Owners Should Chill Out And Face The Cold Facts

Thanks to near-zero windchill factors, Opening Day snowstorms, a rash of weather-related injuries and Marge Schott and not necessarily in that order the 1996 baseball season could not have gotten off to a more embarrassing start.

Acting commissioner Bud Selig, putting his best “half full” spin on the frigid conditions his sport has been playing under in wake of its earliest startup ever, points to Opening Day sellouts at Yankee and Dodger Stadiums, Detroit, Boston and St. Louis as further evidence that baseball is making a comeback. But even Selig would have to admit this is no way to treat your fans.

To wit:

The Yankee season opener was played almost in its entirety in a snowstorm.

The White Sox season opener was played in 42-degree weather with 22 mph winds.

The Tigers season opener was played in 34-degree weather, coldest ever in Detroit since records began being kept in 1934.

The Phillies postponed their Monday afternoon opener a day early because of snowy conditions, only to reschedule it as a Tuesday night game. (They got what they deserved - their smallest Opening Day attendance, 32,173, since 1990, including more than 11,000 no-shows.)

At least 10 games played in weather conditions of 40 degrees or colder and twice as many more in wind-chill conditions that made it seem even colder.

Nor is this any way for the Lords of Baseball to treat their million-dollar players.

To wit:

Dodger ace Ramon Martinez (groin pull), Phillies ace Sid Fernandez (rib cage pull), Red Sox slugger Kevin Mitchell (hamstring pull), Twins rookie pitching prodigy LaTroy Hawkins (groin pull) are just a few of the key players felled by weather-related injuries.

Yankees owner George Steinbrenner deserves credit for rewarding fans’ Opening Day endurance by giving them free tickets to another game, but if he really wants to do something good for the game and its fans he’ll take the lead in urging his fellow Lords to shorten the regular season to 154 games. To start the season before April Fool’s Day just to get all of the expanded postseason concluded before November is nuts. What is baseball going to do when the Lords inevitably elect to make the first-round divisional series playoffs a best-of-7? Start the season on St. Patrick’s Day?

“It (shortening the season) will be a subject for discussion at our next meeting,” Selig promised. “I have always felt the season should be shortened. Do I think it’ll be considered? Absolutely. Do I think returning to the 154-game season is something to talk about? I certainly do. We have to be extremely sensitive to the fans. We can’t expect people to sit in stadiums in this weather and these kind of conditions. I’ve heard the argument they do it for football, but this isn’t football, it’s baseball, and it clearly needs to be addressed.”

Which brings us to Schott, the penurious Lady in Red whose insensitivity clearly needs to be addressed. Fresh from her incredibly tasteless remarks regarding the tragic death of umpire John McSherry at the Reds’ opener, it was revealed last week that Schott cancelled the SportsTicker service that supplies inning-by-inning scoring summaries for the out-of-town scoreboard. The service has since been reinstated, but in depriving Reds fans updates on other games, Schott would have saved $350 per month, to which she said: “Why do they care about one game when they’re watching another? They can get it off radio can’t they?” Reminds us of an equally shortsighted and stupid remark Schott made about scouts a few years ago - “Why do we pay them just to sit around and watch baseball games?”

Seems depriving her fans of out-of-town scores isn’t the only way Schott is making up the $30 million she claims she’s lost over the past two years. Before the season started, she ordered the Reds equipment manager to confiscate all broken bats - which she in turn placed for sale in the stadium gift shop at prices ranging from $30-$50, depending on the player. When the players got wind of this scheme, they began breaking their broken bats in half so they couldn’t be re-sold.

Meanwhile, Riverfront Stadium remains baseball’s dreariest ballpark because of Schott’s pennypinching. Nowhere to be found is any reference to previous Reds championships or retired numbers, and on Opening Day in baseball’s most traditional franchise city there was not even any ceremonial bunting. How sad. Schott’s airing out of one of her public relations assistants last week - “Why do I get blamed for all your screw-ups… I have the worst public relations department in the USA” was laughable. She doesn’t know the meaning of public relations.