When you and I say "baseball" we mean the game. The sport. The players. The parks. The lines on the field. The pitching, the fielding, the hitting. That sort of thing.
When MLB says "baseball" they mean "MLB." The © ™ $ sort of thing.
MLB, its monopoly status reinforced by the powers-that-be over the last 100 years, will now absorb the minor leagues, downsizing them in the process. Is that still a thing, "downsizing"? It sounds so 80s, I don't think they call it that anymore. "Slash-and-burn" seems better. Anyway, each of the 30 MLB clubs will get four minor league affiliates, one each at AAA, AA, Advanced-A, and A-level, meaning 120 total. Several dozen minor league franchises and some leagues will evaporate. MLB is the only game in town and you either join up or get left behind.
There really ought to be independent baseball. It would be good for the game. Imagine if a plucky startup league featured briskly played games with lots of balls in play, and contrasted that with the lumbering MLB pace and over-reliance on the long ball. It would be good for fans and the competition would force MLB to improve their product. But MLB is a protected monopoly, and it will do its very best to cease-and-desist your ass into submission if you do your own thing.
Frankly, that's un-American. Much of MLB is un-American, and it ought not to be. The draft is the most blatant insult to the basic liberty of citizens seeking to ply their trade. From that follows all the contractual nonsense that is nothing more than vestiges of the odious reserve clause. And the stifling of competition, when "the free market" is so fundamental to the American Mythos, goes beyond hypocrisy to apostasy. The business of sports in America is disturbingly at odds with its nauseous self-promotion.
One has to put on one's big-boy pants to stay sane. Contradiction is the adult state of life!
So, back to the news. The Giants, it seems, will retain their links to Sacramento at the AAA level and also to Richmond (VA) at the AA-level. The San Jose club will become A-level, dropping a notch, and the new Advanced-A team will be the Eugene Emeralds. There are no AA-leagues west of Texas, by the way. I'm sure everyone will say they are excited and look forward to the future and in the meantime there will be lawsuits and other wrangling going on but in the end the juggernaut will prevail.
Now if we can get MLB and MLBPA to hammer out a new agreement so we have the possibility of baseball in 2021 that would be a hopeful start. The pandemic will of course decide how things play out this spring, but I remain oddly optimistic. I'm not sure why I can rant about the ravenous excesses of capitalism in one paragraph and feel upbeat in another, I've no rational explanation. Perhaps I'm figuring 2021 will, just by the fact it is not 2020, be better!
Happy Holidays!
--M.C.
4 comments:
So we lose Augusta, and Salem Kaiser, and gain Eugene. Plus San Jose goes to low A. Will have to adjust to the new Minor league arrangement. Heck, in the non-baseball world the adjustments have been far more wide reaching.
Indeed. I'm just sorry it had to be so heavy-handed.
There is independent baseball. I've seen several Sonoma Stompers games. I've a friend that was working for them. The Stompers are located right outside downtown Sonoma and are part of the Pacific Association of Professional Baseball Clubs. That includes the Napa Silverados and the Vallejo Admirals, and, until recently, the San Rafael Pacifics (who have apparently switched to the Pecos League and may be replaced by the California Dogecoin of Fairfield). The Stompers have had women on their team, have had a Japanese manager, and the first openly gay player. What's more, you can get a pretty good tri-tip sandwich at the games and a glass of good wine, and they play in a stadium that is 435 feet to center (unlike the punk MLB parks). There are independent leagues like this all over, but more so in the east and midwest. You can go to a game without wondering if you can afford your mortgage, too.
Check out: http://www.independentbaseball.net/teams/
Maybe you should talk it up. A team in Bend, one in Medford/Ashland, one in Yreka and one in Mt. Shasta should do the trick. You could be commissioner.
I know about those leagues and teams. They unfortunately cannot generate enough interest to impact MLB. The minor leagues, over their history, have gradually left their independence behind in favor of closer ties with the parent clubs. Now they are simply subsidiaries.
Independent leagues cannot advertise that a former MLB player is featured on the roster or they will get a C & D letter, for example.
Remember the AFL? ABA? USFL? All those leagues were actual COMPETITION and both the NFL and NBA had to respond to the threat. American independent baseball cannot take on MLB.
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