Originally published March 16, 1995, by Mike Barnicle for The Boston Globe
FORT MYERS, Fla. “Know what the place reminds me of?” Albert Dupree asked. “What?”
“The wake of a guy everybody thought was real popular but when he passed away only half the people you figured on showed up at the funeral parlor for him,” Dupree said. “That’s what it looks like to me. Look around.”
Albert Dupree was right behind home plate at City of Palms Park the other afternoon as the replacement White Sox played the Olde Towne Team in front of a quiet crowd of about 3,000 spectators. Dupree is 73 and used to live in New Orleans before he and his wife moved to southwest Florida 10 years ago.
“I love it here,” Dupree announced. “Whole area’s got a lot of old white trash just like myself.” Everybody’s old here this spring. In a state where two out of every three residents look like prunes and move slower than a state rep’s mind, the baseball strike has even managed to dull the senses of the young and formerly hopeful fans who figure they are in need of replacement brains after simply sitting in the ballpark.
There is no getting around reality: It is a minor league product on a major league field. At best, there are perhaps two or three guys on each club who could step in and become the 24th or 25th man on the varsity if and when the regulars ever decide to resume their business.
That’s not to say the kids don’t render a terrific effort. Many of them do, but it is kind of sad to see them bust a gut on behalf of a dream that will never gain fruition.
They are nameless, faceless sacrificial lambs being slaughtered on the affluent altar of this creep Donald Fehr, who leads ballplayers headlong into a season of litigation. As soon as the real major leaguers come to their senses and sue for a secret ballot that would mean they would be back to work within 24 hours of the vote, the replacements are history.
Of course, the cruelest thing of all is to have millionaire dolts like Brett Butler of the Dodgers or the vodkaswilling righthander from Kansas City, David Cone, call the replacements “scabs.” That term might apply if this action had anything to do with organized labor, but it does not.
Cone got a $9 million signing bonus last year. He demanded the money up front in case he had to hit the bricks. That kind of money in the bank can earn you a lot of selfrighteousness.
Other players, like Tim Naehring of the Red Sox, earn far less and in Naehring’s case the strike could mean he will never again appear in a Boston uniform. Certainly, fringe players like Scott Fletcher or Danny Darwin have played their last major league game.
And boy is this game in trouble.
Here, an area where a kid can play outdoors all year long, there are a ton of basketball games every night, under the lights. Baseball, slower and loaded with striking stars, has a huge marketing and image problem.
People aren’t waiting for Jose Canseco, Ken Griffey Jr., Mo Vaughn, Cal Ripken or Greg Maddux. They’re all caught up in Michael Jordan, a guy who hasn’t put the ball in the hoop for nearly two years.
Sporting goods stores from Fort Myers to Marco Island seem to offer more hockey jerseys than baseball hats. The Sharks, Panthers and Mighty Ducks are more wellknown on playgrounds than a club like the Minnesota Twins.
It is pathetic that these clowns, making huge dough to play a sport in sunshine, don’t realize what they are doing to their livelihood. And please spare me the nonsense about today’s player fighting for the rights of tomorrow’s draft choices. A lot of these frauds charge for autographs and the only draft they care about comes out of a tap in the taverns where they pay nothing. They charge everything to their celebrity.
This job action is merely about good oldfashioned American values like greed, money, hatred and revenge. The idiots running the player’s association are living in total isolation.
They are rich fools who don’t care much at all about anyone who might make the majors 10 years from today, or anyone who played two decades ago. Most of them should have “Moi” stitched on the backs of their uniforms.
What they have going for them is their game. It remains a spectacular way to spend an afternoon. One big problem however: “I’m telling you,” Albert Dupree said, glancing around the ballpark,
“those boys better get back while there’s still something to get back to. It’s like when a man dies and only his closest kin end up going to the service. They ain’t nowhere near as popular as they think they are.”
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