What Baseball Teaches Us About The Free Market

I feel like the past few seasons have demanded a name change for my favorite baseball team. Instead of being called the Boston Red Sox, the name should be changed to the Boston Bipolar Sox. After all, the team has been traveling between the cellar and first place since 2012. There seems to be no happy medium, no place for Goldilocks to find something that is "just right." 

Of course, the trials of the Sox are not the issue here, but the plight of its ace pitcher John Lester is. Why? It is because he is due for a new contract and the Sox's last offer was not regarded to be a serious offer. What was he being offered? He was offered $70 million dollars for 4 years. Upon hearing this, I suggested to a friend of mine who works in a major company's IT department to demand that he be either awarded a $70 million dollar, 4 year contract or be traded. My friend didn't consider that to be a serious proposal to make at work.

Why was $70 million considered to be a slacker's offer by my Bipolar Sox? It is because if Lester so chooses, he could get more money elsewhere. Thus, the Free Market has spoken. For the Bipolar Sox to pay Lester $70 million over 4 years is unfair. But we need to think here. If the Free Market has determined that Lester is worth more than $70 for 4 years, can we honestly say that the Free Market is concerned with fairness?

See, what is fair carries with it a moral component. And since when is paying an athletic entertainer $70 million considered to be a moral failure? We should ask this question, especially when the Free Market has spoken to fast food workers, some bank employees, and some adjunct professors, all who are paid poverty wages, is the Free Market fair or is it a place where people negotiate to see what they can get from each other? Too many business owners and employers are looking to pay their employees as little as possible, especially the low skilled employees, while those in certain professions attempt to extort as much money as possible from their employers. With the former, outsourcing work to countries that allow human and trafficking and sweatshop labor conditions along with using illegal immigrant workers allows some business owners and employers to underpay some of their employees so that regardless of working full-time hours, their paychecks keep these employees locked in poverty.  With the latter, some, especially in the entertainment world, can get paid exorbitant amounts of money regardless of how little actual benefit to society their work provides. After all, how much does our society really benefit from when the team I cheer for wins a championship?

See, the Free Market isn't about fairness, it's about what each party can manipulate out of the system for themselves. And thus when Free Market fundamentalists tell us to "shut up and listen" to the market when it comes to the pay of those who have low skill jobs, we need to speak out louder. We need to say to these fundamentalists that one cannot arrive at a morally just paycheck through formulas and negotiations between unequal parties. We need to say as often and as loud as possible that, all too often, the Free Market is not a fair market. And an unfair market is an immoral market. And when we live as if the Free Market is a fair market, we can be assured of one thing, the devaluing of people which takes place in the Free Market is both a moral barometer of the society itself and creates a moral debt that eventually must be paid. And to ignore that debt is the same as committing moral suicide which is all too often followed by physical destruction.

Jacoby Ellsbury And The Fast Food Workers' Plight

Does Jacoby Ellsbury even have a clue? Does he know that he is a role model? And does he know for whom he is a role model?

Not too long ago, Jacoby Elssbury became an ex-Red Sox by signing on with the evil empire during MLB's third season--the third season is what I call the time of signing free agents. Ellsbury signed a 7 year contract for over $150 million dollars where he will earn just over $21 million per year. In other words, Ellsbury's contract negotiations were intended for him to grab as much as he could. 

Ellsbury getting as much as he could is celebrated by the Free Market. But the problem that exists is when everybody tries to do the same. The end result is not just that some will get what they want while others will not, some may not even get what they need. And the deprivation of this last group hardly raises an eyebrow in society. Certainly, that is not the problem with those playing in the Major Leagues, but is the problem in real life.

So Ellsbury has become a role model for those who grab for everything with no regrets. And he is such a role model first for those who are at the top of their game regardless of the occupation. Business executives, especially CEOs, who negotiate for deals where they can get as much as they can out of the company in exchange for the promise of a positive performance follow Ellsbury's example. He becomes a role model for shareholders who demand that, as owners of a business, they should receive as much as they can from their businesses. And this goes so on down the line until what we see are laborers, who actually create the wealth with their work, are rewarded the least because of what is left of the pie. Of course there are those who are worst off than the laborers, these are the unemployed who are most destitute.

The fast-food workers I marched with on December 5th, for example, find that the only slice of the pie that is left for them is minimally mandated by law, it is $7.25/hr. This is regardless of the fact that the demographics of the employees show that we are dealing with much more than teenagers. And there are many conservatives who not only oppose the workers' demands, they oppose the minimum wage in principle and are thus are willing for the workers to get even a smaller piece of the pie than they do now.

We should note that workers's demands for good pay and just conditions have been opposed before. In fact, some conservatives blame the demise of some of America's past industries on unions and their ability to get for their members what they could. Likewise, some conservatives now blame the fast food workers' demand for higher pay on today's 'entitlement culture' and this is despite the fact that the raise these workers are asking for is not a handout for do nothing but a recognition for work being done. So with some, grabbing all one can get for oneself is celebrated while, for others, it is scorned. That means that grabbing whatever one can for oneself is a privilege reserved for those who are closer to the top and a stigma for the rest.

So we see two problems here. First, when those at the top try to grab as much as they can, they tend not to leave enough for everybody else. Second, we see a double standard in play. And the acceptability of grabbing for everything one can is inversely related to one's need.

But Ellsbury is not just a role model for those at the top who embrace greed, he is one of many role models for those who want to be at the top but are currently not there. His example has given them something to shoot for. But this causes a dilemma because until a person is counted as privileged, grabbing as much as one can for oneself brings shame.

