World Baseball Classic: Pay to Play?

At parties, people tend to know that I'm a baseball fan, so they'll start conversations with me about the MLB season or, most recently, the World Baseball Classic. I had a conversation last night about this most recent WBC, and it got me thinking about a couple of things, namely the apathy of most American fans toward the tournament and (ok, I'll say it) the whining by some of the U.S. players as the tournament wore on.

At this party, a friend of mine was mimicking a certain American ballplayer, imagining his internal dialogue as said player anticipated the WBC: "What? They expect me to play hard? For free?" And of course, being (as usual) slow on the take-up, it hadn't really occured to me until then that the somewhat lackadaisical performance on the part of the Americans might boil down, not to fear of injury or lack of mental preparation, but to the simple fact they're not being paid to play.

In the early part of the twentieth century, MLB players would barnstorm during the off-season—John McGraw would take his New York Giants down to Cuba; Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig toured the American plains putting on home run exhibitions; etc. In Peter C. Bjarkman's A History of Cuban Baseball, the author details how these barnstorming tours—though largely ignored by American fans at the time—were more than merely a chance for Negro league or Cuban players to pit themselves against American All-Stars like Ty Cobb...they were the only place in the world where fans could watch white players and black players and Latin American players face-off against one another and measure their talents and achievements. MLB was segragated; few Latinos played in the big leagues. And only recently, through the well-meaning activities of the Committee on African-American Baseball (a nominating committee for The National Baseball Hall of Fame) have some of these long-overlooked baseball stars (like Martin Dihigo) begun to receive their historical due.

That injustice could be several posts by itself, and is in fact the subject of many fine, book-length works. But to go back to the point my friend made at this recent party: those players who barnstormed in Cuba and Mexico and Venezuela were not doing it for philanthropic reasons, or even nationalistic ones—they were getting paid. As much as $1,000 per game, according to Bjarkman, if the player was Babe Ruth in 1920.

Maybe Major League Baseball, flush with cash by increased attendance, the success of the WBC, and the meteoric rise of MLB Media, really oughta think about kicking those players who choose to participate in the WBC a little coin. I know, I know. It's a shame that in this day and age we should even have to talk about such a thing...why can't they just play for pride...blah, blah, blah. But if each country pays out $100K per player for each tournament victory, or for each time their nation advances to a subsequent round, maybe we'd see more players—especially American-born players—more eager to volunteer their spring trainings toward reprsenting the Red, White and Blue.

(There are counterpoints to this argument of course, drawn from everyday life. Most attorneys work a few per diem cases each year; doctors frequently volunteer their time in under-served parts of the world. And who doesn't know an accountant who does taxes for each and every one of his friends and relatives...for free? So maybe it's enough that, given that they're donating their time to entertaining the masses, the WBC participants play at all...)

As for the indifference of the American fan base, there may not be much we can do. As a country, Americans have been largely indifferent to baseball played outside the United States for more than a century...only in the last twenty-five or so years have we even had the courage to recognize (and post-humously elect to our Hall of Fame) players like Dihigo who, as the only player elected to the Hall of Fame in four countries (the US, Cuba, Venezuela and Mexico), was not only dominant for his era but arguably one of the best players of all-time.

Anyway, it was interesting—if not altogether heartening—to read that American indifference goes way back... there's historical precedent. That's all I'm saying.