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PROLOGUE
The Game I Love Is Hurting
Opening day, 2012.
A group of kids, fresh from a morning of pickup games at their neighborhood baseball complex (built by a partnership of sports, local business, and government interests), arrives at the major league ballpark early enough to sit in the box seats and watch batting practice. The stars of the game take time to give them some baseball cards, sign a few autographs, offer encouragement and some tips about how to make it to the majors, and even toss a few balls the kids' way. The kids -- and their parents -- also meet some MLB alumni who serve as team ambassadors and who answer questions and share memories (and some autographs, too) with the fans.
As batting practice gives way to fielding practice, the stands begin to fill with fans of all racial and ethnic backgrounds, as culturally diverse as the players on the field, thanks to Major League Baseball's outreach and marketing programs aimed at minority communities. A few of those fans are enjoying their choice of hot dogs, sushi, and other ethnically diverse foods from the food stands, which now also offer healthy and vegetarian alternatives. In the upper deck, parents are teaching their kids how to score the game between innings at the park's interactive game areas and museums. The parents are also thinking back to that period in baseball history when the game on the field kept giving way to strikes, lockouts, ownership collusion, and owners deliberately fielding weak (and inexpensive) teams, maximizing revenue by minimizing salaries. Thanks to the commissioner and Major League Baseball working in cooperation with the Players Association, all that divisiveness is a thing of the past. The commissioner's office and Players Association have a feeling for the game, and its players are on the same page.
The owners and the Players Association worked out a mechanism that rewards top players and free agents for working within the baseball campaign as well as for performing community work -- even after they've gotten their huge, multiyear contracts. Of course, players still change teams, but the system now provides incentives for players to remain in one city for many years, long enough for fans to get to know and relate to their team and players -- or even for their entire careers, like a Tony Gwynn, a Kirby Puckett, or a George Brett. And Major League Baseball, MLB.com, marketing, international business groups, and the Players Association made an agreement to promote individual players and not just teams or the overall game, so the fans know much more about the new arrivals to their favorite teams.
The chasm between players and fans has vanished, as players demonstrate a newfound respect for their fans and for the game, and take a much more active role in their communities, visiting schools, hospitals, and service clubs like never before. As a result, players have regained respect and adoration from their fans. The players and their union have become much more aware of the players' responsibilities as role models in society (for which players now receive recognition and distinction) and, to that end, have crafted a successful drug-prevention program that includes drug testing and has all but eliminated steroids, amphetamines, and other performance-enhancing drugs from the game. Thanks to the cooperation between Major League Baseball and the Players Trust (an arm of the Players Association), the perception -- and the reality -- is that the game has truly been cleaned up, and the baseball players' ratings have skyrocketed as a result. The ballpark is using its boardrooms and facilities to assist community-based programs and partnerships that further baseball, the youth, and the community in general.
The World Baseball Classic has become an unqualified success as a platform to embrace worldwide baseball enthusiasts from Africa, China, and beyond. The ethnic, cultural, and racial diversity on the field is also reflected in the fan base. Baseball has become aware that diversity is a business imperative, and has acted accordingly. While continuing their avid pursuit of baseball players in Latin America, Australia, Japan, and China, the owners have created a system that makes it economically, socially, and politically intelligent to develop homegrown baseball players, of all races and socioeconomic levels, through such initiatives as the Urban Youth Academy, which began in Compton, California, in 2006, and has expanded and begun to bear fruit.
In 2012, kids of all backgrounds have access to the same high-quality tryouts, baseball camps, travel leagues, tournaments, showcase games, scout games, trainers, coaches, and even sports psychologists. No longer do kids who are potential five-tool ballplayers (those with all of the abilities that baseball prizes: hit for average, hit for power, run, throw, and field) fall way behind because they lack access to the training facilities, big league exposure, and coaching that gives other kids knowledge of the nuances of the game vital to career success. Coaching clinics, provided by each ball club in Major League Baseball and conducted by dedicated people with a renewed love, understanding, and respect for the game, are held nationwide. How far you can go is no longer dictated by where you come from or what kind of resources your family has.
As a result, it has become just as economically rewarding to develop prospects in the inner cities of the United States as it is in the villages of the Dominican Republic. In 2012, when any young player enters the clubhouse of his first major league team, he is likely to see others of his racial or ethnic background.
Baseball is enjoying such a great resurgence that kids in their teens continue to play on high school and college campuses, where the girls are just as interested in the baseball players as they are in the football players, basketball players, and skateboarders. And the casual fan can name as many noted college programs and coaches in baseball as he can in basketball.
Sounds farfetched? It shouldn't.
In this book, I want to share my observations about the current state of baseball, why the gameappears, by most standards, to be in robust health but is in fact subtly declining in importance to Americans, especially African Americans, and share my ideas for turning the trend around. This book will tell you how baseball can go from good to great, and how the game's industry can be all it can be.
