The threat looms: Baseball could close down this summer over money

Will you come back?

If the baseball players walk out, will you return to Safeco Field after the strike is settled?

Or will you say I’ve had it with these clowns, I can do without them?

Perhaps you already said that, after the 1994 strike.

Perhaps you said “a pox on both of your houses (owners and players)” and found something else on which to spend your entertainment dollars.

Perhaps you took all the money you would ordinarily invest in four or five trips to the ballpark and whisked the family away on some nice mini-vacations.

There are people who didn’t come back. I can’t name any, but I’m sure they’re out there somewhere.

I wonder if they had withdrawal pains. I wonder if it was like trying to kick any habit.

You walk through the living room, the TV is turned on to a baseball game and you can’t help yourself: You stop and watch. “Five minutes can’t hurt,” you rationalize. Two hours later, you’re still sitting there, engrossed in the game.

The next day, you sneak out of the house and overdose on a $40 seat behind third base. “I can’t help it,” you sob later to your wife. “I’m hooked.”

You sorely need help. Baseball can be a very difficult habit to overcome.

There are ways to cure your addiction. A move to Tampa Bay, Milwaukee or Detroit is sure to make you so sick of the game that you’ll never go back to it.

Listening to commissioner Bud “Liar, Liar, Pants on Fire” Selig lament the plight of the poor baseball owners could be enough to make you go cold turkey. Watching some $5 million ballplayer strut past a kid asking for an autograph could be another sure-fire turnoff.

Becoming a Chicago Cubs fan could sour you on the game because you know the Cubbies are never going to win another World Series. You can become a Bleacher Bum and stay drunk for only so long, then you’ve got to get on with your life.

You could move to Montreal and become an Expos fan but if you want to discuss strategy during games, it’d get pretty monotonous sitting there talking to yourself.

The whimpering superstar in Cincinnati could have you throwing up your hands and wailing, “no mas. No mas.”

Eyeing the concession prices in any major league ballpark and deciding whether it’s worthwhile to take out a second mortgage on your home could make you abstain from America’s pastime.

Hearing some player complain that he isn’t appreciated by the ballclub that’s paying him $10 million a year would surely eliminate your craving for the drug called baseball.

Or knowing that however many shrewd moves your general manager makes or how hard or how well your team plays, there is always one fat-cat owner with the money to destroy your dreams of a world championship.

The insatiable greed of both owners and players could also extinguish your fervor for the game.

A $252 million contract for a ballplayer could have you sputtering, “Can you believe – he’s getting this to play baseball?” And make you vow never to pass through the turnstile of another major league ballpark.

You can whip this addiction. It isn’t easy. But it can be done.

Thousands have overcome it. And if you’ve studied the boxscores this season, the attendance figures in many cities lead you to believe that thousands of others are well on the road to recovery.

In some places, the desire for the game is as strong as it’s ever been. Places such as Boston, San Francisco and Seattle.

But what happens if there’s another work stoppage? What happens if another World Series is wiped out, in a year when the Mariners seem to have a good shot at getting there? Would even the mind-mannered M’s fans forgive and forget when the players came back?

The owners and the players need to do some deep soul searching. They need to remember what happened in this country eight months ago and the thousands of lives that were affected on that tragic September day. They need to realize that baseball is becoming a luxury that many families can’t afford but once or twice a year. They need to understand that because it is becoming so outrageously expensive to attend a game, that it won’t take much for some fans to become non-fans no matter how attractive the team. They need to get their heads out of the sand and realize that this is 2002, not 1940, and that baseball is not the only game in town anymore.

Do owners and players really give a hang about the fans? Only if they stop coming to games.

How tenuous is baseball’s grip on the ticket-buying public?

I don’t know. But in these very uncertain times I would be very hesitant to try and find out with another strike or another canceled World Series.