| | JUPITER, Fla. -- The New York Mets and the Chicago Cubs leave U.S. soil this week to open the season with a two-game series in Japan. But slugger Mark McGwire told the New York Times that the teams and Major League Baseball are making a major mistake.
The trip is simply about money, McGwire told the newspaper on Monday.
McGwire has criticized baseball brass before over the plan. Last year, he spoke against the proposed opening in Japan and encouraged his teammates to reject baseball's request that the Cardinals play the Mets in Tokyo. So the Cubs later replaced the Cardinals, according to the Times.
"What it comes down to is someone in Japan paid Major League
Baseball a lot of money," McGwire told the Times in his St. Louis Cardinals' spring training
clubhouse. "They were told to get two teams. So they wanted two teams
with a couple of high-profile players. I know Major League Baseball
wants to do more internationally, but there's no purpose in it. I don't
agree with it."
Last year, the San Diego Padres and the Colorado Rockies opened the season in Monterrey, Mexico. Having certain teams open in foreign lands is part of baseball's strategy to export the game globally -- as well as market its merchandise to a more far-flung audience.
What's driving the push for more revenue sources, according to the Times, is the issue of skyrocketing player salaries. McGwire said he agrees that contracts are out of line, but he doesn't believe the Japan plan is related to salaries.
"I totally disagree," he told the Times, saying that the owners are "creating revenue for themselves."
"Do they understand that we're the ones that play the game?
The Japanese have their own brand of baseball over there. Our game is
too international as it is. It comes down to how much money can they
make. It's not what can we do for the good of the players. That's what
upsets me about it."
The players association is in favor of spreading baseball worldwide and, according to the Times, has led the effort.
"That doesn't mean I have to agree with it," said McGwire, whose 70 home runs in 1998 shattered the single-season record of 61 long held by Roger Maris. "I don't think
it's in the best interests of the players. You're telling me that we're going
to fly two teams over 16-plus hours to play two games? You can't give
me a good reason for that. There isn't a good reason. The only good
reason is money. If the Mets or the Cubs miss the playoffs by one game
because they couldn't open their eyes up in Japan and play a game
because they're so tired, you think Major League Baseball is going to
care?"
The Mets and the Cubs are scheduled to depart for Japan from spring training
on Friday. First, they'll play two exhibition games against Japanese
teams next Monday and Tuesday, the Times reported. Then they open the regular season with
a two-game series next Wednesday and Thursday.
They will leave Japan Friday and take the weekend off before
resuming their seasons back in America on April 3 -- which is Opening Day for the rest of baseball.
"We get killed travelwise here in America," McGwire told the Times. "We don't even have rocket
scientists who know how to do our schedule right. Now they're trying to
do a schedule flying to Japan, going all over the world to play. Are you
kidding me?
"I want to play here in America. I have nothing against anybody
else in another country. This game belongs here. People come to
America, they come here to watch our game. I think it's the bottom line.
They want to copy what the NFL and the NBA are doing. What's
different? The NFL and the NBA are not the American pastime."
Besides sending major-league teams to play in foreign countries, baseball officials want to develop an international tournament similar to the World Cup, the Times reported. McGwire doesn't like this idea, either.
"I don't think it needs to be done. How much more baseball
needs to be played? We play six months of the year. Where are we
going to squeeze in this one? What it comes down to -- it really, really
bothers me -- it comes down to money. I'm so sick and tired of it," he told the Times.
Speaking of money, McGwire said player salaries are "way too high."
"All of us are well overpaid to play this game of baseball," he said. "How
much money do you really need? Sometimes it overtakes what you're
really here for and I don't think it's right."
McGwire inked a three-year contract extension in 1997 soon after the Cardinals acquired him from the Oakland A's. But he signed for much less money -- a guaranteed $28.5 million -- than he could have demanded on the free-agent market after the season.
"You don't have to go where the money is," he told the Times. "You've got to
go where you're happy. ... A lot of guys today are listening to what their agents have to say, instead
of listening to what their guts have to say." | |
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