DATE: Saturday, October 25, 1997            TAG: 9710250340

SECTION: LOCAL                   PAGE: B1   EDITION: FINAL 

TYPE: Column 

SOURCE: Guy Friddell 

                                            LENGTH:   52 lines

THE CONSTANT DASH FOR CASH PUTS SQUEEZE ON BASEBALL

Money is ruining America's favorite pastime.

No, I'm not talking about sex. It's baseball. At least, that's what everybody says.

Striving to make ever more money, the moguls who run baseball added playoffs that push the World Series to winter's doorsill.

In Ohio, the Cleveland Indians and the Florida Marlins were playing amid snow flurries. I got off the sofa to fetch a blanket, first shoving the dog off my ankles.

To increase profits by catching the biggest possible television audience, they shoved back the start of the game into prime time, near 8:30 p.m., which is wrecking my health.

About 11:15 p.m., I fall asleep in front of the TV and waken at 2 a.m. to some raucous rerun, a panel of politicians brawling about some issue dear only to their hearts.

I eat a banana, which somebody told me induces sleep, as, indeed, it does at about 4 a.m., until the dog awakens me at 5:30 a.m. for a walk.

I have yet to see the end of a single game in the World Series.

A headline in Friday's paper - START GAMES EARLIER, SAYS LEYLAND - gladdened my eyes.

Jim Leyland, the Marlins' manager, makes the point that these late hours are hard on his players and tend to deter children from watching the games.

And those children would be the hard-smitten spectators a decade or so hence.

He might have added that a ticket which, for most fans, costs $25 in some major league parks, inhibits parents from attending games with their children.

And then, in the big stadiums, a hot dog is likely to fetch $3.50, not to forget the prices of soda pop or beer and popcorn or peanuts at an inflated price, plus a parking fee of $5. A day with American's favorite pastime is out of reach of many of America's families.

A day at the ballpark for a family of four is likely to cost $125.

The owners warp the season by distending the rungs of playoffs and distorting the starting times to chase ever larger sums from television revenues.

In turn, the players, true to the spirit of free enterprise, demand ever larger salaries, requiring still another round of increases, all of which work to depress attendance and make the game ever more remote from ordinary folk.

Interspersed among the action of today's World Series are films of the likes of Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, Joe Dimaggio, Ted Williams and Mickey Mantle showing how baseball used to be. The owners better beware of such reminders.

Generally, the games were played in the afternoon sun with fans lounging in bleachers, a day free of tensions and worry about whether one would have enough left in one's pocket to get home.

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