It is no secret to anyone who takes the time to peruse this weekly column or knows me personally; I have had a lifelong affinity with baseball. The times I’ve spent playing, coaching, watching, broadcasting, and writing about the game have filled my life with great joy, friendships, and wonderful memories.
In recent years we have often spent the month of March in Arizona visiting, enjoying the warmer weather, and taking in spring training baseball games. Months ago, when it became time to make the commitment to do so again this year, my internal clock said, ‘oh, oh, I don’t think so.’ My gut was telling me that the ongoing contentious relationship between the millionaire players and the billionaire owners was not going to end well, at least for a normal spring training schedule to take place. Unfortunately, that premonition rang sadly true.
Following 99 days of a very contentious relationship between MLB and the MLBPA, cooler heads have finally prevailed with the agreement reached on March 10. Spring Training is underway, and the league will begin a full 162-game schedule on April 7. It wasn’t pretty, and that old saying about ‘killing the goose that laid the golden egg’ is exactly what baseball was doing to itself.
Whichever side you may have favored in this ‘labor dispute’ or not care a bit about, a letter recently conveyed to fans by free-agent first baseman Anthony Rizzo contained some genuine food for thought. In that letter, Rizzo wrote in part:
“The average fan will never understand the plights of rich men and women arguing for their own benefit, but it is the job of the Players’ Association to stand up for their own – not just the current crop of athletes but those to come.
“Baseball itself cannot afford a lockout at this time. This will be the second shortened season out of the last three. Baseball is arguably the third or fourth-most popular sport on the American totem pole, and it is rapidly sliding further behind. The age of the average baseball fan continues to rise, year after year. They’re failing to reach a young audience that already lacks patience with the sport. Imagine how that young baseball fan feels after the events of the last few months?”
Rizzo’s inclusion of “rich men” is certainly true. The MLBPA’s executive committee includes eight-player members. When the vote was taken on what became the end of the stalemate, the executive committee vote was 8-0 to reject the agreement. Player members included the New York Mets Max Scherzer and Francisco Lindor and the Yankees Gerritt Cole and Zach Britton. The yearly salaries of those four negative New Yorkers total $125; Scherzer $43 million, Cole $36 million, Lindor $32 million, and Britton $14 million.
When the executive committee’s negative recommendation was put before the 30 MLB teams, it was rejected by a 26-4 vote in favor of the contract. Make that 26-2 without the Mets’ and Yankees’ objections.
A recent FOX Sports ranking listed Pennsylvania as having the seventh-best baseball background among the fifty states. Its rationale included it being one of their “favorite places on earth, home of the Little League World Series and one of the most magical baseball spaces imaginable.”
That’s great to hear, but even in this baseball paradise, the landscape is shifting. The announcement earlier this year by the former Newberry Little League; that they were dropping their 75-year LLB affiliation and becoming a Cal Ripken League continued a discouraging trend that hopefully will not leave Williamsport, the Birthplace of Little League, without a chartered league in its city limits.
Newberry’s decision has been a hot sports topic locally. Days after that announcement became public; I received a telephone call from Fred Agnoni.
Agnoni was a player in that very first Newberry League, then called Lincoln Boys Little League. He shared stories about the league, particularly about his friendship with Vic Staccone, one of the league’s best players who was later killed in combat during the Korean War.
“I always looked up to Vic. He was my teammate, and he kind of protected me against some of the bullies,” Agnoni explained.
During our conversation, Agnoni said he had spoken to some of the remaining members of that four-team 1946 league, and they were happy I had mentioned the league in one of my columns. As an appreciative tribute to those surviving players and family members of those deceased, listed below are the participants of that very first Newberry League.
– Armour Leather Company: Manager-Bill Shooter, Frances Dymeck, C. Moon, R. Tempesco, R Fullerton, V. Messener, J. Hawkins, P. Bachman, W. Wrench, L. Meconi, L. Fessler, J. Luke, W. Shooter.
– Bernstine Drug Store: Bill Krezmer-Manager, R. Quigley, R. Forney, F. Smith, W. Morris, R. Miller, J. Mack, D. Moday, P. Stachowski, R. Weber, R. Krezmer, R. Morris, C. Askey.
– Keystone Glue Company: John Reeder-Manager, J. Dgien, J. Staccone, R. Smith, F. Agoni, H. Gee, D. Labuski, V. Staccone, R. Rader, R. Sullivan, R. Eichenlaub, T. Enkenroth, D. Eichenlaub.
– Sweet’s Steel Company: Vic Derr-Manager, W. Knecht, W. Retorick, R. Mecomi, L. Eckstein, R. Zuber, D. Rouse, K. Younkin, D. Cupp, J. Fullerton, R. Hockman, M. Snyder, C. Dymeck.
To millions of youngsters around the world, ‘Baseball’ is the middle name of Williamsport, Pennsylvania. Let’s hope the ruling lords of Major League Baseball, the legion of volunteers that provide Little League Baseball in their communities, and those with fond memories of their own baseball days can combine and continue to ensure that baseball itself is not devoured in its own acrimony.
