Strike is On
The owners have been harping for the last week that any new teams must be approved by the owners' meeting on September 29. Well, the owners appear to not know their own rules. According to the "2004 Baseball Agreement" (PDF file in Japanese), Chapter 6, Paragraph 31:
The club which wishes to acquire the participation qualification of this organization must obtain the approval of Executive Committee as well as the owner meeting by November 30th of preceding year of to which said club will participate. [...]
Oops. How did the owners miss that? How did they think that a new team had to be approved by them by the end of this month? Do they not even know the very rules that govern themselves?
The most galling attempt to legitimize the merger was the owners' simulation for next season. Instead of using an economic professor's numbers which showed that everyone would bennefit more with the 6-6 configuration, they used 2003 income/outcome (?) numbers with some formula for calcuating additional income for games against the Giants. Then, when they've got all the negative numbers, they say that 35-oku yen in the read for the merged Orix-Kintetsu team is less than the 28-oku + 29-oku (57-oku) yen loss of the two teams combined. This looks very fishy to me. Like they're manipulating the presentation to say what they want to say.
As for possible additions, there are three groups interested in joining these read ink dripping old men in hope of breathing new life into the game. The most "traditional" of these is the owner of the Shidax. But he seems to be a bit adverse to controversy and is thinking about joining NPB two or three years down the road. Livedoor's Horie-president has turned in his application to join yesterday (Thursday, September 16). And Rakuten's Mikitani-president says that he'll be applying within the next week.
Each of these three has various parts of what they'll need to join. For example, Shidax has a team, staff, and the knowhow to run a team.
Horie has been working hard the past couple of weeks, getting a committment from Miyaki Prefecture's Sendai city's stadium as a home base, and is considering purchasing the Industrial League's JT (Japan Tabacco) which is based in Sendai (and recently finished fourth in one of the major tournaments this year). JT is considering disbanning their team with 80-90% becoming office staff only.
Mikitani has just gotten started on his quest to join the NPB and has pretty much only talked about being based in Kobe at Yahoo! BB. Interesting enough, Yahoo! BB, owned by Soft Bank, is a rival of Rakuten.
Both Horie and Mikitani are thinking along the lines of taking the left-overs after the merger.
The owners for some stupid reason oppose change, they oppose any alternative solution to the merger. They oppose new ownership, there's were numerous alternatives to the merger.
- The owners expect to rule as feudal lords.
- The owners are terminally afraid to think outside the box.
Interestingly, I think MLB owners are pretty similar, if less extreme. Slightly less extreme.
While pretty much all of the teams held practice on Saturday, the players also went out of their way to setup signing events for the fans. There was report that some fans were a little disgruntled, but overall, the fans were very supportive.
Anyway, feable attempts by the owners to make them look reasonable included Hanshin's Nozaki-president saying that Furuta is making the decision to not avoid the strike on his own without the backing of the players. (Huh?) Also, he says that it's all a slight nuance problem (in reference to adding a new team) and that he'd be happy to enter into discussions for adding a team tomorrow. (What he fails to mention is that the owners have refused to discuss anything concerning the 2005 season and were only willing to conceed discussions for 2006.)
Chunichi's Shirai-owner gets the award for most absurd comment. He's quite upset about losing the Giants' money card this weekend, and is even more so about the possiblity that this strike may consume the Dragons' chance at becoming Nippon Ichi. But to say, "If this season becomes invalid, all of the individual records also become invalid. Like, there was (Giants' Kiyohara's) 2,000th hit." That just goes a bit overboard. In fact, Furuta, who made the final decision, only needs something like 24 hits in the next 20 games to reach 2,000 himself. Two games may make the difference!
Speaking of the possiblity of two games being lost, one of the administrative things that the players have now forced onto the owners is what to do about the 12 games (so far) that have been missed? More than Furuta's 2,000 hit possiblity, it makes a big deal in the Pacific League where these two games may make a difference between third and fourth place, positions that Lotte and Nippon Ham have been flip-flopping at over the past week. A lawer for the owners has stressed to them that they better not re-schedule the games without the players' consent. This makes the owners' allegations that the players' strike is unlawful a bit uninstantiated.
Finally, Nikkan Sports has a few poll questions and results:
Q1: This is the first strike ever for the players, but do you back the players' decision?
89% - Support
5% - Against
5% - Partially support
1% - Don't care either way
Q2: What about a further strike?
81% - Continue until a compromise is reached
9% - Strike the 25th and 26th, too
4% - These two days make their point
6% - Other
Q3: When should a new team be admitted?
91% - Next season is best
5% - 2006 season
1% - Not necessary
3% - Other
Q4: How should leagues be alligned in the future?
57% - The two leagues should expand
34% - Two leagues with 6 teams in each
3% - A single league
0.5% - Two leagues with 6 Central, 5 Pacific teams
0.5% - Two leagues with 5 teams in each
5% - Other
* 7,418 people took part in the on-line poll. As with any on-line poll, the results cannot necessarily be said to reflect the public as a whole, but merely the subset of the population that reads Nikkan Sports and has an opinion on the matter.
