They can't be that stupid. Not again.

        This is what you think as you stand in the Reds clubhouse last week before a game with Houston. Several players have fashioned a 6-foot-long soccer field on the floor from strips of adhesive tape. They are in a circle, Sean Casey, Todd Walker, Elmer Dessens and others, kicking a hacky-sack.

        The team has decided it is too hot to have batting practice, so players take swings in the batting cage just outside the clubhouse door. They hit, or they sit in their lounge watching TV, or in front of their lockers, legs splayed.

        It is quite a life — first-class hotels, a clean uniform in your locker every day, golf clubs stacked outside the clubhouse door, awaiting the next road trip. Average salary, $2.38 million.

        Why would ballplayers jeopardize that? Why would anyone?

“Owners are trying to force things on us,” says Barry Larkin. (Jeff Swinger photo) | ZOOM |

        “Owners are trying to force things on us,” says Barry Larkin. “We are trying to hold onto each and every right we have (won) through the years.”

        The players will compromise, Larkin believes. They will not capitulate.

        This is fine. Who wants to give away rights?

        However. ...

        Did you know the Reds have their own plane? It's the same plane the Chicago Bulls once used. Every player has a first-class seat. There is a bar, and individual DVD players. There is no standing in line or waiting at baggage claim or even walking through a terminal. There is catered food, before and after every game. It is quite a life.

        The issues, we are told, are immense, almost as big as the gulf between the two sides debating them. Revenue sharing and luxury taxes and eliminating teams and blah, and blah, and blah. The tug of rhetoric is endless. Meanwhile, did you know many players have suite clauses in their contracts? They are put up in the finest rooms of the finest hotels.

        It says so right there, in the fine print.

        It's quite a life. That goes double for the owners, nearly all of whom are wealthy beyond imagining, many of whom have gotten the masses to buy them new places to play while wantonly toying with their fans' affections.

        You could say players live in a catered, suite-life vacuum. They're not the only ones.

        As the sides debate gravely the grand issues, their self-importance shadows everyone else.

        “There are owners who don't feel like we will take that (strike) step,” Atlanta Braves union representative Mike Remlinger said recently. “If we have to, we will.”

        Good for you, chief. What of the people who pay the bills? What about Family of Four, spending a couple hundred dollars to watch you perform? Probably, they don't fly first class in chartered jets or eat free food. If they have the money to travel, they're dealing with their own luggage and staying at the Red Roof. There is a decent chance they're not playing hacky-sack at work.

        It is an ill-concealed arrogance at work on both sides here. It suggests that no matter the outcome, fans will play along.

        Haven't they always?

        It's all about me. Me, the player. Me, the owner.

        Aaron Boone is the Reds' union rep. He will be in Chicago Monday, when the union probably will set a strike date. This isn't bad, if it adds urgency to the talks.

        Boone professes to understand the damage another work stoppage could do. He says he sees the fans' side. “Absolutely, I do, and I believe in my heart (a strike) is avoidable.”

        We have decided entertainers are more important than teachers or social workers,. You could argue the wisdom of that, but not what it has produced: A luxury class that is so wrapped up in its own greed, arrogance, stubbornness and, of course, rights, it has no eyes for the people who make such gilded lives possible.

        I ask Larkin, “Shouldn't common sense dictate you can't do this again?”

        He looked at me like I had a third eye.

        “Common sense? I don't know if common sense exists,” he said. “The owners are trying to force things on us.” And away we go.

        They can't be this stupid again, owners and players. Not again. Can they?

       E-mail pdaugherty@enquirer.com

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