THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Monday, October 30, 1995 TAG: 9510300143
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: C1 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Column
SOURCE: Bob Molinaro
LENGTH: Medium: 67 lines
So the Atlanta Braves' frustration is over. If only that were the case with major league baseball or its discontented fans.
As a reminder of what baseball has been through, and what it still must endure, the sixth and final game of the 1995 World Series starred Tom Glavine, Braves player representative and the primary target of disgruntled Atlanta fans during the regular season.
Glavine was a very visible part of the group that dissed the President of the United States and ridiculed replacement baseball. He played an active role in the process that created anger and then apathy among fans.
Naturally, all was sweetness and light on a Saturday when Atlanta won its first championship. Nobody booed Glavine. Nobody brushed him back with the cry of ``salary cap.''
When Glavine was presented with the series MVP award, NBC's Hanna Storm cuddled up to the lefthander and threw him softball questions. If only she had whispered ``luxury tax'' into his ear.
Everybody seems to agree that the playoffs and World Series made for a fabulous feast. Even union chief Donald Fehr did his part, remaining in the shadows.
October was baseball's time of atonement. Romantics hope that three weeks of satisfying play makes it all better again with the public.
But it won't.
Reconciliation with the fans doesn't come that easily. As good as the World Series may have been, it was like pouring a bottle of perfume on a dung heap.
More likely, we are in for an even harsher dose of reality this winter. Negotiations between owners and players are going to get worse before they get better.
Indifferent attendance figures are not likely to improve the mood of the owners. The TV ratings won't put them in a conciliatory frame of mind.
They will argue that conditions in the marketplace have worsened. They will tell the world, and any free agent who wants to listen, that there is less money available for salaries.
Worse, we can't even assume that the owners have a united front. Hard-liners, small-market martyrs, and accommodationists all come with different agendas. Owner intransigence is matched only by owner disunity. When and if the process begins again in earnest, with whom do the players negotiate?
The better question, of course, is how much more of this will fans take?
Those who discovered that they could do without the game may never come back. Another offseason of labor wrangling, played out in the papers and on TV, can only poison interest more.
In the afterglow of the World Series, it's easy to forget that baseball's charms, so evident in October, often are found wanting the rest of the season.
Perceptions have changed. Through the '80s and into the '90s, the game appeared inviolable. But today's take on baseball is more like it was in the late '60s, when it was fashionable to mock the sport for its glacial pace.
Baseball could bounce back. As the World Series showed, the game can still captivate. In neither body nor spirit will the angry or apathetic return, though, until they are sure of being spared another lockout or work stoppage.
A basic agreement by Christmas is important, but probably unattainable. Which leaves us with only memories of the World Series to keep us warm.
Now begins another chilly season of real hardball. by CNB