Only if you’re not a baseball fan, or deep in the Maine woods unable to contact the outside world, do you not know Major League Baseball players are threatening to strike Aug. 12.

Odd, isn’t it? Ballplayers walk and strike during work, to the cheers of thousands. But this walk and strike would bring cheer to no one. Not the players, not the owners, not the fans, and certainly not the millions whose own financial interests are directly tied to baseball.

Anyone can understand a strike hurts those at the top and those at the bottom. It hurts those who build stadiums and those who clean them.

Trying to update myself on this strike business, I was surprised to read in The Sporting News that the average Major League Baseball salary in 1967 was $19,000 and the minimum salary was $6,000.

During that same period, the average teacher’s salary was $11,000, and the minimum around $4,000. Not a large disparity between the two professions, actually.

But things have changed.

In 1993, according to The Sporting News, the average Major League Baseball player’s salary was $1,076,089. Yes, that’s one million-plus. The minimum salary for a major league player was $109,000.

In 1993, according to an Associated Press story, the average teacher’s salary in Maine was $31,000.

I don’t know the minimum, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it was around $14,000.

So when players talk about striking over pay issues, among others, what the rest of us must do is put it all in perspective because it is difficult for the ordinary person to sympathize with the financial concerns of those who make salaries most can only dream about.

Sympathy comes hard to folks in the Northeast who are pounded by depressing economic news. Scott Paper is the latest corporation to announce upcoming layoffs which will have a major impact on the lives of many Maine people.

If you look at the figures being bandied about and consider the tremendous disparity between professional athletes and professional educators, for example, you wonder what the strike is all about.

Fortunately, I was able to put that question to one who can help us put it in perspective. How would a former Madison resident explain it to the folks back home?

I asked Michelle Swift, the wife of 1993 20-game winner and millionaire pitcher Bill Swift of the San Francisco Giants. She said during a phone interview from the couple’s rented home in California, “The strike is about more than money.”

It is about such concerns as loyalty, change, compassion, and The Game.

“Nobody wants to go on strike,” Michelle said, “but the players have to do what the team representatives feel is best for all. The owners want one thing, the players want to keep it as it is. The owners want change, the players don’t.”

The pivotal issue is a salary cap. The owners want it, the players don’t. Currently, no limit is placed on how much clubs can pay players. Another issue is minimum pay which the players want increased from $109,000 to $175,000-$200,000. I appreciated what Michelle Swift had to say on this point.

“Everybody thinks the players make so much money, what can they be complaining about?” she said. “But it is not the players making that money we’d be striking for.

“Somebody like Barry Bonds could (possibly) lose $43,000 a day. But he’d be sitting out just so younger players will benefit from all this.”

The uncertainty is taking its toll and can affect the game, Michelle said. She is concerned for Matt Williams, “who is going for a record for home runs,” and how a stopped season would alter that opportunity.

“There are teams in first place that have never been there before,” she said of missing a World Series opportunity.

Another way to put the strike in perspective is to look at your own finances and analyze what you would do in a similar situation.

“We do have to budget for it,” Michelle Swift said. “We put away and saved extra just in case of a strike. Instead of investing, we put money in a special strike fund.”

Like us, the Swifts know what they need to live on per month. But for the bills we have, theirs are doubled.

They have a mortgage and all the associated bills for their Arizona home, plus bills for the home they rent in California. “You just put away money and hope (the strike) doesn’t last long,” she said.

And if there is a strike, what does the family do? Michelle hopes Bill will relax and play some golf. He’ll also have more time for Aubrey, 3 1/2, and 2-year-old Mackenzie. The family will spend a few days at home in Arizona, but life goes on, she said.

“We’re in kind of a routine here, and it is hard to change.”