A Rocky Road for a Fishy Expansion

Scott Pose, Jeff Conine, David Nied and Orestes Destrade. Danny Sheaffer, Vinny Castilla and Jim Tatum. Steve Decker, Alex Arias and Rich Renteria.

What do these men have in common? Two things. Neither you nor I would be able to pick them out of a crowd, and they're all on the rosters of the major league's two newest teams--the Florida Marlins and the Colorado Rockies.

It's okay that you don't recognize these names. You may have a life. But the fact that I'd never heard of these people until this year's spring training began is instructive. When Helen Slater asked Billy Crystal in "City Slickers" who was the third baseman for the 1960 Pittsburgh Pirates. I shouted out "Don Hoke!" before Crystal could read his line.

But there they are, the no-names. And with the possible exception of Destrade, who has been a successful player in Japan, none of them stands a chance of being a star.

There are two reasons why the Rockies and the Marlins don't have very good players, or even players whose names appear on anything but their birth certificates. Number one, the expansion draft allowed them to pick the cast-offs and longtime minor leaguers of other major league teams. And number two, baseball just doesn't have that many good players anymore, largely because the sport has been so badly mismanaged that children grow up playing other games instead.

But that hasn't deterred major league baseball, or these new franchises. This week, in one of the most ballyhooed debuts since the Ford Edsel, the Marlins and Rockies took the field. So far, their collections of rookies and cast-offs have a record of 1-4. That's a .200 winning percentage. It won't get much better.

But don't try telling that to Rocky and Marlin executives. Both franchises are mortal locks to draw more than three million fans this year--even if they both lose 100 games. This you can count on. For now, the teams are novelties. Novelties wear off.

Expansions are always tricky endeavors. Oftentimes, they look like good ideas, but there can be a nasty backlash. Take Saddam Hussein. One day, the U.S. government is secretly sending him money. So he decides to have the Iraqi army start a farm club in Kuwait, and the next thing you know American bombs are falling on Baghdad.

With baseball, expansion is pretty much the same thing, without the Patriot missiles. A well-planned expansion, like the 1969 addition of the Kansas City Royals, can go well. But if you don't pick the right market and form a team that wins games within five or six years, you have the Seattle Pilots. A washout in the Pacific Northwest, the team changed ownership and moved to Milwaukee to become the Brewers in 1970.

Expansion has given us some teams that added to to the rich history of baseball because they were so unbelievably bad. In 1962, an expansion franchise called the New York Mets joined the National League and lost 120 games--the baseball equivalent of getting a "C" in a Core course.

But new teams are far more likely to wreak havoc on the national pastime. And the evil they create can last far longer than the time it takes for them to reach the top of the standings.

When the Houston Astros began playing in the Astrodome in 1962, the new stadium had a glass roof. But the glare from the transparent panes blinded players. So some panels were covered over with white paint.

That, however, killed the real grass growing inside. But one stadium groundskeeper, who is certainly rotting in hell by now, came up with an idea that has strained knee ligaments and haunted the grand old game ever since Astroturf.

Plus, expansion hasn't been the cure-all that civic officials have hoped for. Toronto and Montreal both got teams through expansion, and Canada stands divided between its English and French speaking parks (though this can't be blamed entirely on any Blue Jay Expo rivalry, because they play in different leagues).

And consider the following list of ballclubs with expansion origins that have done little for civic pride: Seattle Mariners. Houston Astros, San Diego Padres, Texas Rangers, California Angels. Only one of these teams--San Diego--has been to a World Series, and it got clobbered. Plus, the Denver-based Rockies and Miami-based Marlins would do well to take note of the last two teams decision to use the names of their states rather than their home cities, Arlington, Tex. and Anaheim, Calif., respectively.

My initial contact with the teams doesn't give me much hope for their development into contenders.

And the teams don't seem very discriminating about the talent they recruit. I called both the Marlins and Rockies this week, advertising my 400 batting average during my senior year of high school (1 was 2 for 5 as a part-time outfielder for the Pasadena (Calif.) Polytechnic Panthers) and asking for a tryout.

Both teams were very encouraging. The Rockies said I could get a tryout simply by sending a letter and self-addressed stamp envelope to Major League Scouting Bureau, P.O. Box 1330, El Toro, CA, 92630.

The Marlins scouting office was even more accomodating. The woman answering the phone dutifully took down my name and number. She said they would send me a listing of their nationwide tryouts. And she said I should call back after the June draft. Then, presumably, we could talk contract.

While fans in Miami and Denver may be ecstatic, they should consider how much they're losing. In Florida, spring training used to be special. Now, the Sunshine State, which really isn't that pretty during the frequent summer thunderstorms which will no doubt wash out many a Marlin game, has a glut of baseball.

In addition, both Denver and Miami had minor league baseball teams. Now they'll get the same quality of play, though they'll pay more than $100 million for the privilege of starting these new teams Last year's minor league Denver Zephyrs vs. the Rockies in a best of seven series I'll take the Zephyrs in six, if only because they'd be more familiar with the new team's home park, Mile High Stadium, a structure perfectly designed for one sport football.

The Marlins will also inhabit a football stadium, Joe Robbie, though it makes a passable ballpark with a little bit of dressing up. The Rockies will stay in Mile High until construction on Coors Stadium (yes, it's named after the beer) is completed sometime later in the decade. This new stadium is already being billed as another Camden Yards, the year old Baltimore Orioles park which was widely praised by fans with short memories for being just like an old-style ballpark. In reality, Coors will turn out like Camden--a soulless, state-of-the-art ballpark which serve not only to rob the city treasury but also the popular memory.

Some will argue that expansions like this one are important because they introduce baseball into virgin territory, like the mountain time zone. That's a noble idea, but there are too many nasty side effects.

With 50 more major league jobs a year, there are fewer qualified baseball players. But the worst thing about expansion is that it lowers the quality of play fans will see, and that serves the purposes of no one. At least, almost no one.

The rich greedmongers who own professional baseball teams make a huge profit on these glorified, minor league franchises, even as they destroy the major leagues. It's easier for baseball to expand--and feel good about itself--than to look inward and face its real problems.

But in this way, baseball is only reflecting America. Everywhere now, we are asked to accept less quality for more money. Instead of making baseball a faster, more watchable game that attracts young people (which can be done with a few rule changes and discount tickets for children), the powers-that-be build new ballparks with corporate contributions and municipal funds. The end result is that too many baseball fans are lowering their standards. We don't expect better from the teams we see on the field. In fact, baseball, like our schools and businesses, is teaching us to accept mediocrity.

Opposing expansion is not anti-capitalist and un-American. On the contrary, it's un-American to let a national treasure be devalued right in front of our noses. Some say expansion is good because it gives people like Florida Marlin Scott Pose a shot at being a major league baseball player. But how much is that worth, when teams half-seriously consider giving a tryout to a Harvard sophomore who can't hit a curve ball?

Bigger is not better. James Michener's novels keep getting longer and less readable. Overhead costs are bankrupting the newly renovated, expanded Crimson. Gandhi, the movie, might have won an Oscar, but it would have been just as good--if not better--without the second reel.

Certain people in Florida and Colorado still think differently, though. But I'll call them again in October, when their views may be colored by the deep, dark despair of last place.

If, that is, I can still remember their names.