From Boston.com and the Cape Cod Times comes a baseball story of greed and avarice that almost seems too ridiculous to be believed. Is it A-Rod opting out of a $252 million contract to sign another for $275 million? Is it the price of warm, watered-down beer at Fenway? Jonathan Papelbon's desire to be paid like Mariano Rivera "for the good of baseball"?
All good guesses, but unfortunately, all wrong. This story is even more ludicrous than any of those, if you can believe it.
This story involves the amateur Cape Cod League, a breeding ground for future major league baseball players that may have no equal in amateur baseball around the country.
If you're a fan of any major league baseball team, chances are that some significant players on your team honed their skills in the Cape Cod League before turning professional: Names such as Lance Berkman, Craig Biggio, Ryan Braun, Jacoby Ellsbury, Nomar Garciaparra, Tony Gwynn, Todd Helton, Brian Roberts and Aaron Rowand, among many others, all played at least one summer in the Cape League. In fact, according to their official website, capecodbaseball.org, fully one in seven MLB players played in the league at one time.
Cape League baseball has always been and is still free for fans to attend and has been in operation since 1885. In its current incarnation the Cape League features ten teams, all located, obviously, on Cape Cod.
Sounds like a storybook All-American summer league, doesn't it? The problem is, after 122 years, Major League Baseball has decided it needs and deserves a piece of the CCBL pie.
That's right, the sports league that's knee deep in its biggest scandal in nearly 100 years has decided the billions of dollars it rakes in yearly isn't enough - they are demanding that the six Cape League teams that share a name with an MLB team (They are the Chatham A's, Bourne Braves, Harwich Mariners, Hyannis Mets, Orleans Cardinals, and Yarmouth-Dennis Red Sox) purchase all future uniforms and souvenir merchandise from expensive MLB-licensed vendors.
Additionally, MLB's grasping accountants are demanding an 11% royalty on sales of all existing inventory from the six affected teams. "Items such as coffee mugs and teddy bears that are not available through MLB vendors could no longer be sold."
As currently constituted, this deal being forced down the throats of these six Cape League teams would squeeze out local merchants, many of whom have been associated with the league for decades.
The reason MLB's Masters of Hypocrisy can make these demands is that MLB annually donates $100,000 of the roughly $2 million Cape League operating budget to its administrators. MLB's accountants, who must work part-time for the IRS, are threatening to cancel the yearly donation unless the teams agree to their extortion.
All six of the teams involved say they will change their names rather than submit to the unseemly arm-twisting by the bullies at MLB, but they admit it is too late to change their teams' uniforms for this season, leading to a classic David and Goliath showdown. A league source, who understandably wants to remain unnamed, says the Cape Cod League will not roll over or be strong-armed by MLB.
The shamelessness never seems to end in big-time athletics. $100,000 is nothing to Major League Baseball. Hank Steinbrenner probably spends that much on towels for Kyle Farnsworth to cry into, and yet Bud Selig's geniuses are threatening to yank that money out from under an amateur baseball league that has undoubtedly provided more players to MLB than any other over the past 122 years.
The Cape League should tell MLB to take their money and shove it; all six teams should change their names, and the league should start a national fundraising drive to make up the loss of the money Selig's minions are using to blackmail them with. Maybe MLB could use the $100,000 to fund a real HGH testing program.
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I've been busy writing - two full-length novels so far, plus over a dozen short stories - and working hard to try to get an agent. If you are curious and have a few minutes, check out my website, www.allanleve rone.com.
If you're a literary agent or if you know one, by all means contact me! In the meantime, I'll be here when I can - love this forum - and as always, thank you for checking out my blog, especially considering how many great ones you could be reading instead....
