WHO NEEDS BASEBALL? STRIKE WOULD HURT PLAYERS, OWNERS, BUT NO ONE ELSE CARES.

Byline: Larry Atkins

BASEBALL is on the verge of striking out on a path toward Armageddon, but I couldn't care less. Baseball lost me as a fan several years ago.

What baseball had better realize is that the national pastime has past its time, and that it can't afford another work stoppage. It's too late to get me back, but you can still save another generation of fans before it's too late.

Growing up as a kid in the late 1960s and early 1970s, I loved baseball. It was my favorite sport. I played catch with my father and with friends in my back yard and played several seasons of Little League.

I collected baseball cards - not to sell them on eBay, but because I idolized the players. The bubble gum wasn't bad either.

My father took me to many games at Veterans Stadium in Philadelphia. He even caught a foul ball that I still have today.

Through the years, I saw the Phillies' Mike Schmidt make barehanded throws to get a runner out at first base, Steve Carlton pitch masterful complete games and Willie Stargell of the visiting Pittsburgh Pirates hit a 450-foot home run.

I even saw the notorious Philadelphia fans boo the Easter Bunny, when his balloon failed to get off the ground during a promotion between games of a Phillies doubleheader.

Baseball was king in my neighborhood and in most neighborhoods in the country at that time.

Throughout the first half of the 20th century, baseball enjoyed a virtual monopoly when it came to professional spectator sports.

Pro football didn't become popular until the 1960s, pro basketball became big in the 1980s, and pro hockey saw its popularity increase in the 1990s.

Greed has been good for both the players and owners. Today's 850 active major-league players make an average of more than $2.3 million a year, or nearly $15,000 a game. In December 2000, shortstop Alex Rodriguez signed a 10-year, $252 million deal with the Texas Rangers. Major-league franchises are worth nearly $1 billion (the Boston Red Sox recently sold for nearly $700 million).

However, there are signs that baseball's popularity is in decline.

Today, there is too much competition for the entertainment dollar for baseball to continue its arrogance. NFL football games sell out and draw large television ratings starting in September. The basketball and hockey playoffs start in April and run until June.

That leaves only two months - July and August - in which baseball doesn't face any stiff competition from other sports.

Young people have other diversions. More kids play youth soccer than Little League baseball. There's also competition from the Internet, video games and skateboarding.

Most of the die-hard baseball fans are elderly. Every day you look at your local newspaper's obituary page, you can see the names of dozens of baseball fans who have passed on and won't be replaced.

The sad thing about baseball is that its most compelling element is the sport's storied history.

I haven't watched a complete Major League Baseball game for about two years. I would almost rather watch QVC or a Bob Saget sitcom rerun.

The game's just too slow and the aloof attitude of most of the millionaire players has turned me away to other diversions.

It seems as though the players and owners didn't learn anything from 1994's 232-day strike, which resulted in the cancellation of that year's World Series for the first time in 90 years.

Major League Baseball suffered a large dent in attendance in the years following that strike. This year, as of Aug. 1, the average per-game attendance has dropped 5 percent, or a loss of 1,533 fans a game.

You only need to look to Philadelphia to see the growing apathy toward baseball as a sport. In response to the team's consistent failures and numerous last-place finishes over the past 17 years, Veterans Stadium is consistently only one-third full. Attendance for the Phillies is artificially inflated through fireworks nights and giveaway days.

Despite the building of new ballparks in Detroit, Chicago and Pittsburgh, attendance in those cities has been disappointing.

Last month, 40 baseball Hall of Famers asked the game's owners and players to use a mediator to settle their work dispute. It seems unlikely that their plea will be answered.

The days of waxing poetic about the joys of baseball are over. Our nation turns its lonely eyes to Kobe Bryant and Kurt Warner, not Joe diMaggio. We can live without baseball - I've done it for the past seven years.

Baseball's owners and players have to realize that they can't live without the fans.

They had better wake up and settle this labor dispute, or their Field of Dreams will surely turn into a nightmare.

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Photo:

Philadelphia fans in Veterans Stadium express their views ona potential Major League Baseball strike before a Cardinals-Phillies game last week.

Rusty Kennedy/Associated Press