I love the game of baseball and I revere its place in both American history and modern society as a teacher of values and life skills and outdoor fun and exercise, as well as its place in the history of race relations. I come from a time when there was respect for the records we hold dear and when role models were plentiful. As baseball combs the world, from Latin America to Europe to Japan and Australia for new prospects, new audiences, and new sources of revenue, the game cannot afford to forget the fans and the prospects here at home. The path to the top is much different than it once was. I will explore the connections among the social and economic issues, the people side and the business side of baseball, and discuss how baseball can reach its full potential.
Despite the record attendance figures and huge labor contracts, the game has diminished in popularity over the last thirty years due to many factors, some subtle and others quite obvious. Each of its many constituencies, from the commissioner's office to the owners to the players and even the fans, have lost sight of what makes baseball unique. I want this book to serve as a critique of baseball, and to provide a guiding light for those who have the fondest love for the game. I've applied some vision, suggesting some bold strokes and initiatives to produce major change.
These thoughts are coming from the heart of an insider, one who played and loved the game as a seven-time Gold Glove winner, with over three thousand hits, a World Series winner, and a member of the Baseball Hall of Fame. I've been asked: Why risk being shot down or criticized? I say, "Why not me, why not now? No one else is offering solutions -- we have entered an awareness phase of our plight, but action is next." My objective is to move beyond criticism to offer well-founded and well-researched answers, directions, and advice. I'd like to provide an introspective guide to the present and the future of the game, and offer a manifesto for change.
A lot has to change in the way baseball is marketed, played, and appreciated in order for the game to regain its luster. I will take issue with many of the practices employed by the various constituencies described in the book. I'll discuss simple timeworn practices that have been lost or forgotten. But I will always remain positive, upbeat, and hopeful that once those responsible for baseball's success realize what needs to be done, they will act quickly to preserve our true national pastime and bring it into the twenty-first century.
Baseball has lost its central position in the hearts and minds of sports fans in America, and I want to explain what this decline in baseball's importance, particularly to African American fans and young people, means to me. Then I will focus on each of baseball's constituencies to address the issues everyone in and around the game needs to consider. I will suggest ways in which each of those groups can bring baseball back to the fore. My final chapter, "Baseball in the Twenty-first Century," will offer my vision for how the game can resume that rightful place at the center of our sporting life, but only if all the constituencies pull their weight.
I remember a sign that George Steinbrenner had on his desk in New York: LEAD, FOLLOW, OR GET OUT OF THE WAY. Take your choice. I've made my decision to lead, and I'm hoping to ignite some action and perhaps bring baseball back to its former glory.
As a retired player who has loved the game since I was eight years old, and as a baseball executive for the San Diego Padres, I have the ear of the leading figures in the game, from the commissioner's office to the Players Association to the corporate community leaders, team owners, and media, right down to the coaches in Little League. I possess an intense passion to get these ideas into public debate. It has been more than a decade since I retired from the game. When I played, and also while in retirement, I have privately documented and discussed scores of ways in which baseball could improve itself. This book is the product of twenty years in the major leagues and another decade of thought and research.
The time has come to deliver a message of utmost importance to our society as a whole, not just to those who love the game of baseball. I will share with you what can and must be done to reverse the trends that have maligned the sport I love. I want the book to accomplish an extremely important goal: to kindle a national, ongoing debate about the future of the game, and to incite change.
Everyone can see and feel the changes in baseball -- few of which have been any good -- but not many people can sense when or why the game changed. Everyone has an opinion about what's wrong, but no one has offered a cure. The sports talk shows speak authoritatively on a few issues and can easily identify the topic du jour, but they are chock-full of fluff. And that's as deep as it goes. I want to go much deeper than that. I want to discuss where the game has been, where it is now, where it's headed if we do nothing about the problems baseball faces, and where the game can go if we understand what's possible.
If you look at baseball's recent history -- from labor struggles to collusion on free agents' salaries, from strikes to steroids, from congressional hearings to HGH and amphetamines -- you might get the sense that the game was doing everything in its power to destroy its own credibility and importance. Indeed, baseball -- its players and its leadership -- has slipped over the decades from its preeminent position as the national pastime to its current position as simply one more entertainment option for Americans. People used to feel a sense of ownership about baseball. Pro basketball belonged to the NBA, pro football to the NFL, college basketball to the NCAA. But baseball belonged to thepeople.
That's changing -- for myriad reasons we'll discuss and debate. A growing number of baseball seasons interrupted or even a World Series wiped out by strikes hasn't helped our image. The period when the owners were found guilty of colluding to keep down the salaries of top free-agent stars didn't help much, either. Baseball's attitude toward the steroid problem -- denial, followed by a quick fix, followed by more denial, then much berating in congressional inquiries -- has been a disgrace.
Yes, the turnstiles are spinning at record numbers, a new era of labor peace has ushered in bigger and bigger contracts, and new ballparks continue to be built, which means that people still want to come out and see the games. But I know it's changed when I see that today's fathers can't teach their kids baseball because so many of them never even played themselves. Nevertheless, baseball remains popular. Of course, so does World Wrestling Entertainment, which no one believes is anything but scripted.
