Saturday, April 25, 1998

New clothes for the baseball emperor

By Bob Greene

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. -- The emperor's new clothes -- or, more accurately, the emperor's new stadium -- went on display here this spring. Few seemed to notice the essential nakedness of it all.

The emperor's new stadium is known as Tropicana Field. It's not a field at all -- it's a retooled dome, once called the Florida Sun Coast Dome, then renamed the ThunderDome, now renamed again to honor a sponsoring orange juice company. Beneath the roof play the Tampa Bay Devil Rays -- a new major league baseball team. Local news coverage of the team's first games made coverage of D-Day seem understated.

Here are some numbers:

The group that brought major league baseball to Tampa Bay paid a fee of $135 million to Major League Baseball for the opportunity. They built the dome, hoping a team would come, at a cost of $138 million. After the franchise was awarded to Tampa Bay, they paid another $85 million to refurbish the dome and make it suitable for baseball games.

Here are some more numbers:

To buy a season ticket -- one seat -- in the "Home Plate Boxes" area of Tropicana Field costs a person $15,795 (or $195 for a single game). That is also the price for a seat in the "Terrace Boxes" section. If a fan is content to sit in the "Field Boxes" section, the price is $4,860 per season, or $60 for one game. The city of St. Petersburg has re-priced parking meters on streets close to the stadium; if you would like to park there, you are required to insert $10 (the meters now take credit cards).

Now here is another number, perhaps the most significant of all:

In a recent national public opinion poll, 65 percent of Americans said they are not baseball fans.

Sixty-five percent. Sixty-five percent of the country, if you accept the poll's findings, does not care for baseball.

Doesn't quite sound like the national pastime, does it? Baseball hasn't been the national pastime for many years now -- no sport is. The national pastime, like it or not, is watching television.

But baseball especially has done just about everything it can to alienate the public. The strike of the mid-'90s revealed certain things about the men on the field in uniforms, the men in the front office in business suits. The fans decided they didn't much like either group.

Here are some more numbers:

When the strike began, the average salary of a major league baseball player was $1.2 million. It was predicted that because of the ugliness of the strike, ballplayers would not make that kind of money in the immediate future.

The average salary for a major league baseball player on opening day this year was $1.4 million. Three-hundred-seventeen major league baseball players will be paid salaries of $1 million or more this season.

In addition to the famous names everyone knows -- Ken Griffey Jr., Cal Ripken, Barry Bonds, Frank Thomas -- men whose accomplishments are not exactly legendary in the typical American household are being paid huge sums of money. Dean Palmer of the Kansas City Royals will be paid $5.7 million this year; Darryl Kile of the Colorado Rockies will be paid $5.6 million; Travis Fryman of the Cleveland Indians will be paid $5 million; Ray Lankford of the St. Louis Cardinals will be paid $4.6 million. Roberto Alomar of the Baltimore Orioles, who spit in the umpire's face, will be paid $6.3 million this year.

Meanwhile, baseball has to almost plead with fans to watch the World Series in the fall. It is little wonder the men who run Major League Baseball are pleased to sell expansion franchises to towns willing to come up with the $135 million. When a consortium is in the business of selling new clothes to would-be emperors, it's best to keep the price of the invisible cloth high, the better to fool the buyer.

When you see a couple of vacationing high school students lugging baseball mitts onto the beach near here to have a catch, the sight is almost quaint, like something in the Smithsonian. At Tropicana Field, there is a concierge.

And installed at each of the $15,795-a-season seats, a computer on which interactive games can be played. Human servers hover close to the seats to fulfill what is referred to as "merchandise needs."

Chicago Tribune