Roki Sasaki may be under contract with an MLB team next season, two years before he and the Lotte Marines are eligible to cash in on the riches that would be theirs if he moved as an international free agent, instead of as an international amateur, as defined by MLB’s collective bargaining agreement with its players union.
I have spoken to people with some knowledge of the situation, and have a good idea where the leak occurred that Sasaki will be posted. But I am not here to tell you that he will or he won’t. Even if the Marines agree to let him go, the final decision would be Sasaki’s, not his agent’s and not the sports marketing company that has a stake in him.
Instead, I want to explain how it might take place.
Growing up in Redwood City, California, on the San Francisco peninsula about an hour south of “The City,” the Giants were the local team and Candlestick Park was a wondrous place.
A few years after I lost interest in playing Little League baseball, I began to really get into listening to Giants games on my transistor radio about the age of 13 in 1973. If you were a Giants fan in the 1970s, you became used to hearing about the lack of fans at the games.
It was common for owners and players blaming the customers for not coming out to see a mediocre product in a ballpark that was not easy to get to from anywhere except the rundown neighborhood it bordered.
As I got older, I realized how messed up it was for any business to complain about its customers, and remembered thinking that people would laugh at a bowling alley owner for doing that. But when MLB owners said it, the media would treat it as if there might be truth to it.