I love the game of baseball. Always have, always will. I was a pretty good athlete in my youth, blessed with an early love of the game and some great coaching, and I became the only individual to have been drafted by four teams in three different professional sports leagues -- the Minnesota Vikings of the NFL, the Atlanta Hawks of the NBA, the Utah Stars of the old American Basketball Association, and the San Diego Padres. I could have chosen any sport, and I chose baseball.
People often ask me why. I reply that there were baseball fields near my home in St. Paul, Minnesota, and there were coaches who knew and could teach the game and its values: hard work, teamwork, winning. The game was fun because I was taught how to keep growing and succeeding. It's a hard game that many quit because they don't learn how to improve. But with great coaching, both individuals and teams can achieve success. As a boy, I'd dream of accomplishments on the diamond: "That was the hardest ball I ever hit!" and "I struck him out with the side-arm pitch!" or "That play deep in the hole was the best play I ever made!" Every day, I wanted to come back to do it better.
Why not football? Well, the idea of getting my body banged up by guys even larger than me every fall and winter Sunday didn't appeal to me. Just ask most former college or NFL running backs or linemen coping with all manner of aches and pains if they now believe that they made the right career choice. Many of the pro football players of my youth who were my heroes are no longer with us. And the ones whose bodies have never recovered from those violent collisions will tell you, "Man, I should have played baseball."
I like basketball and excelled at it in my years at the University of Minnesota. One on one, five on five -- if you've got the physical tools, heart, and endurance, it's a great game as well. I had fun playing basketball, but baseball has always beenthegame. In fact, I used the training and mental techniques I gained in sports such as basketball to improve in my sport of choice. A lot of people, myself included, think that baseball is a harder game to learn and to play than any other. It is truly a skill sport -- talent alone doesn't cut it, and size does not ensure success, either. Scientifically, it encompasses biomechanics, physics, and aerodynamics, to name just a few.
Baseball is also an instinct sport: It takes intelligence and planning -- not just reacting. It takes time and effort, practice and good coaching, to hone those instincts so that you can understand what you have to do, including the proper exploitation of opponent's weaknesses. The skills include how to initiate action, how to respond to events, how to lay down a bunt or hit behind the runner (the kinds of skills that don't show up onSportsCenter).
Above all, players need to know how to ask and answer the key baseball questions: "What if?" What if he hits it to me? Where do I throw? Who do I back up? All the things that people don't see that are going through a good player's mind long before the pitch. That's why I love the game so much: Because it's a cerebral experience as much as it is a physical one. You're not constantly moving, but you have to always be thinking.
Consider that college and even high school players often make the leap to the NBA or the NFL and become starters, and even standouts, in their first year in the pros. But that's not the case in baseball. Even outstanding players who have excelled at every level of the game from the time they were in T-ball spend several years in the minor leagues honing their skills before they are ready for prime time. Think back to Michael Jordan and his baseball odyssey. If Jordan, arguably the greatest basketball player of all time, could barely hit a minor league curve ball, that ought to give you some indication of the skill required in baseball. And it's a game you have to continue playing: Unlike riding a bicycle, you can't stop for years and hope to pick up where you left off.
It's unfortunate that many kids today are not permitted to play multiple sports in high school and college, which would help them determine which one they truly want to play. The trend in society toward specialization has reached the world of competitive sports: Coaches expect you -- at a very young age -- to focus on one sport, their sport, in and out of season. If you don't follow their rules, you don't play, because coaches, too, are feeling the pressure to win. This stifles the growth of young athletes and means that they may not end up in the sport for which they are best suited, because competency and enjoyment in a sport grows with time.
Playing multiple sports helped me with versatility. Playing basketball and football in high school and college taught me life lessons about confidence, overcoming obstacles, endurance, running and jumping, competition and teamwork, and it kept me from burning out on one sport, as is often the case today. Playing three sports with different practice routines, and cross-training in the off-season, I developed muscles and attributes beyond those which baseball required. I also met new people, traveled to different places, and competed in a wide variety of arenas. This was a great experience for me, and it would be for any young person. I'm afraid today's generation of specialized high school -- and even adolescent -- athletes are missing out on those opportunities for growth.
As the father of three children, one of whom is a twelve-year-old Little Leaguer, I'm acutely aware of the pressures on young athletes -- limited time, unlimited expectations from teammates, coaches, and parents, especially when your last name is Winfield. I won't lie -- I want my son to love the game of baseball, just as I always have. That's a major reason for my writing this book -- so that my son, and yours, can have a chance to learn and love what, in my eyes, is the greatest game.