The more people there are who grab for everything they can for themselves, the more self-destructive society becomes. And as we become self-destructive, the most vulnerable of us are the first to go. And as more of us are engulfed in this grabbing ethic, we become dead to the suffering of those below us. We might toss a few coins to the most vulnerable for the sake of conscience or self-image, but we won't join them in their struggle. We won't do that because we are too preoccupied to feel their pain. We are too preoccupied with either supporting the status quo or with being too busy doing our own grabbing in a dog-eat-dog world.

The question we have to ask about this ethic of our grabbing for everything we can is this, if it is right for one person to do it, then why isn't it right for everybody? The answer, of course, is if all of us do it, we will destroy others first and then ourselves. So why should we celebrate when even one person practices this ethic?

Sports Is Where Fans Can Lose Even When Their Teams Win

I usually follow sports on TV with just a passing interest but this year's playoffs were different. My favorite baseball team is the Red Sox. I have been a Red Sox fan since watching game 6 of the 1975 World Series. I was rooting for the Red Sox then because they were playing a nemesis of the Phillies, the team I use to be a fan of, and thus the enemy of my enemy was my friend. But the game was so dramatic, I continued to be a fan and the Red Sox has become my only baseball team when the daughter began dating, and then marrying, a yankees fan. Thus, I had to be a Red Sox fan so someone had to bring balance to the Force in our family. 

But it was important to me that the Sox win it all because of what NYC police officer asked me during a peace protest. It was after the Sox got rid of Manny Ramirez and a police officer came up to me and asked if the Sox could win the title without Ramirez. We can now declare that the answer is yes.

And there is a political reason to root for the Red Sox, a reason that causes dismay amongst the members of the NLGNYC. That reason is that one cannot be anti-Empire and be a yankees fan.

The series against Tampa Bay was a decent series. Their manager, Joe Maddon, is an intelligent man who can win because of the way he thinks outside of the box. Their team played tough but the Sox won the series 3 games to 1. 

The series against Detroit was something else because the Sox started that series as if they were dead in the water until Ortiz hit a grand slam in the eigth inning to tie the second game while Saltalamachia hit a walkoff single to the nineth to win the game. After that, because of Detroit's balance between superb starting pitching and their dangerous lineup, all of the games were tense. In fact, they were so tense that, for some of the games, I only watched the part of the games when the Red Sox were batting. The Sox won in six but they gained something more than just a championship; they were now seasoned and prepared to play against St Louis. 

St. Louis was a scary team like Detroit except that the Cardninals had a very strong bullpen. Add to that the sloppy defensive play by the Sox in games 2 and 3, it didn't look good for a while until the Sox returned home and took a 6-0 lead in game six. It was great to watch my team win it all and thus prove to yankee fans again that the Curse is over and that they can win without Ramirez. 

Before I get into the negative stuff, we should note that the sportsmanship and respect that the teams in all of the Sox's series had for each other was simply wonderful. There was no trash talking, there was only mutual respect paid to the opponents by the players of each team. In doing this, the players provided a wonderful example for PARENTS across America who have children in sports.

However, there was something that Sox manager, John Farrell, said during the post game celebration following game six. In talking about the fan reaction to the championship, he talked about how important the Sox were to the people in Boston. And it is at that point, we need to step back from the fun and feel-good frivolity and ask questions about ourselves. We should ask ourselves why the accomplishments of given sports teams are so important to us. We should also ask what are we ignoring when we focus so much attention to a sports team. Finally, we should ask ourselves how much life are we really living if we are constantly living through the accomplishments of others.

Why are the accomplishments of a given sports team so important to us? There are a number of reasons. Sports, like other forms of entertainment, provides an escape from the reality that is pressing in on us. And we do need breaks from a real world. The problem becomes determining how many breaks we really need in order to be refreshed from taking so many breaks that we are simply trying to escape the world by burying our heads in the sands of diversion. We should also note for those of us who closely follow their favorite sports team that the time and resources needed to follow any particular team often shows an economic privilege. That is that one can closely follow a team if one's own economics allow for the time and resources needed to do so. Some people are just too busy just making a living or helping others to dedicate themselves learning everything they can about a particular team.

The next thing we should ask ourselves is whether we are spending so much time following our teams that we don't know what is going on in the world. Often, we don't even know that a given  country being reported on exists let alone is suffering. That is what happens when we venture to follow and learn so much about fantasy or irrelevant worlds that we neglect to learn what we need to in order to become responsible voters and citizens. Our lack of knowledge prevents us from loving our distant neighbor in meaningful ways. And the louder we turn up the volume when listening to a given sports team, the less able we are to hear the cries for help from our neighbors. Watching a game often becomes just another reason why we pass up the man who was robbed and beaten on the road to Jericho. 

Finally, we need to ask ourselves about the quality of our own lives if most of the accomplishments we have come vicariously through others. We often follow sports teams because of the significance it adds to our esteem when they win. When one's team wins, there is a certain pride one takes in the accomplishments of others. When your team wins, you are guilty of winning by association. Choosing the right team to root for then is like being a consumer who looks for the right product to buy.

But how much more fulfilling would life be if we achieved more on our own than vicariously through others. And if we are going to  experience success by cheering for others, why not root more for those who are on the other side of the financial tracks who are competing just to live or to overcome harsh obstacles. Our cheers and support would mean far more to those who are struggling to live than to millionaire athletes who are merely trying to win a championship. If those from the latter group lose, they can return to comfortable homes and compete again next year. But if those who are down and out lose, it could mean their lives.

It isn't that we should not enjoy cheering for our favorite teams and celebrate their successes. It is that we make such alliances and celebrations with teams too important and consuming of our lives. When that happens, we lose touch with reality especially the reality of those who are struggling. In addition, the joy we feel when our team wins becomes an anesthetic that prevents us from feeling the pain of others or even our own future. Finally, when we make following sports teams too important we end up breaking God's command to love your neighbor for we have spent too much time not doing enough for others who really need our support.