OK Major League Baseball, if you’re going to strike, go ahead, do it now.

Oh yeah. And do us all a favor – don’t come back.

Ever.

Take your multi-million-dollar selfish egos and cooked books and go.

Don’t tease us with whether the World Series will be played. Don’t ruin our winter with pictures of Donald Fehr and the Ichabod-Craneish Bud Selig covering our newspaper. Sour pusses we can do without at Christmas.

Don’t fill up our airwaves with words like “luxury tax” and “negotiating in good faith.”

Some of us don’t care anymore. We don’t like you. Any of you.

We don’t like to hear about what a great, god-fearin’ man Tony Clark is and then find out that he’s the Red Sox team rep and ready to lead them like lemmings into the sea.

We don’t like to hear about what grief the great Tony Gwynn took from the players’ association when he took less money from the San Diego Padres than they thought he should have.

We don’t care how much money Texas owner Tom Hicks gave Alex Rodriguez. If Hicks wants to give Rodriguez $22 million a year, then he’s the one who has to live with it. Now, the reports are that Hicks is the strongest proponent of an owner lockout.

Why?

Because in addition to the $22 million he is paying Rodriguez, Hicks is paying Juan Gonzalez $11 million, Pudge Rodriguez $9.6 million, Rafael Palmeiro $8.7 million, Carl Everett $8.6 million, Kenny Rogers $7 million, Chan Ho Park $6.8 million and Rusty Greer $6.8 million (Rusty Greer?). Additionally, Hicks is paying seven other players (including Frank Catalanotto) at least $2 million each and three others $1 million per year.

I’m no economic expert, but that’s a lot of money to spend on a team that has won just 54 of the 122 games it has played this year.

But I also say who cares? I certainly don’t, and I’ve been a baseball fan since before Saturnino Orestes Arrieta Armas, aka Minnie Minoso, played for the Chicago White Sox.

There was a time when we could almost identify with the players. They were everyday guys who had jobs in the offseason. The media played along with them. You didn’t read about their every move, so it was easy to like them.

We knew so much less about them in those days. We didn’t know when they beat their wives or/and girlfriends. We weren’t told when they ate amphetamines like they were a handful of candy.

So we cared. But not anymore, and I personally believe that’s where the owners and the players have completely screwed up this time.

They think there are sides to this thing. They think it’s the players against the owners, and that the fans will come down on one side or another. I don’t think so.

I think the fans have had enough. I think the fans are on the side of baseball. Some of us just love baseball.

We love the Red Sox uniform and don’t really care who is wearing it, whether it’s Pedro Martinez or 1995 replacement player Clyde “Pork Chop” Pough.

We love Fenway and don’t care who plays in it.

So go ahead. Go on strike. And don’t bother us any more. Don’t talk about maybe ending the strike by spring training. Don’t talk about bringing in replacement players.

We don’t care. We love baseball. But we hate what you’ve done to it.

Don Perryman can be reached at 990-8045, 1-800-860-3100 or dperryman@bangordailynews.net.