Baseball is probably the most cerebral sport there is, relying on intellect and experience more than any other game. The lessons from baseball are endless -- it takes more than talent to play the game well. You can't be good without the proper coaching of techniques. You can't learn the nuances of the game on your own. It takes enormous focus, study, and flexibility. You've got to have multiple capabilities -- you're not performing the same skill over and over, like a football linebacker or a hockey goalie. In addition, the baseball schedule is longer and more grueling than any other in professional sports. We play approximately twice as many regular season games as they do in the NBA and a dozen times as many games as does the NFL. Our road trips are longer, and our games themselves take longer to play. Baseball today requires a player to be intensely fit so as to survive the rigors of the long season, the physical demands of the game, and the endless travel, not to mention the emotional demands of the media, the fans, and the business side of the game.
W. P. Kinsella, the author of the novelShoeless Joe, which was adapted for the movieField of Dreams, wrote that the physical action that takes place over a three-hour baseball game could be compressed into five brief minutes. The rest of the time is taken up, for the fans as well as for the players, managers, and coaches, imagining what might happen next: what pitch might be thrown, what defensive adjustment might prove harmful or beneficial, where and how the ball might be put in play, what the runners will do. Baseball is a thinking person's game, and that's part of why I love it so much.
And I've been thinking a lot about baseball lately. If I don't say or do something soon, I'm afraid it will evolve into a sport and a business that I will not recognize, like, or even respect. At some point in the recent past, baseball went from being a sport to being a form of entertainment -- to being a business that has neglected its customers, the people who love the game. It's difficult to determine when and how this tipping point occurred, and it didn't occur on just one front. In recent years, industry meetings have revealed to me that the regressive statistics and trends have been brewing for more than a decade.
If baseball's asport, then we have certain expectations. When you play a sport, you do your best and give your best at all times. You expect to win and you do everything you can to help your team. You run out grounders, even when it seems overwhelmingly certain that you'll be thrown out at first base. You hit behind the runner to move him over and put him in scoring position, even though the potential RBI won't be reflected in your own personal statistics. You lay down a bunt when necessary and you give yourself up for the team, for the greater goal of winning. You play to improve and enjoy, and a lot of life lessons are learned as a result.
But if baseball isentertainment, the fundamentals of the game matter less. Even winning doesn't matter as much if you feel entitled to a good salary with benefits, perks, bling, and TV coverage. A rookie makes more than the bonus a player wins for winning the World Series, so imagine the temptation to not play to his best ability. It's no longer about the joy of playing and winning, now it's all about the hype. It's about getting onSportsCenterso as to increase your chances of prevailing in contract negotiations and product endorsements.
Every player hopes to see himself on TV while having a sense of entitlement and keeping a distance between himself and the fans. Players and agents are more cognizant of performing actions that get them recognized. They're not always thinking, "What can I do for my team?" Instead, they're often thinking, "How can I become a star?" They're not hitting for the situation, playing solid defense, throwing out runners, or running out every play. Instead, there's a huge concern about individual glory and statistics.
In an era of free agency, it's harder to think in terms of the team concept. You often don't know your teammates very well (which results in a lack of team chemistry) because no one stays on the same team very long. It's harder to be on the same page with your teammates when the clubhouse has a revolving door. Remember the Tigers or Dodgers infield of the eighties? Or, if your memory goes further back, the Cubs or Twins infield of the sixties? The idea of an infield or outfield staying together for years is an anachronism today. Don't get me wrong: Good teams and good players will always emerge. But it's different. Players, managers, and fans don't know what to expect from year to year.
Who's influencing the players to think more about themselves and less about their teams? The agents play an important role in this process. They tell their player-clients, "If you can put these numbers up this year, I can get this kind of money for you. I can compare you with such and such a player." But the three-run homers that players shoot for today have nothing to do with thinking in terms of the "team." That's one reason why I say the game I love is hurting.
Another issue is the responsibility of the players to the fans. If baseball is a sport, then players are inevitably role models for kids. But if baseball is entertainment, or strictly business, the expectations for players descend to the level of what society expects from entertainers. You don't expect Madonna or Tom Cruise to sign autographs for kids before or after a performance. And you don't expect to get to the movie theater an hour early and watch Brad Pitt practice his acting drills before signing movie stubs for a group of moviegoers. Instead, these stars usually ply their trade and then go about their business, normally fleeing from the media and the paparazzi, leaving the fans to admire them only on the red carpet or at award shows.
Ballplayers are under more intense pressure and constant scrutiny than most public figures. When I played, the New York media were demanding enough. But now you've got twenty-four-hour sports talk radio, heated arguments on a thousand and one cable TV sports talk shows, the Internet, a million commentators taking every side of an issue, not necessarily because they believe what they're saying but simply to foment controversy on the air or in print. If a player needed to be media savvy twenty years ago, imagine the pressure today's players have to develop the skills to navigate the modern media minefield!
I understand that sports is a business and that entertainment is big business. But we're losing something. We're losing the personal connection that for decades baseball enjoyed in our society as the preeminent American sport -- perhaps in all sports, for that matter. We're losing the sense of appreciation bordering on healthy obsession that riveted children, and even adults, who hungered for information about their teams and their favorite players. When was the last time you met a kid who could keep a box score? When was the last time you met a kid who kept his baseball programs folded neatly away, the most important possessions in his world? Who loved his baseball cards for the players on those cards, and not for the money he could get for them? People don't bring one ball to the ballpark for autographs -- it's now a whole bag of balls to be signed for display and sale on eBay.
