So will they strike?

Maybe, maybe not. But since baseball players and owners aren't even addressing the fundamental problem, we'll be asking the same question in a few years.

By King Kaufman

Aug. 27, 2002 | A lot of people have been asking me lately whether I think the baseball players will go out on strike Friday. These are mostly people who have learned that I write a sports column, but they don't read it, so they're unaware of the levels of cluelessness from which I operate.

Still, it's given me a chance to work out my opinions and feelings on the matter in public discussions, and after a spirited give and take with friends and acquaintances I'm happy to say I've come up with a definitive answer: I don't know.

I won't make your eyes glaze over with numbers, but in case you have the good sense not to be following the story here's the basic idea: The team owners want to tax team payrolls over a certain amount -- the so-called luxury tax -- and share a greater portion of revenue among the clubs. The players believe that a luxury tax will limit salaries by punishing teams that spend too much on payroll, so they want the tax to start at a higher level, and the tax itself to be lower. They also want less sharing of revenues than the owners do, for basically the same reason: More revenue sharing will mean less money for the richest teams, which pay the highest salaries. The two sides have agreed broadly on the basic concept that the rich teams need to help the poor teams. They're arguing about how much money should change hands, and when.

And of course, none of this is the real issue. The real issue is that the owners want to create a salary cap, and the players don't want them to. The luxury tax, if severe enough, is a de facto salary cap. If I have to pay a prohibitive tax on any payroll above a certain amount, I'm going to keep my payroll under that amount.

The owners say the problem they're trying to address is competitive imbalance, the fact that small-market teams like the Kansas City Royals and the Pittsburgh Pirates have no chance to win, and please ignore small-market teams that do win, like the Oakland A's and Minnesota Twins, and also if you don't mind let's call large-market teams that lose, like the Philadelphia Phillies and the Detroit Tigers, small-market teams, because that helps our argument, and by the way as long as we're talking here, the money that's going to change hands will go not from large- to small-market teams, but from high- to low-revenue teams, which is a different matter, and if you're following all this and believing it makes sense, I've got a beer I can sell you for $7.

Considering that none of the owners' proposals does a single thing to address competitive imbalance, I think it's safe to say that competitive balance is really not the major issue for them. Pretending it is the major issue is their latest in a continuing series of lies to the players -- and fans -- dating back to, I'm not kidding, just after the Civil War, when professional baseball was born. The major issue for them is, of course, maximizing profits, and except to the extent that they lie about it, I can't think of anything wrong with that. If I were the owner of a business, that would be my major issue, dewy sentiments about baseball as a national treasure rather than a business aside.

But fans don't really care about owners' profits, so the owners talk about what the fans are interested in, which is competitive balance, the idea that the local nine ought to have a fighting chance to win a championship from time to time, even if the local nine is not the New York Yankees or the Atlanta Braves.

The players, on the other hand, argue that a salary cap is simply unfair. Baseball generates profits. There is no artificial limit on how much money an owner can put in his pocket, so there shouldn't be one on how much money a player can put in his, especially when you consider that it's the players who generate the revenue in the first place. After all, you pay your money to watch Pedro Martinez pitch, not to watch John Henry pay him.

Fans shouldn't care about the players' salaries any more than they care about the owners' profits. The business of Major League Baseball creates a big bag of money through ticket sales, television revenue, merchandising, concessions, etc., and players and owners are arguing about how to divide up the contents of that bag, an argument that has zero effect on fans.

The fans, surprisingly, don't see it that way. The fans, for the most part, think that baseball players get paid too much, period.

CNN reporter Bruce Morton represented this line of thinking when he declared himself a baseball fan in an on-air commentary Aug. 18, then talked about how negotiators had agreed on a minimum major league salary of $300,000 a year.

"That's a starting salary, a beginner's, what you get the first day you show up in the park asking where your locker is," he said. "Starting lawyers don't make anywhere near that much, or starting doctors, nor even starting plumbers. Congressmen don't. In a just world, $300K might be a fair salary for a third-grade teacher with a record of success. It would certainly be more valuable to society than a shortstop who can turn the double play."

CNN must not have any editors on the clock on Sundays, because I can't believe anyone paying attention would let Morton get away with such cockeyed reasoning, although I'm sure the audience was sitting at home nodding in the affirmative. You tell 'em, Bruce. Ballplayers make toooooooo much money.

Next page: The issue isn't the bloated salaries, it's that some teams can't pay them