Strikes and Lockouts and Stoppages--Oh My!

It’s time to allow Darwin’s theory of the survival of the fittest to solve the baseball strike. The teams in the smaller markets who can’t survive go out of existence just like any other business that can’t show a profit.

This will eliminate those teams that masquerade as big league teams when in reality they are not better than the old L.A. Angels of the Pacific Coast League.

SHELDON DIEHL

Hermosa Beach

*

No baseball. No hockey.

All of a sudden, a 1-0 soccer game is looking better and better.

MARK BERGLAS

Irvine

*

What are David Stern and the NBA trying to do? By not locking out the players and not using harmful rhetoric, the league appears mature and pragmatic. This is much too radical for professional sports fans at this juncture.

STEVE DUE

Hollywood

*

With all the talk about greedy players and owners, the reality of today’s professional sports is being overlooked: The ordinary, everyday working person can no longer afford what sports is taking out of his or her pocket.

I don’t mean only the high costs of parking, tickets, food and drinks, but also what sports costs us in our everyday lives. A box of cereal costs more than $4, a good portion of which goes to an athlete for his endorsement. The same high costs are built into running shoes, clothing, hats, soft drinks and practically every other item of our daily existence. The networks pay millions of dollars to broadcast sporting events, and recoup the money from sponsors, who, in turn, raise their prices to us to recover those costs.

The players and owners are fighting among themselves over how to divide what they are taking out of our pockets. Maybe someone should tell them that the pocket is pretty much empty.

H. NORMAN SCHULMAN

San Diego