Society has changed, and sometimes it seems that baseball just doesn't fit in with the way we live our lives today. Critics say the game is too slow, too cerebral, too out of touch with kids who relate more to Xbox than the batter's box, who find more pleasure in viewing extreme sports than watching a savvy batter prolong a pitch count with two outs and men on base.
It's hard enough to keep kids interested in baseball when soaring real estate values means fewer open spaces in urban areas for ball games, and broken city budgets have no money to keep a baseball diamond polished. Cities can't afford to maintain parks and fields. Real estate developers have claimed most of the empty spaces, green fields, and vacant lots in our cities and towns.
Back in the day, parents could let their children wander off on a summer morning to while away the day playing without adult supervision. Today, a legitimate fear of predators keeps parents from letting their children stray from their field of vision. Leave a child unsupervised for six hours and you may be prosecuted or go to jail and the child may be at genuine risk. And with the rise of one-parent and two-job households, who has the time or the energy to teach kids how to play a game, pay the fees to play, travel to practices and games that are no longer in your neighborhood, or even supervise them?
Where are the kids today? Although they're no longer headed in droves to see their local team play, a decent amount (30 percent) went to a major league game in 2005. They're also headed to the places where they can practice their moves on their skateboards. Kids want to master the halfpipe, not the bunt or the suicide squeeze. They don't even throw the ball off a wall by themselves -- the best way to improve arm strength, accuracy, fielding, footwork, and so forth. Just as a shooter in basketball incessantly shoots and dribbles to become better, ballplayers use this method to practice on their own. Unstructured play was more prevalent than the practices and games -- now it is totally reversed: more games, less practice, and no unstructured or individual play. The end result? Weaker, less accurate arms, players with unsatisfactory baseball instincts and reactions who are more prone to injury and fear of failing, which leads to less overall enjoyment and certainly far less youth participation in the game.
And I can't say I totally blame them. As it is right now, high school girls are a lot more interested in boys who play on the football or basketball teams than in the fellows playing baseball. Who knows? If I had been coming up today, perhaps you might have seen me skating a halfpipe, a debonair six-foot-six Dave Winfield executing 1080s high above the crowds!
I see our younger generation as "at risk" -- not just to the dangers of obesity, alcohol, drugs, and crime, but also to losing their connection to the game that has given so much to me and so many others. This is true for all of our nation's young people, and it is especially true for inner-city kids.
In most of our inner cities, there are practically no maintained fields on which to play ball, no money for equipment, and no one to teach the game. Forty years ago, nearly all parents could teach some baseball. This is not the case today. You can't teach it if you've never played it, and many dads today didn't play it and may not love it. The tradition is going away. If baseball is the hardest game to learn, it's also the hardest game to teach and to coach. And if we lose it, it will be a tough job to bring it back.
Today's young African Americans lack not only experience playing baseball but knowledge of what the game has meant historically to our race. Jackie Robinson was the civil rights leader in sports and for our nation. He changed not just professional sports but our society as a whole. One wonders if the hip-hop generation is even aware that the Negro Leagues, with icons Cool Papa Bell, Josh Gibson, and the late, great Buck O'Neil, ever existed, and that baseball, along with boxing, were the dominant sports in our culture? Do young people even know who Jackie Robinson is, or about the abuse, hatred, and credible death threats he received, the sacrifice he made when he crossed baseball's color line sixty years ago?
There's been plenty of talk about Babe Ruth as Barry Bonds caught up with the Babe's home-run record. But there's less talk about Henry Aaron, the true home-run king, who hit 755 home runs. Do young African Americans even know who Aaron is (and that he's still alive and active in baseball), or what he had to face when he sought to break the Babe's record? Do they know what Buck O'Neil meant to the African American community? Do they even recognize his name?
In his new bookForty Million Dollar Slaves, author andNew York Timessportswriter William C. Rhoden tells the chilling story he witnessed of an African American college basketball player wearing a Negro Leagues baseball cap to a practice. The coach commended him on historical sense for wearing the cap. The player said he didn't know anything about the history behind the cap and had never heard of the Negro Leagues. He just bought the cap because it looked cool. The coach explained that there was a time when African Americans were not allowed to compete in Major League Baseball. "Coach," the astonished player replied, "get the f -- out of here!"
The economics of the game have changed as well. Major League Baseball can sign fifteen or twenty Latin American prospects for the amount of money it takes to sign even a single first-round high school or college player born in the United States. As a result, the game that Jackie Robinson gave so much of his heart to integrate now has a record low number of African American players -- the lowest number since 1970 -- with that number falling lower and lower every year.
