The Boondocks by Aaron McGruder for April 12, 2010
April 11, 2010
April 13, 2010
Transcript:
Caesar: Sure, it's gonna be kind of a gloomy week, but...at lease the baseball strike was averted! Huey: What a relief. I can continue ignoring pastime uninterrupted.
This reference to ending the baseball strike brings to mind the decree of Federal District Judge Sonia Sotomayor, a Bronx native, who intervened more forcefully than most lawyers expected any judge to dare to do. It may not have been legal, but it restored the season - and the negotiations - so that any appeal would obviously be moot. And a settlement was better than some eventual ruinous verdict anyway. Plus, she realized all that from the start. Smart lady. That was back in 1994, eight years before the year the strike threat mentioned here was averted, but it was an effective “warning shot” for the ages.
I don’t think baseball players have the kind of time for education that those football players have! Pro football is about 20 hours a year of actual playing time, while baseball is at least 200. I think it’s OK to link salaries to the amount of work done.
Whether there should be free market capitalism is a valid question, but its answer is ideological.
Even if the right answer is to go with majority opinion, it’s a question of degree, not of principle. I don’t think America would ever want a law that pro baseball, football or basketball players must get the same pay as biathletes, curlers and show-dog handlers in order to be true to a principle of fairness.