BOTTOM OF THE NINTH

One of the most appealing aspects of baseball, whether played in a big league park or a neighborhood vacant lot, is what those who get all misty-eyed over the sport call its timelessness. Not in the sense, as those less fond of the sport might assert, that games sometimes seem to go on forever, but in the sense that there is never too little time for the home team, no matter how many runs behind, to come back and win. Bottom of the ninth, two outs, two strikes – hope still lives.

Anyone who’s ever watched the team with the lead run out the clock in most other sports can appreciate this trait, this potential for a dramatic finish, no matter how improbable. Major league players and owners may think their bottom-of-the-ninth avoidance of a strike yesterday was such drama – fans, even the most misty-eyed, are justified in viewing it as needless, cynical and even rather cruel.

The key issues that separated highly paid athletes and fabulously wealthy owners – luxury taxes, revenue sharing, salary caps – were far too arcane for most fans to choose sides. Greed, however, is easily recognized.

So is bone-headed stubbornness. With nearly a year to negotiate since the previous contract expired last November, the two sides squandered it all. This did far more damage than threaten the cancellation of this year’s World Series. Taxpayers are heavily invested in baseball – all those stunning new stadiums with luxury boxes don’t build themselves, nor do the improved roads and mass-transit systems that get fans to the games. Thousands of local businesses surrounding ballparks rely upon the games for customers; the jobs of tens of thousands of hard-working people, from souvenir merchants to ticket-takers, were in jeopardy. The potential loss, had the rest of this season been canceled, to this peripheral sector of the economy was estimated at more than $1 billion, yet the players and owners behaved as though it was all about themselves.

In all the negotiations about revenue sharing, it’s a safe bet that a better deal for the hot-dog vendor never came up.