Oh, Come On, Guys--Play Ball!

The return of baseball each winter, heralded by tidbits of news from distant training camps, seems to satisfy some basic need in the American mind and heart. But this appetite for the national pastime has gone unfulfilled this year as the impasse between the players’ union and owners over a new labor contract has dragged on.

Lamenting the failure of the two sides to reach agreement, baseball Commissioner Fay Vincent talked the other day about heady stuff, a violation of “a national obligation or trust.� He was right--especially if his concern that the season won’t start as scheduled on April 2 proves justified. The entire situation is a shame, especially for the fans, whose game this is.

But they can hardly be surprised, only disappointed. For some years now they have had their noses rubbed in the cold fact that their sport is big business as well as a leisure-time diversion. This despite the fact that for most of us, the arcane language of collective bargaining agreements represents something we go to the game to escape--life’s humdrum, bottom-line concerns.

This month has brought us more than we care to know about concepts like the length of service required for salary arbitration, the main issue still blocking a labor agreement. Many fans already live uneasily with the discrepancy between their own incomes and those of young men who become wealthy by playing a game. But the owners can be suspect, too. At best they are fat cats; at worst, incompetent judges of talent.

Let’s not delay the season over technicalities. We miss spring training games in the Palm Springs sunshine, where you can hear the clapping and exhortations of an Angels third-base coach. And what will we do without Vin Scully’s familiar voice, telling us from Vero Beach that a Dodger batter stared at a called third strike “like a rabbit frozen in a spotlight�? If it really looks as if Opening Day and that reassuring first pitch will be postponed, then things are serious, indeed.