Sean Joyce

It seems like whenever something good happens in Major League Baseball, the league finds a way to screw it up. This off-season seems to be another perfect example of that.

Sunday night, likely the high-water mark for baseball in the last decade, may also signal the beginning of the end of the way baseball is currently structured.

It seems that no matter what Major League Baseball does to try to reinvent itself and regain it's place as America's pastime, the commissioner, Bud Selig and Donald Fehr, President of the players union, have something to quickly remind everyone why baseball has fallen from its pedestal.

Only two days after Arizona's first-ever professional sports title, Selig and the rest of the money-hungry owners are thinking about moving the 2001 World Series champs to the American League.

From the looks of the series against the Yankees, George Steinbrenner might want to fight that idea.

A week ago, I couldn't stand the Diamondbacks, but after seeing the grit and determination they showed against the mighty Yankees, I have a place in my heart for them.

I don't want to see them moved to the American League. I want to see them line it up again next year the same way they did this year.

But let's not blame all of this on the owners. This all could be a moot point if either the players association or the owners can't get together and work on a collective bargaining plan.

Baseball has finally worked its way out of the hole that it dug itself with the strike-shortened year of 1994. The soon-to-be non-existent Montreal Expos owned baseball's best record, while Ken Griffey and Matt Williams were chasing the all-time unbreakable mark of 61 home runs in a season.

The agreement between the players and owners ends this off-season, which should be unsettling for all baseball fans. Once again, it seems that the fate of baseball will be placed in the hands of judges and arbitrators.

In my eyes, baseball can't take another hit like it did in 1994. Mark McGwire said at the beginning of the year that he would retire if there were another work stoppage this off-season.

How can a fan relate to players who refuse to play for only $5 million a year? Alex Rodriguez signed a contract last off-season for more than $250 million dollars. How is he ever going to spend all that money?

Strikes hurt fans the most. That's why tickets to games have skyrocketed. That's why the cost of a hot dog, beer or a soda is ridiculous. And that's why attendance figures are still way below the pre-1994 levels.

Baseball seems doomed for another Dark Age.

As a fanatic and a transported Arizonan, I don't want to see baseball follow its finest hour Sunday night with a display of greed and stubbornness of already overpaid players and owners.

Let the Diamondbacks defend what is rightfully theirs - the National League title.