Owners vs. The Union vs...

MLB Labor talk has soured me on life.  Or taught me.  Depends upon how you look at it.  I have friends who are quite liberal and often talk about the heartless corporations.  I have friends that are quite conservative and will talk about the pernicious unions.

And because of Baseball, I tend to think they are both right.

I think that when management fights with the union, it's the consumers who get squashed.

Now we are entering into a brave new baseball world, with teams getting richer and richer signing massive new television deals.  And players are getting richer and richer - where you can sign a pitcher (a PITCHER!) to a $215 million dollar deal, pay him over $30 a year, almost $1 million a start, and have people think it's a good idea.

And the kind and fair part of me thinks, with all sincerity... good for them both. 

But the cold, practical one thinks, "Where is all that cash that is going into their pockets coming from?"

I'm debating dropping my satellite package.  It's gotten awfully expensive.   And do we even need to talk about the cost of going to a game?

See, this money that gets tossed around -- it's not that the owners take money from the poor players, or that the players bilk the owners... they together get money from us, the consumers.

And we pay for it.

It's almost why part of me wants a salary cap and a salary floor - just to help break the rate at which the golden goose is squeezed.  It may even be a bit too late already -- as late as World Series games that I rarely stay up late enough to finish.  To say nothing of my kids.

Ah well.