Friday, June 21, 2002
Sonics owner says baseball strike would hurt all sports
By JANIE McCAULEY
AP Sports Writer
SEATTLE — Seattle SuperSonics owner Howard Schultz has always paid close attention to baseball, especially now. He said a strike by the players could be devastating for all professional sports leagues.
Many fans already are disgusted, and a strike would only make things worse, Schultz, the chairman of Starbucks Coffee Co., said Thursday in his keynote address at the annual convention of the Associated Press Sports Editors.
“A baseball strike will be catastrophic to baseball and, more over, catastrophic to professional sports,” he told about 200 sports editors and writers. “If baseball strikes this summer, it will have a negative effect on the upcoming season in football and the NBA.”
Especially if a strike comes on the heels of reports that a high percentage of baseball players are using steroids to boost their statistics. Former MVPs Ken Caminiti and Jose Canseco have admitted using the drug and both also accused other players.
Fans want truth, and there needs to be a “commitment to preserve and protect” it by getting steroids out of the game, Schultz said.
“It really does undermine the level of confidence we need to have in the game,” he said.
Schultz can't think of anything worse than a baseball strike, and said Major League Baseball and the players association must work to avoid it at all costs because they owe that much to the fans.
Players, fearful owners will change economic rules after the World Series, have begun to think about possible dates for a strike, which would be baseball's ninth work stoppage since 1972. August has been the time most mentioned as a strike date.
Schultz is doing whatever he can to try to find a local solution to the messes in sports — by lowering ticket prices despite the fact the franchise is losing millions, and asking his players to send handwritten thank-you notes to season ticket-holders.
Trust and confidence is fading fast, he says, and the Sonics are trying to get it back by showing a commitment to the community. The lay fans have been left behind, he said, partly because they haven't been treated as an integral part of the NBA experience.
“We have to try everything we can to rebuild the fracturing of trust in this community,” he said. “We are respecting people who have not been respected for a long time. I'm 48 and coming at this first and foremost as a passionate fan.”
Schultz knows what a great role pro sports can play in a child's life as they become attached to a team, sometimes for life.
Growing up in the projects in Brooklyn, N.Y., his father was a die-hard Brooklyn Dodgers fan until the team left town. Then the family turned to the Yankees.
Schultz became obsessed with the Yankees, even putting Mickey Mantle's No. 7 on his underwear.
He stressed the importance of heritage and tradition with sports and how they bring families together.
“The basic fundamental relationship these sports were built on in many ways has been forgotten,” he said.
“If sports lets us down, then shame on us,” he said. “At Starbucks, we wake up every morning trying to exceed the expectations of our customers. We have to do the same thing in professional sports.”
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Sonics owner says baseball strike would hurt all sports
