Ferguson Jenkins' Letter To Baseball

At the recent Baseball Hall of Fame induction weekend I was talking with fellow Hall of Famers Gaylord Perry, Robin Roberts, Tom Seaver, and Al Kaline about the problems in baseball. Many of us anticipate another strike and now that the strike date is less than a week away I think it is important to speak up for the fans, because I am one of those fans of the best game in the world.

Baseball's real problem is the lack of parity in the game at the major league level. When certain teams go to spring training they have no chance to win, none whatsoever. If their salary structure is 70 to 80 million they have no chance against teams with unlimited resources that have the dominant players. To get to the playoffs you have to win 90 games and then play strong baseball in the postseason to be a contender!

This lack of parity is killing baseball because fans want to watch talented players display their skills and have a chance to win in every game they start.

The issues being bargained about now of the luxury tax and revenue sharing is just scratching the surface about how parity needs to be looked at from the fans' point of view.

Teams that have no chance to win, whether it be at the start of the season, at the All-Star break or at the trade deadline, need to think about the big picture. They should not trade their players away even though they have no chance of getting to the playoffs. They need to keep their draft choice slots and players that will help them in the future.

Once some teams decide they have no chance to win, after the All-Star break or maybe 100 games, they trade away their star players to make other teams stronger for the playoffs, which I think is ridiculous. They want to sell their stars to lessen their salary structure, but in the long run they are losing the player they need for the next year to help build a better team.

When they want to put together a competitive team for the next season they find they are in a money crunch again. They have to pay more for a free agency star of comparable worth to the athlete they sold last season when they really only wanted to lessen their salary structure.

It is a downward spiral leaving many teams without players of talent needed to attract today's fans. Once again, fans want to see skilled major leaguers playing for the price of their major league tickets.

The league needs to showcase better players on a smaller number of teams. The fans want to get their money's worth watching talented players playing fundamentally sound baseball day in and day out. There are good players on each team, but not enough of them to justify the number of teams in the league now.

If baseball strikes, we are going to lose another large portion of our fan base, maybe as much as 40 percent this time. We will lose the box seat ticket holders who will leave for other sports. Corporations that buy these box seats want a dependable product on the field or it is not a perk to give these tickets to employees or clients.

Another factor that would allow for an even playing field is a minimum three times a year drug testing. Sure we have better weight training emphasized more than when I played, but just look at some of these guys. It defies explanation.

Marvin Miller was able to put the problems of baseball in terms the owners could understand. He started baseball moving toward fairer bargaining, both for the individual player with free agency and in collective bargaining.

Miller helped the pendulum of power swing back toward the middle after being in the owners' direction for more than 115 years. Now the players' bargaining team wants that pendulum of power to swing totally in the direction of the players and high salaries.

That explains the nine work stoppages in the last 30 years of baseball and a huge erosion in the fan base. America's pastime is now second to the National Football League in attendance and television viewers.

If that pendulum swings even further in the direction of the players it will likely throw baseball off balance for all time and kill the fans' interest in the sport.

This pendulum swing back and forth, the power struggle between the owners and the players' association, and the strikes, has disrupted the participation of the fans.

What we must be careful of this time around is not bargainers' reputations or the future earnings of ball players. What we must be most careful with is the future of this sport. It simply will not survive more work stoppages and maintain its rightful place in the sports world.

Someone needs to be bigger than the bickering. We need to appoint someone familiar with all the issues to arbitrate. We can only hope the bargaining groups can iron out a settlement with a knowledgeable arbitrator that will allow the fans to maintain their respect for the game.

It is not about who will win or lose in this round of collective bargaining. It is much more about will we lose the fans for good this time.

My best advice to baseball is to stay at the bargaining table. Play and negotiate, play and negotiate, and play and negotiate until you reach a settlement that respects everyone, including the fan who wants their team to have stars they can admire for their skilled play. If baseball endures a prolonged strike, many fans won't be back and that downward spiral I wrote about earlier will just increase.

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