What Nikkan Sports' readership is doesn't matter. The majorities are so large that it shows support for the strike and the principles of the players.
Today's Nikkan Sports (a branch of Asahi Shimbun) reports similarly. The main focus in Nikkan is how much this is and may further cost the owners.
For Daiei, with their victory sales, it's estimated to be in the hundreds of oku yen. Daiei estimates a loss of about 5-oku (500,000,000) yen in just this weekend alone, with a 10-oku yen loss projected if the playoffs are cancelled. Seeing 20,000 fans lined up for 2.2 kilometers around Fukuoka Dome twice and its neiboring shopping center for a sign fest the players were putting on is a testament to Fukuoka fans' loyalty to their team (but not necesarily their owner).
Nikkan Sports' editorial board member Terao-san explained the frationing of the owners well when he said that it's now between those who are still hoping that the Pacific League will be reduced to four teams so that the Giants will join them or the leagues will merge, and those who are opposed to the Giants leaving. Hanshin, Chunichi, and Yokohama have been most vocal about stopping such a plan, and Yokohama's owner (I think it was) has expressed more than a passing desire to see more teams added.
I don't think that the owners thought that the players would go through with a strike, even for one day, let alone two. Now they're not so sure of themselves anymore. Their whole world is falling down around them. Having Watanabe-ex-owner ditch them when things started turning on them didn't help the owners. Watanabe is still seen having dinner and lunch meetings with many people involved on the managerial side of baseball, but he tells off the members of the press when they ask what lunch was about, stating that all he has to say to them (other than his scolding) is "no comment." He's still very much up to no good. But it doesn't look like his influence is as strong as it once was.
Hoshino for Commissioner!
Here's a sample from the Sep 19 editorial (the translation appeared in the Daily Yomiuri today):
"Some people hold management responsible for forcing the players to resort to a walkout because of the owners' stubborn stance concerning the new entries in the NPB. This attitude is questionable. Applications to enter the pro leagues must be assessed with the utmost care. Management's uncompromising attitude reflects the fact that there have been a number of failed teams in the past."
Yes, but of course this whole thing started because of the haste in which the owners pushed through the merger plans. I would suggest that any changes in the current setup should be assessed with the utmost care, including mergers. And I believe that's all the players originally requested.
Another gem:
"Prudent evaluation is indispensable in determining whether the heads of companies applying for franchises have an adequate sense of responsibility and are sufficiently conscientious to operate professional baseball teams and whether their companies are sound enough to support their entry bids."
Mmmm. With Daiei on the brink of bankruptcy and Kintetsu crying poor, then they should be welcoming newcomers, not putting obstacles in their way. As far as "sense of responsibility" and "concientiousness" is concerned, I think it's obvious who's lacking these character traits.
I just tuned in to the Tigers-Swallows game today, and saw Furuta entering Jingu to wild applause from both sets of fans. Obviously public support for the strike action is real. The owners are in a hole, that's for sure.
The Fukuoka Daiei Hawks have drawn 3 million fans for the second straight year. Daiei is losing money not because of the baseball operation but due to other Daiei's corporate operations and decisions.
Why can't the owners simply let a company like Rakuten purchase the Hawks and LiveDoor buy the Buffaloes? In 1989 Daiei bought the Hawks from Nankai and Orix took over the Braves/BlueWave from Hankyu.
Also, look at the Lions' trail of ownership changes from Nishitetsu to Taiheiyo to Crown Lighter and finally Seibu. The list goes on and on.
So NPB owners, please admit you made a mistake for the best interest of baseball, including fans and players. Let people with new ideas and more cashflow enter your world for the present survival and future growth of the sport.
The TV talking heads interpreted this as a "stern comment" for the baseball powers-that-be."Baseball is popular in Japan: it has a broad support base. I'd love to see Japanese baseball not contracting but expanding."
Meanwhile, Whatshisface Horie, president of NPB aspirant LiveDoor, was scathing of the NPB's view that there's not enough time to add another team for 2005. Horie said:
With the groundswell of popular support for the players and the new entrants, surely the owners will capitulate. Well, in a perfect world, maybe."They say that there's not enough time to add another team for 2005, but I think it's the opposite, I think there's too little time to carefully remove a team by next year."
Horie-san is right. With a bit of work from the leagues, not only LiveDoor, but Rakuten and Shidax could be in place for the start of next season. NPB just has to do a bit of work for a change.
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Michael Westbay
(aka westbaystars)
Founder
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G
Going into extra innings in their talks, the Owners have struck out against the Players in their negotiations.
The talks were extended for two hours after they should have ended at 5:00 this evening (September 9, 2004) in Tokyo. However, approaching 9:00 the announcers on TV and Yahoo! Sports Baseball News (in Japanese) had nothing. Then, just now (9:05) on TV Saitama, they announced that the games scheduled for this weekend have been cancelled due to strike.
More info as it comes in.