every kid who had a four-fingered mitt and a baseball bat held together with nails and black tape.
I've attended a few professional games in my time. I lived in Kansas City during the George Brett years. I lived in the St. Louis area and was there when Lou Brock retired and his teammates brought out a cabin cruiser as a parting gift at Busch Stadium. I lived in Philadelphia when the Phillies won the World Series with Mike Schmidtt, Pete Rose and Steve Carlton.
I don't mean to get political, but I still think Pete Rose is one of the greatest baseball players there ever was. I challenge anyone to find that enthusiasm and dedication in a player today.
I lived in the Detroit area and went to the game when the Tigers won the World Series with Kirk Gibson, the Trammel/Whitaker combination and Jack Morris.
So I would still consider myself a viable revenue source to the baseball ``industry'' and not just a casual fan. The problem is that my enthusiasm is not there anymore.
Baseball owners and players are arguing over my money, which they don't even have in hand. This is not like the United Auto Workers' striking General Motors, because in the last decade, I've seen the quality of baseball go south. Multimillion-dollar contracts are going to .220 hitters. And maybe it's my age, but I can't recall too many 20-game winners lately.
There is only one Baseball, and I feel sorry for the kids who couldn't grow up with it like I did. That's going to be baseball's problem today and tomorrow.
We hear acting baseball commissioner Bud Selig say, ``We hope our fans never again have to go through the heartache we've endured the last eight months.'' And a player said, ``We are going to have to work hard to get that casual fan back to the ballpark.'' (And there could be another strike before the end of this year's abbreviated season.)
Well, in the interest of players' salaries and owners' operating margins, don't waste your advertising dollars on this casual fan only to increase the ticket price to the die hard fan. MEMO: Mr. Singpiel, 48, is a vice president with Falcon Cable and lives in
Kill Devil Hills.
by CNB