Sunday, July 14, 2002
Will baseball strike out?
If players walk, fans may run to a new pastime
By Neil Schmidt, nschmidt@enquirer.com
The Cincinnati Enquirer
Baseball doesn't know Duane Wiles. But it had better listen to him. “If they strike, even for one day, I will not go to a game again,” said Mr. Wiles, 34, of Withamsville. “I will not even listen to a game or watch a game (on TV). That would be it.”
While many fans won't draw such a hard line, most will at least make themselves scarce.
According to a poll for WCPO-TV by SurveyUSA, 60 percent of Greater Cincinnati baseball fans familiar with the labor dispute say their interest in major-league baseball has decreased because of the threat of a strike.
POLL RESULTS
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NOTABLE NUMBERS
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Sixty-two percent of male respondents identified themselves as baseball fans, compared to 47 percent of females. The highest percentage overall of respondents who claimed to be fans was in the 35-54 age group, at 58 percent.
Sixty-three percent of men who identified themselves as baseball fans said they were familiar with the issues behind the labor dispute; 29 percent did not (8 percent were unsure). Just 41 percent of women who considered themselves fans were familiar with the issues. Overall, 60 percent of African-American fans said they knew the issues, compared to 52 percent of whites.
Seventy-seven percent of female fans said they care whether baseball players take steroids, as opposed to 56 percent of male fans who say they care.
Of all 500 respondents, 44 percent of whites said the sporting event they were most likely to attend was a baseball gameThirty-nine percent of blacks said UC basketball was the event they were most likely to attend, baseball drawing 29 percent.
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“Baseball is in such a sad state right now, it can't afford to let (a strike) happen,” said Cleveland Indians fan Craig Simon, 28, of Mason. “The players are making millions of dollars, and for Joe Worker, it's hard to relate.”
Baseball is bracing for a battle between players and owners on more fronts than ever.
Owners want to institute a salary cap and increase revenue sharing. Commissioner Bud Selig says some teams are going broke and may have to fold. There is dispute about drug testing, specifically for steroids.
On top of that, the All-Star Game ended in a tie.
In many places, baseball's fan base still hasn't been restored from 1994, when a strike wiped out the end of the season and canceled the World Series.
“That '94 strike really changed my attitude forever,” said Greg Campbell, 46, of Liberty Township. “If the players and owners don't care about the World Series, why should I?”
With major-leaguers earning average salaries of $2.38 million, few fans can rationalize players going on strike.
Cincinnati is still a baseball town. Forty-three percent of those polled by SurveyUSA said a Reds game was the local sporting event they'd most likely attend. A Bengals game was a distant second, at 16 percent.
That's what made the wound from the last strike so deep. The Reds averaged 31,628 fans in 1994 before the strike - at that time ranking second in club history to the 32,466 average in 1976.
But the next year, though the Reds handily won their division, they averaged only 25,882, and roughly 16,000 seats went unsold for Game 1 of the '95 National League Championship Series.
In 1997, the season average was only 22,047.
“Cincinnatians take these things more to heart than other cities do,” Mr. Campbell said.
It took an exciting 96-victory campaign in 1999 and the February 2000 trade for native son Ken Griffey Jr. to bring attendance back, but this season it again lags, with a 21,969 average.
Mr. Campbell said he used to share season tickets, attending 20 to 25 games per year. Now he goes to seven or eight. Mark Gabbard, 38, of Union, Ky., has dropped his number of games attended from 30 or 40 a year to about 10.
Ticket prices also threaten to harm attendance. Bob Tobe, 46, a Cincinnati native who now lives in Madison, Wis., cited these totals from his trip to the All-Star Game this week in Milwaukee: two tickets, $480; a T-shirt, $24; a program, $10; a small beer, $6; parking, $10.
“All that, and my son was bored by the end of the game,” Mr. Tobe said.
“And now they might strike. Every time they (strike), you're just beat down a little bit more. I don't know what my threshold is for staying interested.”
Cary Loughman, a 37-year-old Reds fan in Newark, Ohio, said growing ticket prices are pricing out the “blue-collar guys like me.”
Mr. Loughman said he can't forget the day he read a breakdown of Reds shortstop Barry Larkin's $9 million-a-year contract. The amount Mr. Larkin made per game eclipsed Mr. Loughman's $37,000 salary.
“If they strike again, I won't go to any games next year,” he said. “I don't care that they've got a new ballpark. I don't care if it's the reincarnation of the Big Red Machine.”
The new ballpark represents what could make this strike so untimely for the Reds.
“They don't want to start off on the wrong foot in the new stadium,” Mr. Simon said. “They need to capitalize on its opening.”
The fact the Reds are closely pursuing St. Louis for a division title also feels foreboding.
“The Reds have the worst luck in strike years,” said Jay Fitton, 32, of Mount Lookout .
In 1981, Cincinnati had the best overall record in baseball but didn't make the playoffs because the strike cut the season into halves and the Reds finished a close second in each half. In 1994, the team was in first place when the strike wiped out the rest of the season.
All the gloom and doom isn't to suggest that every fan will boycott baseball. Deborah Sussman, 39, of Montgomery, buying Reds tickets Friday with son Michael, 10, said she'll swallow her frustration about a potential strike.
“If you've got kids who love baseball, it's hard to make a statement by not going to games,” Mrs. Sussman said. “How do you explain that to a 10-year-old?”
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Will baseball strike out?
