A Little Bit Deeper

There's a report out on the internets today that gets my blood boiling a bit, so please indulge me in some good old fashioned … oh I don't even know what it is. Here's the quote:

Major League Baseball owners, despite boasting $8 billion in annual revenue and climbing, are moving toward eliminating the pension plans of all personnel not wearing big league uniforms, sources told ESPNNewYork.com. The first attempt to do so, initiated last year by a small-market owner, was voted down after Chicago White Sox owner Jerry Reinsdorf chastised his brethren for being petty with the lives of ordinary people given the riches produced by the sport. A second vote, which was intended to be kept secret, is now scheduled to take place at owners meetings May 8-9 in New York.  

First off, props to Jerry Reinsdorf for being a human being. Second, this is disgusting. Third, this isn't any more of a baseball problem than it is a big business problem. Or have you forgotten all those times the owners of these 30 clubs were quoted as saying "this is a business". It's merely a cross section of a society that is trying to screw over the little guy … in the words of the great George Carlin: "a little bit deeper, a little bit deeper, a little bit deeper." Baseball isn't going to be the first business to try to take pensions from their workers and it certainly isn't going to be the last. But it is going to be one of the few that pays not only big salaries to their executives, but to their employees as well, and thus there should be more outrage for this than there will be for the run of the mill bank that might try to do this.

Now here's my specific point: We as Mets fans have to endure the endless self-indulgent media appearances by Fred and Jeff Wilpon about the state of the team, general apologies, new steak sandwiches, and the rest of the garbage that nobody needs to have a press conference for. And considering the crap that they've put us through in terms of mismanagement, I personally have no desire to be covered in their verbal diarrhea about anything.

Except this.

I want to know where they stand on this. I'd like to know that the people who have screwed over fans and investors alike over the past 15 years with complete incompetence are at least planning to take care of the people that toil for them. Now don't get me wrong here … I'm not saying that this would affect the amount of money that I spend on this team. I'm not ready to make that declaration yet. And I don't have a negative pre-conceived notion about what the Wilpons' stand on this is. In fact, if you put a gun to my head and forced me to guess, I'd guess that the Wilpons were on the side of Jerry Reinsdorf rather than the small market franchises like the one they made themselves into. But I have no idea and I'm not going to pretend to know. That's why the Wilpons need to say something. That, and it's the decent thing to do.

But they won't. They'll keep us guessing on this just like they keep us guessing on everything else that doesn't have to do with a steak sandwich. And no, before you declare this, this doesn't have anything to do with the product on the field which  is at the top of most of fans' lists when it comes to what they care about. But should that preclude any of us from hoping that the people whose pockets we line with cash every time we buy a ticket or a cap or a Brandon Lyon custom t-shirt can provide a decent change from most owners and C.E.O.'s in America and do something decent?