Quote:
Originally Posted by Pat R
That's one of the main problems with most pro sports today it's more about being a business instead of a sport.
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Baseball was always a cut throat business. Read a book about Jacob Ruppert or Branch Rickey.
I am not pointing a finger at any board member, and people are of course entitled to their views and opinions, but a large part of what's wrong with everything right now is people aren't educated with a historical perspective. If you are a student of baseball (and I hardly consider myself one), you know that the game has been a cut throat in your face business since the 1890s. Leagues crushing leagues through illegal tactics, teams burying other teams and financially destroying them, players moving for more money, management screwing over players, players cheating, etc., etc. Even what the major leagues did in raiding the Negro Leagues for talent was financially despicable.
The one refrain that makes me throw up a little every time I hear it is "things are so different today. What I was growing up players would have been happy to play for free . . . . they just loved the game." Oh please. Yeah, most of them had zero power to force anything. And people like Gehrig and Ruth who had clout held out repeatedly for more money.
I guess as I approach my 60s I need to soon adopt the obligatory old guy "everything is so much worse today than it ever was" mentality. Not there yet. I'd make a joke about maybe I'm watching the wrong TV news network but I'll leave that for another day.