ELItorial: Pats, Vaughn leave Boston for big bucks

By Nola Breglio

WAYNE STRAWBERRRY/NEWSMAKERS

Hey, are you from Boston? Are any of your close friends or relatives from Boston? If so, that's a shame. It wasn't too long ago that Los Angelinos mourned the death of sports in their town. In the past few weeks, a similar wave of despair has hit Beantown. After four decades in Massachusetts, the New England Patriots decided to move their franchise to Hartford. After months of posturing and negotiating, the Boston Red Sox lost their superstar first baseman Mo Vaughn and, in the process, missed the boat on all the other top power hitters up for grabs in the free-agent market. To top it all off, the Harvard Crimson went home humiliated after the 115th edition of the Yale-Harvard football game.

Now the Boston sports fans you know--perhaps those close friends and relatives--are probably even more passionate about their teams than most fans are. The Patriots have sold out every game in Foxboro Stadium since Robert Kraft purchased the team in 1994. It's notoriously difficult to get a seat at the Red Sox's Fenway Park. The fans fulfill their end of the bargain by attending games night after night, and how are they repaid? One team leaves and another can't get its act together to sign their top free agent and franchise player.

Fans have simply been removed from the sports equation in Boston. These days, it really doesn't matter how many people go to the games, how many games the teams win, or which players the fans love. It doesn't make much of a difference to your average team owner that Vaughn was the heart and soul of the Red Sox. For that matter, it doesn't make that much of a difference to Vaughn. Patriots quarterback Drew Bledsoe couldn't care less whether he plays in Foxboro or at Foxwoods, as long as that good old paycheck comes in the mail every week.

It's all business and no play, and it's all about who's worth more than whom. Last week's Forbes magazine released its annual rankings of the most valuable sports franchises in North America. If you're interested, the Dallas Cowboys are worth the most, weighing in at $413 million. The New York Yankees top the baseball ranks at $362 million, the Chicago Bulls have basketball's crown at $303 million, and the New York Rangers are hockey's most expensive team at $195 million.

These ratings come out, and the CEOs of the world sit back in their leather chairs at their mahogany desks and chew their pens, thinking, "How can I get my hands on a sports team?" They look at George Steinbrenner, who is considering selling his Yankees for 60 times the amount he paid for them, and see sports as one of the most lucrative ventures available to them and their corporations. "Get me one of these sports teams, Bob," they say to their underlings. Today's team owners are not sports buffs.

Kraft demanded a new stadium from the city of Boston. He didn't get it, and just like that, the Patriots were gone. That's the way it works in the business world. Vaughn demanded $13.3 million a year. Boston didn't have it for him. He's gone. Major League Baseball used to be exempt from antitrust laws because of its status as a sport, as America's Pastime. This fall, that statute was overturned: baseball now has to play by the rules of the business world. No one saw any reason to argue with the decision. No one saw any reason to deny that sports are not games anymore.

What could Boston fans have done to keep their beloved Vaughn in Boston? What could they have done to stop their football team from leaving them in its dust? Nothing. Even a gigantic human chain probably wouldn't be powerful enough to restrain Vaughn as he dashes out west to his $80 million contract.

Bostonians have to watch their teams go down the toilet, or to Hartford. They have to watch their players bolt from Beantown to Tinseltown, and there's nothing they can do about it. While they're at it, they might as well just close down Fenway Park and turn it into a museum, because that's what sports in Boston are rapidly becoming, anyway.

Just about all Boston is left with is the poor old Cantab. Then again, Harvard might be sharp enough to catch the trend, leave Cambridge, and get itself a new stadium deal in Fresno. Hey, Fresno State's mascot is a bulldog. The rivalry lives on! Watch out, Fresno State, here come the Cantabs.

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