"MLB expects less drama in next labor deal" by Dan Benjamin, Vol. 8 Issue 39 pg. 3

According to the article Major League Baseball will pursue far less economic reforms when the CBA expires as compared to past negotations. The reason being is that Major League Baseball has gained two major coups since 2002 when the last CBA was negotiated. The first major win for Major League Baseball was when they were able to increase revenue sharing and the luxury tax provision during the 2002 CBA negotations (the rationale was that these provisions were needed to correct the perceived problem with competitive balance). The other "notch-in-the-belt" came just this past season when they were able to negotiate two dramatic revisions to the drug-testing program under the threat of congressional intervention. In addition, Major League Baseball is going through an unprecedented fiscal upswing (according to the article, revenue is approaching $5 billion a year). Another major factor is that Commisioner Bud Selig projects attendance to reach 77-78 million which would surpass last year's record setting numbers of 74.9 million by about 3%.

First, it is unfortunate that Congress had to stick their nose in baseball's business since Congress has no business being involved in sports especially when you consider they "should" have more important issues to deal with (it seems that a politician always has to get involved with sports issues even though they don't have a "clue" what they are talking about and it is very irritating). Regressing from my rant, Congress's transgressions did cause unprecedented changes in Major League Baseball Steroid policy which I believe will only help baseball and its players. In addition, I take umbrage to Selig saying that "parity right now is very good" because six different teams (the article pointed out that ever other major league sport has had repeat champions during this time)have won the World Series. First Major League Baseball aloows the fewest teams in the play-offs (4 per league)and second every year the Yankess, Boston, Atlanta and a combination of the Chicago White Sox, Houston Astros, LA Dodgers, Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim, Seattle Mariners, St. Louis Cardinals, Minnesota Twins, San Diego Padres, San Francisco Giants,Florida Marlins and Chicago Cubs are in the mix; which leaves 16 teams not even coming close to reaching post-season play.

I was suprised to learn that Major League Baseball set an attendance record last season since baseball is the most boring professional sport and the fact that Major League Baseball was reeling from steroid testimony or non-testimony from Mark McGwire, Sammy Sosa, Jason Giambi, Barry Bonds in front of Congress. I guess fans believe that since things were revealed and Major League Baseball has decided to take a pretty hard stand on the steroids situation, the game would be more competitvely balanced. I do agree with Selig that labor peace is the reason that Major League Baseball is thriving because really baseball only lost its luster when it shut down for a substantial part of the 1994 season.