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CNN Saturday Morning News
Do Fans Care About Baseball?
Aired August 31, 2002 - 09:13 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
MILES O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: An 11th-hour reprieve pulls Major League Baseball back from the brink. The question is, does anybody care? Maybe, maybe you do. The collective bargaining agreement keeps the leagues to keeping on at least 30 teams playing until 2006. You recall they threatened to fold the Expos and the Twins.
Fans headed back to the ball yards for Friday's game just as they were on the cusp of a walkout.
CNN's Brian Palmer joins us from New York Mets territory. We're sad to tell you about that, but that is the way it goes.
Brian, it's the first time that major league baseball owners and players have gotten anything done without a work stoppage. Why this time, do you think?
BRIAN PALMER, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, indeed, the first time since 1972 that that's happened.
We're getting a range of opinions, people saying, because they really -- the owners and the players realize that this could be a make or break time for baseball. A strike could have really crippled the sport.
But today, folks we're talking to aren't talking about revenue sharing and they're not talking about luxury taxes or league contraction. They're talking about baseball.
We have canvassed around here, we have talked to a lot of workers. A lot of them have been talking less about the negotiations themselves than the tension around the negotiations.
UNIDENTIFIED FAN: It only happens in this sport. I don't understand why other sports, it doesn't really happen. This one, it seems like, they get all this amount of money and then don't seem to be satisfied with it. I don't understand why.
UNIDENTIFIED FAN: I've seen the way the players going about it.
UNIDENTIFIED FAN: Delighted they settled.
PALMER: Really?
UNIDENTIFIED FAN: I think both sides won, actually. And, of course, I think the fans too. And I'm pleased it's settled.
PALMER: So that was some very articulate commentary from someone who actually works here at the stadium.
We're going to be out here for a few more hours. Four hours until game time, where the Mets take on the Phillies, just a couple of hours away from the start-up of the U.S. Open here, U.S. Tennis Center is a few yards away, but we're here to talk about baseball.
So Mets take on the Phillies. We're waiting for the tailgate parties to start up and for the rockets and colorful fans of the New York Mets to start coming out -- Miles.
O'BRIEN: Going way out on a limb there, raucous and colorful, huh? Bloody Marys on the tailgates? No, they actually wouldn't do bloody Marys there.
But let me ask you this, you get the sense that this -- on this go-round, although they weren't officially there at the table, the fans were there in the spirit at the bargaining table. I think they were -- both the owners and the players were paying a little more attention this time to the folks who run through the turnstiles.
PALMER: Most definitely. And you heard it from the fans. I mean, even the people here who told us, you know, I don't really care what, what, what, what the substance of the settlement was, there was an underlying tension of, I don't, (UNINTELLIGIBLE), anger, frustration that it came to this point again.
Every few years, we get to this point where the players and the owners are negotiating over, over millions of dollars, and people are just saying, Listen, you're making enough money already. This is just baseball, let's play.
So I think there is a tremendous frustration, but also relief that it's over, at least for another four years -- Miles.
O'BRIEN: Yes, you know, and people say that it's just baseball, play, they're crybabies, they're making too much money. But heaven forbid we told them, You can't go in to see your boss and ask for a raise, which is essentially what this is all about. Warts and all, that's what this is all about.
PALMER: Well, folks reacted in '94. I mean, people did find other things to do. And this year, presumably, that would have happened too. But again, a lot of tension underneath the surface. But I'm -- hopefully, people will just sort of calm down and eat their hot dogs and watch some great ball.
O'BRIEN: Calm down and eat your hot dogs. And as you're going through the stands today, Brian, just say that, Calm down, eat your hot dog. All right? All right.
PALMER: Not here in New York.
O'BRIEN: All right, Brian's going to get...
PALMER: (UNINTELLIGIBLE).
O'BRIEN: ... heckled big-time in New York if he doesn't watch it.
Brian Palmer, thank you very much, joining us at Shea.
PALMER: Thank you.
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