Season’s over, but I can stop thinking baseball; it’s like installment loans for my soul.
Allow me to explain. I’m a fanatic, and I’m certainly not alone.
Baseball has captivated the American imagination since its origins as a gentleman’s game on green pastures. It is a game with its own poetry of time and movement, tension and release. Its timeless quality – a reminder of that inner peace we so deeply desire, that emerald Eden sailing sapphire skies – never ceases to inspire.
Baseball is a unique endeavor.
Even a team that has lost 10,000 games can swing its way to the top. How’s that for optimism?
To sportswriters, poets, essayists, broadcasters, photographers, fathers and sons, mothers and daughters, heads of state and those struggling just to make it, the game of baseball is now, then, and for Cubs fans, the eternal “wait until next year.”
Right now, the “Hot Stove League” is in full swing, and the General Managers’ annual meeting has trade talk flying fast and furious. Will “Man Ram” continue to batter NL pitching in Dodger blue? Now that C.C. has proven that the senior circuit is his personal buffet line, will he be long for Milwaukee? Where will K-Rod and his lock-down slider fly? Where’s Teixeira gonna rake? These and many more questions will be answered this off-season.
You can’t tell what’s happening in free agency without a scorecard, ladies and gents
That’s why you’ll want to follow the action with resources like this. Sort by team, position, or just go through them all alphabetically. I want to know how things are shaping up for the 2009 season, so I’ll be visiting there regularly.
Wait. You don’t know what free agency is?
Then it’s time to hit some high points.
As television revenues began to grow and issues with meager player pension funds loomed, the Major League Baseball Players Association began to look ahead to ways they’d be able to strengthen their bargaining power. In 1965, they hired a labor organizer by the name of Marvin Miller. By 1968, the first collective bargaining agreement was in place, which gave the players some leverage against the machinations of team ownership.
“No man is going to sell my carcass unless I get half.” – Deacon White, National Association/National League catcher/third baseman
However, big things didn’t begin to happen until 1969, when St. Louis Cardinals outfielder Curt Flood refused to report to camp. He took it upon himself to challenge Major League Baseball’s long-standing unwritten rule, the “reserve clause.” Essentially, players were completely under the control of the team to which they were under contract. Teams could buy, sell or trade players at any time and salaries were kept low because players could not shop their services to other teams. Top stars were paid well, but the average player couldn’t live on their baseball salary alone under this system, particularly if they had a family to support.
Flood lost his challenge against baseball, but he succeeded in setting the wheels in motion. By 1975, pitchers Dave McNally and Andy Messersmith filed grievances against their respective teams. On December 23, 1975, an independent arbiter ruled in favor of the players. The owners’ position boiled down to “you can’t rule against us… we’re baseball,” while the players wanted their say as valued labor, as men. It was a slam dunk case that paved the way to free agency as we know it today in professional sports.
Today, it’s easy to look at player salaries and remark at how out of touch with reality they all seem. Indeed, it could easily be argued that after gaining the upper hand against ownership, the Players’ Union has taken the ball and run so far away that they’ve forgotten where the game is. However, if you take into account what networks pay teams for broadcasting rights alone, you’ll see that there’s lots of revenue to be shared.
And since the owners can’t play a position…
What you end up with is entertainers – the ballplayers – who want their fair share of the profits. That makes sense in the real world, doesn’t it?
But YOU can take a position…
In much the same way, it makes sense in the real world that you as a consumer have a right to your fair share of installment loans when you are in need of bite-sized, short-term funding. Despite the stories interest groups may throw around, they’re like a batting practice fastball. Swing away and round the bases. You’ll end up back at home without paying too much or damaging your credit. That’s what you get with installment loans.
Professional athletes deserve to have the right to sell their services to whichever team they wish. Granted, they get to play baseball for a living, but it’s their time and their life. We the consumer also should have the right to whatever avenues we wish for financing a temporary cash crunch in the wake of an unexpected expense, and if we so desire personal loans instead of having to rely on the bank and credit tycoons, then that should be our choice.