by Barry Stagg
July 1994
Baseball's peasants go on strike
Baseball is set to go on strike this month. Major leaguers are going to walk out, according to leaders from their union, so that they can have bargaining power with the owners of their baseball teams who are insisting on a salary cap. We will be blessed during July and August with the sight of five million dollar per year baseball players bickering with billionaire owners over whether the five million dollar per year players salary should be capped. This creates such an awful state of labour-management relations, that I expect that President Bill Clinton and Prime Minister Cretien will enforce martial law by Labour Day to get the Army to root those spoiled brats away from the bargaining table and back to the ballparks. How can the owners feel that they can let these poor, down-trodden players go on with the expectation that next year and the year after some of them might have to take new contracts where they earn only half a million a year.
I cannot possibly see how the general public can stand for the sight of giants of the game like Robbie Alomar and Roger Clemens going hungry because the owners refuse to throw in that extra million that would make the difference between paying the bills and living in a cardboard box. I know that the fans are not going to stand for the terrible situation that these players are in. I expect that around Dominion Day time at the first of July, the Toronto Blue Jays will find fans sending in anonymous donations so that Paul Molitor, Devon White and Ed Sprague will have enough money for airfare home once the strike begins. Certainly if the fans do not drum up support for this type of strike fund, I will be making special representations in the Downhomer so that Newfoundland baseball fans can do their part to make sure that the baseball heroes of 1994 can afford money for fuel oil in that old drum that they will be lighting to keep warm on those chilly August nights outside the Skydome.
One thing is for certain, the owners are up to no good. In fact I have it on reliable authority that the Montreal Expos' management has been driving fans away from Olympic Stadium so that once the strike comes they will begin filling up the moving vans and moving the team, bag, baggage and striking players equipment all the way to Exhibition Stadium in Toronto where the team will resume play in September as the Toronto Expos. Baseball star fans in Toronto who are getting put off by the poverty stricken ways of the Blue Jays will be able to flock in full rush to fill all of the seats down at the Exhibition where only gulls have ruled since 1989.
The Toronto Expos will have this summer's baseball strike to thank for their very existence. Baseball fans in Toronto will have the luxury of two Major League Baseball teams with the new team in town playing out of the Exhibition being clearly the better of the two squads. With players like Larry Walker, Moises Alew and Pedro Martinez in the line-up, this team will be on-target to make the World Series within the next two years.
Casting satire aside, in my view, moving the Montreal Expos' out of the dead baseball market in Montreal and putting them in Exhibition Stadium in Toronto would be the best thing to happen to the Expos and the second best thing that has happened to Toronto baseball. The Expos are ripe for picking by one of the giant Canadian breweries. Since Labatt's already owns the Blue Jays then Molson's will simply have to step forward, buy the Blue Jays and take a page from the book of Al Davis and the Oakland Raiders and simply move the team to a new city in defiance of all territorial claims.
Al Davis moved the Oakland Raiders to Los Angeles and dared the Los Angeles Rams and the National Football League to sue him knowing full well that anti-trust and restraintive trade litigation frightened the league owners so much that they dared not oppose his move even though it was clearly against league bylaws. The Montreal Expos are in a position where if they do not take drastic action they will have to move next year. Unless they move to Toronto their destination is American with new American owners. A Major League baseball franchise comes along only once in a lifetime and once the Montreal Expos leave Canada there will not be a second Major League Baseball franchise in Canada for a long time.
I strongly urge all Molson drinkers to mail a copy of this column to their local brewery representative and to make clear to Molson's in Montreal that if they allow the Expos to leave town without buying them they can look forward to drastically reduced sales of Red Dog, Export and Canadian. In this summer of jaded greed by professional baseball players, lets hear it for real Canadian baseball fans and get this Toronto Expos thing moving now.
Until next month, be proud, be prosperous.