Fans are not always aware of the fact that African Americans only represent 8 percent of major leaguers, down from 28 percent in 1975. This is due in part to the fact that there are so many dark-skinned Latin players in the game today. All of the societal and cultural forces we have discussed so far have also come together to make this a reality. Black kids are far more interested in the NBA and the NFL, sports leagues that have gotten their acts together and that market their games much more effectively than does Major League Baseball. All the glory goes to those high school athletes who can dunk a basketball or catch a football. There's not a lot of attention or full scholarships, let alone glory, for the boys playing baseball.
By contrast, in Latin America, and the Dominican Republic in particular, baseball is the number one game, and has been for a hundred years. Baseball players are the center of their culture, and making it to the major leagues is practically the only ticket out of a life of hardship cutting sugarcane or working at some other form of menial labor. San Pedro de Macorís, a Dominican Republic town of little more than a hundred thousand residents, has produced upward of sixty MLB players of note. No United States city or state can boast those numbers. Major League Baseball has gotten extremely sophisticated with regard to its recruitment of young Latin American ballplayers, but until recently much of American baseball's effort in the Dominican Republic and across Latin America has provided a two-sided coin of great opportunity and great despair, removing the best resources without any regard for the environment left behind.
I'll get more deeply into that later in this book. For now, suffice it to say there's a great hunger among Latin American athletes -- especially those in Venezuela, Colombia, Panama, and Cuba -- to make it in baseball and in no other sport, and that there's an economic imperative to locate and sign Latin American talent, an imperative for which there is no parallel when it comes to recruiting black athletes in the United States. As a result, the number of African American players -- and fans -- is in free fall.
An indication of the limited future of the African American in baseball comes from the most recent NCAA College World Series. Less than four percent of the players were African American, and there were no African American head coaches on any of those teams. This is even more significant because players drafted from college have become more preferable to many major league clubs, as they are more mature, experienced, and thought to be closer to becoming major league players, which takes an enormous investment of money and time.
Whenever a problem arises in baseball, the game can't shoot itself in the foot fast enough, trying not to solve the problem but instead covering it up and hoping it will go away. Baseball has lurched from crisis to crisis: a canceled World Series, rough labor relations, a steroids-tainted home-run derby that threatens to demean baseball's most cherished records, confrontations with Pete Rose and his gambling -- the list goes on and on. Baseball has been unable -- and perhaps unwilling -- to develop a better plan to pull itself from the morass of negative issues.
The Players Association, begun by Marvin Miller and currently under the directorship of Don Fehr, is the strongest union in the world and its members are the best paid of any union workers anywhere. This success is a product of much bargaining and a lot of time. When Marvin Miller and Dick Moss came over from the steelworkers' union to create and run the Major League Baseball Players Association in the 1960s, no one knew they would change the course of baseball history. But there has been a cost to its success: the enmity and pitched battles between the owners and the players, the decades of labor strife that finally appear to have ended, and the issue of drug-testing standards, among other problems. While baseball has been going through agonies, other sports have grabbed its fan base and risen to the top of the sports and entertainment pyramid.
Take the NBA. It's not perfect by any stretch, but it seems to solve its problems even before they arise, working out collective bargaining agreements that may not leave everyone completely satisfied but which keep the focus on the game and not on the business of the sport. The NBA has also done something Major League Baseball has not: It has successfully woven itself into modern culture, with its brilliant slogan "I love this game!" and now its "NBA cares!" marketing campaign, featuring A-list celebrities courtside to demonstrate their heartfelt joy at being a part of the NBA.
Both the NBA and the NFL take great pains to market not just the game as a whole but also individual stars, creating a deep sense of connection between players and fans. By contrast, baseball frequently demeans its best players, especially as contract time approaches, for the purpose of knocking a multiyear agreement down by a few million dollars. This shortsighted thinking on baseball's part creates enormous disrespect on the part of the fans for the players, who have been giving their all (at least till they get the big contract!) on their behalf.
The NBA and the NFL are also smart enough to make use of their most beloved former players, as analysts and commentators, and by other means of keeping them in the public eye. By comparison, baseball has no mechanism, aside from the occasional Old Timer's Game at Yankee Stadium, to capitalize on the extremely valuable asset of the fans' connection to their favorite players. Once most players, even the most well-known stars, retire from the game, baseball forgets all about them. The NBA and the NFL are far too smart to do that.
Baseball also neglects its most vital asset: the goodwill and memories created by current and former players. The Hall of Fame is home to only the best one percent of those who played the game. But what about the thousands of living current and former ballplayers who aren't in the hall? Why isn't baseball taking advantage of its ties to this elite group of athletes, who are beloved by generations of fans? There should be a better, more cooperative relationship between players, Major League Baseball, the Negro Leagues institutions, and the National Baseball Hall of Fame.
The NBA and NFL are much savvier about their use of retired players. Major League Baseball spends so much time in crisis management that it devotes only a small amount of its resources to thinking proactively about the use of these players and about how to improve the game. The corporate types relate to the older generation of players, those they watched and identified with while growing up. The players of today are only now amassing their experiences and stories. With former players, there are many legends -- today's players are still legends in the making. Baseball's fan base continues to dissipate because of MLB's lack of initiative.
