The Grass Is Green, Finally

I've been meaning to write a blog for about a week now. I've just been too busy to get the chance to do this. I wanted to get one put together as baseball season has finally started. Finally. I've always considered the time from the end of the Super Bowl until the start of baseball season to be sports purgatory. I've never followed hockey nor basketball. Neither of those sports have ever thrilled me. March Madness comes and goes and I don't care who wins. That is how little I follow basketball. Sure I'll do a bracket. But only if it's for baseball or football playoffs.

I was very excited for the new season to start. The most excited I've been for a long time. I'm not even sure why. Perhaps it was because I knew summer would arrive shortly there after. Either that or I was just more than ready to see my local team again. I think I'll go with the latter option.

I'm not one big on making preseason predictions. It is a bit difficult to accurately determine results over a 162 game season. Some people are spot on, others are way off. All I will say is this, watch out for the Florida Marlins. They, not the Phillies or the Cubs, will be the team to beat in the National League. I would not be surprised if they made it to the World Series. They are a young team with power and pitching.

This past off season saw the free agent market drop. Many good players have not signed on with a team yet. Many good players took steep cuts in pay. It happens. The salaries cannot keep rising, especially with the economy falling. Yet if you listen to the whispers out there from agents and players, they'd have you think otherwise. That nasty little word called collusion played a role in the falling salaries.

Many agents and players, they won't publicly say it, believe the owners colluded to keep salaries down. They used the falling economy as an excuse to do this. Really? What planet are the agents/players on? Did they not read about sponsors pulling out of deals? Did they not see ticket prices have gone down in some cities? Did they not read that season ticket orders are down for most teams?

Why would an owner pay $12 million a year for a player when revenue will be down? People everywhere are taking pay cuts and pay freezes due to lower revenues. Why can't the same happen in baseball? Why is it collusion when salaries drop? The owners are just following what other businesses are doing, slashing payroll and costs. It happens when the economy falters. People keep close tabs on their money.

It's a good thing the agents/players have kept mum about the nasty word collusion. Really what American is going to feel sorry because some pitcher made $6 million this year instead of the $12 million last year? Chances are the pitcher was worth barely $6 million in salary. The pitcher, like the housing market, was overpriced due to demand. With the economy down, the prices and market are correcting themselves.

So no I do not believe collusion is something the player's union should pursue. But that union is too powerful and egotistical. Give it a few years, once the economy is better, they'll look into it.