Eight years ago to the month, I sat in my room staring at my
baseball card collection, weeping. They had taken the game of
baseball away from me.

They had denied not only me, but the entire country the thrill
of watching baseball in September, the joy of peering into the
television screen to watch the best of both leagues battle it out
in the crisp October night to earn the right to be called World
Champions.

Nothing.

October of 1994 was missing all that was special about American
sports.

Nearing the end of August 2002, I sit in front of a computer
screen, fuming at the possibility of having another empty
October.

The Major League Baseball Player’s Association has set an August
30 strike date, one month before the end of the 2002 season.
Although I am eight years older than I was when Tony Gwynn’s
pursuit of .400 was halted by baseball’s eighth work stoppage, I
feel just as confused, worried and devastated today.

Fans did all they could to forgive the owners and players after
the 1994 strike.

Sure, attendance dwindled in most ballparks, but all that did
was weed out the people who were looking for an excuse to stop
caring about baseball. Fans showed up on opening day, they filled
the parks, they helped pay the million dollar salaries. Why?
Because the fans believed.

They believed that the labor disputes were over. I was relieved
when the strike was over eight years ago because I knew I, like so
many baseball fans, couldn’t go through that again.

Instead, another strike appears imminent. The players and owners
can’t decide how to collect, share and increase their millions of
dollars. This is all done while the fans gladly spend their hard
earned dollars on watching their favorite players.

It hurts me to see my favorite players turn their back on the
game. That is what hurts the most. I understand it’s a business,
and employees and owners have to make sure they are receiving fair
pay and work, respectively.

But I just wish they would remember that it’s a game. It is the
source of entertainment for millions of people all over the
world.

We look to baseball to make us cheer for a triple down the right
field line and cover our faces in frustration when our favorite
players strike out.

If baseball strikes on August 30, both the players and the
owners will have to crawl back to their fans in search of
forgiveness and attendance.

Honestly, I don’t know if America is willing to do that.

I just hope our players and owners take a minute, just a minute,
sometime during this next week to think about that fan sitting in
his bedroom hoping that his passtime won’t be taken from him
again.