Baseball: Gray Men In Gray Personalities

Poor baseball.

Plodding, ponderous baseball.

Alan Trammell and Lou Whitaker set an American League record 19 years in the making Wednesday afternoon at Tiger Stadium, when they played in their 1,915th game together. No two American Leaguers have ever played so many games as teammates.

In celebration of the feat, about 5,000 people showed up to the stadium.

A couple of miles away, major-league baseball owners were meeting at the Westin Hotel, maintaining such a low-key approach that they met in unmarked meeting rooms.

Usually a hotel will put signs on meeting rooms so interested parties know where to go. There were signs like that at the Westin for the Weight Watchers and American Society of Body Engineers and the National Council of Senior Citizens, but baseball’s owners found their way without any such aids.

They slipped in, did a couple of hours worth of business, and went on their way without disturbing anyone.

When football people come to town, you know it. They wear their teams’ colors. Bud Adams struts, Carmen Policy blusters, and it was at an NFL owners meeting that Jerry Jones told the world he planned to rid the Dallas Cowboys of Jimmy Johnson.

You might not approve of their methods, but, by golly, you know they’re in town.

Baseball comes in on cats’ feet. Silently. Stealthily.

“If we’re careful, if we’re quiet, perhaps no one will notice we are here,” they seem to be saying to one another.

Guess what?! It’s working.

Instead of coming to town with a message aimed at selling its product, baseball, America’s sickly game came to Detroit like a cat burglar, hoping to slip in and out without causing any stir at all.

Hey, no problem.A year ago Thursday, Bud Selig, acting

commissioner, announced cancellation of the 1994 World Series. At first we were angry, but soon enough we became apathetic.

Baseball is adrift. Attendance is down 18.8 percent, there is no basic agreement for next year and the World Series is a sure thing in theory only.

Selig has been acting commissioner for three years, longer than some real commissioners lasted.

But there’s a reason for his lengthy stay in what should have been an interim position. Selig owns the Milwaukee Brewers, and, as one of the owners, he is safe, one of the guys.

As long as its labor situation is unsettled, baseball’s establishment doesn’t want to take a chance that some outsider - though he be a commissioner of their choosing - might get struck by a streak of independence that goes contrary to the party line.

They want no duplication of the spring of 1990 when Fay Vincent became involved in negotiations, a misstep that led to his removal as commissioner.

So the business of baseball - leaderless - plods along much like the game of baseball.

He made baseball fun. They make it monotony.Without exception, men I knew and men I didn’t were cordial as they headed for their unmarked meeting rooms. Most owners stopped and chatted with the writers, shook hands and said: “Oh, how are you? Nice to meet you.”Then they retired to the meeting rooms and accomplished little.When Tuesday’s meeting ended, the Amer ican League issued this press release:

“American League President Gene A. Budig announced, from Baseball’s Quarterly Business Meetings today, that coin tosses will be held on Monday, September 18th, at 2 p.m. (EDT), in the offices of the American League, to determine sites for playoff games, if tie-breaking games are needed in the A.L.”

The National League announced it would hold a coin toss 30 minutes later.

Boy, that’s a good day’s work.

I want to scream to baseball: Do something!