Otherwise, there's no telling how long mass media's pathetic coverage of the affair---from ESPN's melodramatic exaggerations of the threat posed by last-minute negotiations, to the uninformed ranting of the nation's sports columnists---would have continued.

Let's start with the "Exaggerated Sports Punditry Network," whose Web site was the first to report last Friday's agreement, with the headline "Season Saved." The dramatic phrasing brings to mind the image of jubilant, champagne-popping Suits carrying lead negotiators Donald Fehr and Rob Manfred out of the boardroom on their shoulders. The only problem is that the 2002 season was in about as much jeopardy as a rice cake in David Wells' kitchen. Unlike in 1994, when the two sides were so far apart that they didn't even bother to meet on deadline day, this year's argument was over numbers, not philosophy. Reasonable reporters forecasted a one- or two-day strike as the worst-case scenario. Still, this didn't stop SportsCenter from filling its Thursday night program with an insufferable series of histrionics. Could this be the last ever game at Cinergy Field in Cincinnati? (The last game in that antiseptic, giant-sized ash tray? Say it ain't so.) Could this be the last game the Expos ever play? (We'll never again see Brad Wilkerson don the Blue and White? This can't be happening!)

Of course ESPN looked classy next to the nation's daily editorial pages. We quite enjoyed pouring over the pages of letters-to-the-editor, where unconscious racism and jock-resentment left over from high school were apparently the impetus for vitriolic arguments like Those ballplayers are so greedy! Don't they realize they make 1,000 times more money than the average fan? Evidently, no one in the world is allowed to earn more money than Brett from Pataskala, Ohio.

Newspaper editors can perhaps be forgiven for not understanding the #1 Rule of daytime television: allowing "the average person off the street" to express himself is usually a disaster. But they ought to be downright ashamed of the way they let their columnists barf up so many uninformed column inches.

One after another, these lazy hacks complained about the "messed up priorities of millionaire athletes," goading more baseless anti-player sentiment among the public. Meanwhile, they patently refused to acknowledge certain indisputable facts: players threatened to strike only because baseball's unique labor laws would soon allow owners to implement their own labor system, without player approval; players compromised consistently throughout negotiations and owners did not; professional athletes are paid fairly reasonably by celebrity standards. (Alex Rodriguez, the world's best baseball player not named Barry Bonds, annually rakes in about as much as Lisa Kudrow, the world's fifth-best Friend not named Matt LeBlanc.)

The worst part of all of this is that as a result of the public and media hysteria---most often anti-player hysteria---the eyes of hard-line owners are filling with dollar signs. This probably means that the 2006 contract negotiations will be even more ugly, and thus the tremble in Rich Eisen's voice even more palpable. When that day comes, remember what we told you, because if you're just reading the daily papers, you won't have a clue.

Beowulf