Yes, other sports have their problems and their scandals -- baseball is not the only sport to suffer embarrassment due to the on- and off-the-field behavior of its players. At the same time, baseball is the sport least able to cope with its many problems because of the level of distrust between the owners and the players, a troubled relationship that stretches back more than thirty years.
It's hard to believe that anything could be wrong in the world of baseball, given the fact that attendance remains at an all-time high. I can hear you saying, "Dave, what are you so worried about? They're selling tickets! They're selling jerseys! Major League Baseball and the players resolved collective bargaining without a hitch last fall. We're reaching out internationally. It's all good!"
But let me ask you this: How many baseball players are heroes to your kid? How many guys are worthy of your support and encouragement today? Perhaps you can name them locally, but few capture national attention or acclaim. In years past, there were more players you looked up to. You might not have known all the facts about their private lives, but they took seriously their responsibility as role models.
They were heroes.
Kids wanted to be like Willie Mays and Harmon Killebrew. Now they only want to be like Mike, Magic, Kobe, or LeBron -- on and off the court. Today, the average baseball fan can barely name more than half a dozen players from his own city's team, because the players move around so much. Is baseball in dire straits? Of course not. It's making tons of money. Attendance records continue to be broken. Many fans have forgiven the game for strikes, scandals, and steroids. Here's my point:
It's good, but it's notallgood.
It could be so much better.
Right now, baseball's credibility as a sport is eroding so rapidly that the comparisons to World Wrestling Entertainment may not be far away. Baseball's labor troubles leave the game a notch above the NHL in terms of a guarantee that games will be played and seasons will not be lost. Other sports -- even extreme sports, NASCAR, and golf -- are developing fans by the legions and eating increasingly larger shares of that sports entertainment pie and the "mind share" of fans, in ways baseball can only envy.
My purpose in writing this book is to offer a plan for restoring baseball to its proper place in the minds of Americans, to put the luster back in the game and the game back in the lives of our kids. I don't intend to just rail about what is bad, but to offer suggestions for how things could be different. I know some people might say, "Dave is just upset because he didn't make the kind of money players make today!" Don't fool yourselves. I did all right. The reality is that I made a good deal of money, and continue to lead a very good, fulfilling life.
My reason for communicating with you and with everyone else who loves the game is that I just can't accept having baseball fall into sports oblivion, with little respect and passionless participation. I can see the trend heading downward -- not just among African American players and fans but also among too many Americans in general.
You can say that we've all dropped the ball -- the commissioner's office, the owners, the Players Association, local government, parks and recreation departments, and even parents and fans. If baseball is to recover from its series of self-inflicted wounds, if the game is to regain its place as America's pastime, and if the game is to appeal to this and future generations of young people, especially those in our urban areas, we all have to get busy. Baseball is not unaware of the challenges and problems it faces, from its image problems, to its inability to attract more African American players and fans, to its falling ratings in the surveys that ask Americans which sport they love the most.
Yet the responses on the part of baseball -- the commissioner, the owners, and the players -- have usually been piecemeal, addressing a single issue for a period of time, but never focusing on the big picture. Not in partnership, not long-term, not from the heart and head together. I believe the collective-bargaining bickering and animus have subsided and there will be civil relations, but have we arrived at a true working relationship yet? No.
Indeed, the game I love is hurting. The pace of baseball is slow and leisurely, seemingly out of step with our warp-speed lives. Other sports are faster, often louder, and frequently much more dangerous than baseball. Many require little coaching and you are free to improvise and learn on your own. You can do that in baseball, but the locations and environments to do so are disappearing rapidly. World Series games begin so late and often end past midnight, robbing generations of potential new fans the opportunity to see great endings to great games. Could you imagine that for the Super Bowl? The simple reason: TV money dictates schedules.
As we are losing our younger fans, baseball is hemorrhaging fans of African American descent. The Latin American and Spanish-speaking contingent is being addressed by advertising and local marketing initiatives, as those fan bases continue to grow. While baseball does have some solid programs to promote the game in urban communities, these programs are not connected to one another. I don't see urban music stars or African American cultural or political icons promoting baseball, though I do know they attend and enjoy the game. Let's involve these important people! There is noorganized campaignto preserve baseball's legacy and to keep the flame alive, and there needs to be such a campaign.
To its credit, last year Major League Baseball opened its first Urban Academy and baseball educational center in Compton, an inner-city community in Los Angeles. When did they start talking about creating the Urban Academy? All the way back in 1999! Unfortunately it took seven years to build a ten-million-dollar facility, a few ball fields, locker rooms, and training areas, and a program to train inner-city prospects, and give them education, motivation, and guidance regarding baseball-related careers. It is imperative that the Major League Baseball Urban Youth Academy program succeeds, because other subsequent Urban Academies in key major markets are contingent upon Los Angeles's leadership and success.
