San Francisco Chronicle - (Sunday)
You’re a mean one, Mr. Fisher — but you’re not the only one
John Fisher and Major League Baseball pulled off a difficult Reverse Grinch.
With apologies to Dr. Seuss: Well, in Whoville they say, those who dared take a peek, saw that Big Baseball’s small heart shrunk three sizes last week.
Who’da thunk that heart could get smaller?
The Fisherowned A’s announced this week they would cut off the $400 weekly stipends they pay their minorleague players. Fisher is the first MLB team owner, and so far the only one, to cut off the team’s minorleaguers.
This move will save Fisher an estimated $1 million. That’s a lot of dough, and a guy’s got to spend his money carefully these days. Especially with an election coming up.
Forbes reported last October that before the 2012 election, Fisher, his two brothers and their mother donated $9 million to Americans for Job Security, a darkmoney group that used the donations to fund a campaign opposing President Obama.
That’s perfectly legal, an exercise of political freedom, but you would think a guy who could kick in that big to support his political beliefs could afford to pay the ballplayers whose labors helped make him as rich as he is.
Led by Fisher, the fraternity of team owners had a good week, in terms of saving money.
The Giants cut 20 of their minorleaguers Thursday, saving the team about $34,000. Charles Johnson, one of the team’s principal owners, is worth $4.1 billion. You do the math.
The owners, who never open their books to the world, are trying to vilify MLB players in the battle over how to share baseball’s pandemic-related losses. One thing to keep in mind: Team owners tend to have much longer baseball careers than players do. Before the pandemic, MLB had already begun the process of cutting ties with 40 of its 160 affiliated minorleague teams.
That’s a prudent costcutting move, and painless ... if you have no soul. The minor leagues are a breeding and nurturing ground for baseball fans. I fell in love with baseball as a kid following my local minorleague team. Every time an MLB team owner shakes down his city for a new ballpark or other subsidies, he says, “Look at the jobs our team creates! Look at the priceless civic pride and enthusiasm we bring to our city!”
Minorleague towns get those same benefits from their baseball teams. MLB is telling 40 of those baseball towns, “Grab some pine, meat.”