“People will come, Ray. They come to Iowa for reasons they can’t even fathom.” – Terrence Mann in Field of Dreams
Throughout the winter, I’ve thought a lot about this quote. If you remove ‘Iowa’ and replace it with ‘Target Field,’ that is the exact line that can be applied to me. Given the state of affairs in baseball, I should be angry to go to the ballpark, but like every opening day, there is excitement instead. I'm just happy to be here for another trip around the sun watching the grand ol’ game.
But, as always, we can still yell about it. So why am I angry at baseball?
It’s pretty simple. Those who are in charge of the game, the MLB owners, have made the game almost miserable with their lack of care. Or should I say, lack of care to invigorate their fan base.
Just this winter, we watched as the reigning champion Dodgers spend money on player after player, including highly touted Japanese star Roki Sasaki. Other teams were reportedly “in the mix”, but it seemed pre-destined that Sasaki would end up in Chavez Ravine alongside his fellow countrymen, Yoshinobu Yamamoto and Shohei Ohtani (baseball’s star of stars).
The Mets also went in big on Juan Soto, outbidding his old team, the Yankees, among others, for his services for the next 15 years.
There were a few other signings of note, but otherwise, it was a dismal winter for the fans of just about any other team as front offices looked to save money rather than spend. And therein lies the problem. Most owners just don’t want to spend at all. Call up the next guy or just sign someone off the scrap heap for pennies on the dollar. Don’t go get someone who we have to pay and can actually move the needle among fans.
Check in the subreddit of 25 MLB teams, and you will likely find a recent post that complains about the ownership of that club. Fans will disagree on the shift, replay, or the length of a starting pitcher outing, but they can universally come together these days and say the owners are terrible.
John Fisher just unceremoniously yanked the A’s out of Oakland after 57 seasons to play in a minor league ballpark in Sacramento for *at least* three years until a new stadium is built for him on the Las Vegas strip.
White Sox fans, what’s left of them, want Jerry Reinsdorf to simply vanish into thin air so they can have a glimmer of hope about their club again. The same club that won a mere 41 games in 2024, setting a new level of low for a major league club.
In one of the most beautiful ballparks in America, Pirates fans loathe Bob Nutting for his lack of activity in nearly 20 years at the helm. They now have one of the most exciting young talents in the game, pitcher Paul Skenes, but it’s a legit question if the Pirates will ever drop a dime to put a good team around him while he resides in the Steel City.
Stuart Sternberg of the Rays just decided he did not want to go forward with a ballpark project in St. Petersburg after so much work had to be done to get there. Also mind you, the Rays are a second major league team to be playing in a minor league ballpark in 2025 as the Trop was ravaged by Hurricane Milton last October and repairs to the facility still have yet to begin.
Even some of the most loyal fans in baseball, St. Louis Cardinal fans, are grumpy at their front office over the direction of the franchise.
Then more locally…*sigh*…there’s the Pohlad family. Consult my piece from Tuesday on how that’s going.
We could go on and on, but these are top examples of how baseball ownership has shown its true colors these days. Line your pockets first, fans second.
This is not the first time baseball has had an ownership crisis when it comes to paying players. Until the first collective bargaining agreement of 1968, owners owned players until they were released from their contract (a reserve clause). It was a big-time sticking point in the ‘60s as players became more prominent in the game.
Then, with the CBA came the owner collusion crisis of the mid-80s, where owners colluded together to not sign free agents and gave their original team a chance to sign them for pennies on the dollar. The courts decided in favor of the players by 1990, awarding them nearly $300 million in damages.
The strike of 1994-95, resulting in no World Series in 1994, destroyed fan trust in the game. A trust that took years to return. The owners unsuccessfully sought a salary cap and nearly started a 1995 season with replacement players before the courts got involved and decided a season was to be played with the real MLB players until a new agreement could be reached.
(The current CBA runs through the 2026 season, and the winds do not look friendly to what comes after that expires.)
More presently, we have heard the owners’ punching bag, Rob Manfred, trying to make suggestions for making the game more exciting. Manfred did help a few years ago with the creation of a pitch clock, which has incredibly reduced the length of games. But he has still made suggestions for differing the on-field product. None of them are very good. But before you get angry at having a golden hitter rule, step back and breathe momentarily.
It’s all just a distraction. A ploy to get you to look away from the real problem, the owners. They put these ridiculous ideas out there just so you forget about your ownership problems for a few minutes.
“Baseball is a public trust,” once said the former MLB commissioner Peter Ueberroth. He also said (at different times), “The integrity of the game is everything.” But Ueberroth also had his hands in the collusion of the 80s, so maybe he was talking out of his rear.
Those quotes remain paramount right now. Baseball teams are not being navigated as a public trust and how can we fully have integrity of the game when owners simply refuse to put their best foot forward?
The game is as entertaining as ever on the field. Aaron Judge and Ohtani continue to hit moonshots year after year. Pitchers like Skenes throw ungodly pitches with movement and high velocity. We also have players like Bobby Witt and Elly De La Cruz, who look to be 30/30 players on an annual basis.
But if owners won’t invest in their on-field product, or at least retain the talent they brought up through the farm system themselves, how much fun will baseball be when the best players end up on the same five teams?
Owners whined about how much the Dodgers spent on players over the offseason. They should zip it and look in the mirror. It’s not the Dodgers’ fault no one else wants to sign star players. It’s their own fault.
They are the problem. They will continue to be the problem until they change.
Don’t let anyone or anything make you think otherwise.
Banner photo via LM Otero/Associated Press