I want to see an ongoing, comprehensive, multiyear campaign -- you might call it "Baseball United" -- that brings together the commissioner, the Players Association, MLB alumni, the owners, the fans, corporate America, concerned and dedicated citizens, the media, and, most important, our youngest generation of kids, to ensure the game's future and its importance for all Americans.
Playing baseball remains one of the hardest physical tasks that any human being can do. It's been said over and over that hitting a baseball is the single hardest skill to learn in organized sports. Basketball and football players can jump from college right to the professional level and contribute, enjoying the glamour of the draft and the accompanying money.
But baseball remains the epitome of delayed gratification. Few high school players have ever successfully jumped to the major leagues and managed to stick. Even college players from solid programs often have to spend years in the minor leagues, perfecting their ability to hit the curveball or hit the cutoff man. The required repetition and mental toughness of playing at the MLB level is formidable. In an era of instant gratification, young players just don't have the time to learn the skills to play the game correctly, and now, many of today's prospective fans don't take the time to understand or appreciate the nuances of the game.
I will oftentimes debate with friends, comparing and contrasting a Major League Baseball career with the career of a successful athlete in the NFL or the NBA. By the end of the conversation, most of these friends -- which include parents and children of all ages -- exclaim, "I didn't know that!" in reference to a piece of information I gave them about baseball. Most of my friends leave such conversations with changed opinions, now favoring baseball as their hypothetical sport of choice, careerwise.
Baseball. Is it too old, too slow, too boring for today's fast-paced world?
I say no way. I say baseball is just as exciting, challenging, beautiful, thrilling, and satisfying as any sport you can find on TV or in a stadium. For generations, baseball wasthenational pastime, with perhaps only boxing at times rivaling it for the nation's attention. Decades ago, you couldn't give away tickets to NBA games. When Bill Russell was the man in the NBA, you could walk up to the box office window at Boston Garden or anywhere else in the country and buy a ticket to see him play. Sold-out arenas were rare. We also tend to forget that the first two Super Bowls didn't even sell out.
At the same time, the reality is that during the last four decades, sports has become a big business in the United States. It's no longer just about playing games. There's big money to be made on every aspect of the game, from tickets, concessions, television, performances, sports marketing, athlete representation, and so on. Players today more often than not consider themselves performers, entertainers, and businessmen, and not just athletes. They ask, "What kind of money can my performance or on-field and off-field antics generate?" The sense of entitlement and "get rich" expectations changed the relationship between athletes and fans. Money has all but stripped away the innocence of sports. It's neither good nor bad; it is simply a fact of modern sports, be it amateur or professional.
Those who love the game must ask themselves, Who's minding the store? Disparities between wealthy and poor teams seem to increase with each passing year. Until recently, the owners cried poverty yet spent dizzying amounts on salaries. The fans had no interest in trying to understand their plight. Often teams pay for ballplayers who are has-beens, or those who never even had it in the first place. Today, players do well, despite their ability or tenure. Decades of labor strife has left fans angry and confused. When it comes to issues that affect the integrity of the game, like steroids and other performance-enhancing drugs, people will always remember that no one seemed to be leading the charge to eradicate illegal performance-enhancing drugs. Both sides were forced to make changes by Congress and negative media attention. The saga of one of baseball's greatest players, Barry Bonds, will get worse before it gets better. According to a recent survey, half of all baseball fans hope that Bonds will fail to break Aaron's home-run record because they believe he cheated.
We have yet to hit the nadir. In the Bible, the Book of Proverbs tells us, "Where there is no vision, the people perish" -- that's another reason I decided to write this book. I hope I will open some eyes and incite passionate action to bring about change.
Let me make it clear that I'm not using this platform to call out individuals, or to rant and rave the way they do on sports talk shows. Instead, my intention is to bring about awareness to baseball fans, and to make an impassioned plea to everyone who loves the game of baseball to recognize that the game we love is being hollowed out. A lot of people are coming to think that the great American pastime is past its time. I strongly disagree, but we all need to take some radical steps to salvage it.
I'll use the termBaseball Unitedthroughout this book as a name for my plan for baseball's recovery, although you can call it whatever you want, as long as everyone with an interest and/or ability to do something about it comes on board. At the end of each chapter, I'll offer specific suggestions for the individuals and entities discussed in that chapter, so that they have some clear directives for how to take part in baseball's resurgence.
We've all heard the talk of problems, but I don't hear anyone saying nearly enough about what might be done to improve the situation. I want to do more than illuminate the issues. I want to show you what actions you can take, whatever group you represent or wherever you are in the game -- as long as you care about baseball. I invite you to join me on a journey that will touch on baseball's history, on matters of race and economics, and on the pure pleasure that comes from watching a great pitch, a beautiful play in the field, or a commanding home run, or even just experiencing a safe, affordable, and enjoyable time with your family at the ballpark.
Baseball has never had a comprehensive plan to address all of the issues it faces. Now it does. So let's see if we can pick up the ball and make the play!
Copyright © 2007 by Winfield & Winfield, Ltd
Excerpted from Making the Play: How to Get the Best of Baseball Back by Dave Winfield All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.
