Baseball strike, 9-11 not related

If there’s one thing a potential Major League Baseball strike can do, it’s ramp up the flag-waving and pour out the self-aggrandizement.

We seem to have no problem with the concept of a free economy when it affords us the opportunity to make money. We don’t begrudge the actors on “Friends” and “Seinfeld” from making a million bucks an episode, or Clint Eastwood or Tom Hanks from cashing in on $10 million, $15 million, or $30 million a movie.

However, mention a baseball contract and some fans and members of the press work their righteous selves into a tizzy of indignation that a guy hitting a baseball makes the same kind of dollars or that team owners receive a return on their investment that rivals the national debt.

For decades prior to the MLB’s union and its leader Marvin Miller, owners milked the public with patriotic speeches about how baseball was America’s pastime, how players should just be proud to be in the game, how life imitated baseball (or was it vice-versa), all the while gouging themselves on profits they hid from public view behind flag-draped accolades.

Now it’s 9-11.

How in the name of holy heaven does a potential MLB strike have anything to do with the tragedy of 9-11? Yet, columns are being written and sanctimonious statements are being rendered that proclaim MLB a piranha for even considering shutting down before the anniversary of that awful day.

Corporations are firing workers and business executives are being charged every day with white-collar crimes that fleeced the public out of investments and retirements while they raked in billions from insider trading. There are no pronouncements about how these activities by leaders of American business are somehow related to 9-11.

Now we find, as reported by the Transportation Department’s inspector general t his week, the private companies providing airport security have doubled the charges since the federal government took over the payment of such services. Hey, it’s just business, right?

The contract negotiations between owners and players are just business, too. To claim this baseball business is demeaning to the tragedy of 9-11 while the rest of society’s business, much of it far more heinous than a baseball strike, is unrelated is ludicrous.

MLB stops being a business when the players step between the lines. The game then deserves to be honored by owners, players, and fans as just that, a game. Taking the field and all the business that surrounds reaching that point is just another American business.

This nation’s history is marked by innumerable dates that garner a solemnity justified by human decency. We honor those who served in wars, those who founded the nation, and those who devoted their lives to human causes of extraordinary importance.

The fact life and business goes on during those days does not detract from the memories we honor. Neither would an MLB stoppage in even the slightest degree lessen the memory of 9-11 or the enormity of the tragedy it was.

Connecting the two in any way is what’s demeaning.

How many of those attempting to make such a connection are just doing so for their own self-aggrandizement? False patriotism has always been the last bastion of scoundrels.

9-11 is 9-11. Baseball is baseball. We should honor them both by recognizing the difference.

Old Town native Gary Thorne is an ESPN and NBC sportscaster.