Baseball Lesson Says First Strike Could be Out for Good
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Nothing, cos the GPA have take all the county squads out on strike over the removal of the Players Grant Scheme. An empty Croke Park in successive August Sundays, could the GAA sustain it, would the association ever recover? What would we do all summer? That’s the apocalyptic spectre that has raised its head this last week.
Sports Minister Brian Cullen certainly knows how to jerk the GPA’s chain. Speaking last week he suggested that government didn’t have the money to fund the controversial Players Grant Scheme. Then, in Croker the very next day, he appeared to do a major U-turn.
Tyrone’s Sean Cavanagh secretary of the GPA sez, this hokey kokey ain’t what it’s all about Mr Cullen, and he’s suggested that some sort of action may be on the cards if the Grants scheme is scrapped, particularly at a time when according to him, up to nine of the current Tyrone panel are out of work. This situation is replicated across the country.
Says Cavanagh: “I would imagine if GAA grants are completely thrown out there would be some course of action maybe down the line. On what that might be, I’m not too sure. Any players I’ve been speaking to, and any feedback I’ve been having from the GPA, is that something would be considered. They have been speaking with players from all different counties and they would be extremely angry if the grants were thrown out the window.”
Sean went on to say: “Over the last couple of years some of the public have been a bit more understanding towards the GPA. They realise not everyone in the GPA is looking for pay for play.”
Cavanagh and Cullen and indeed the dreaded Dessie would do well to look at what happened to baseball in the US when the players went on strike in 1995. It lasted 232 days, destroyed an entire season, and was only resolved through an injunction by Federal Judge Sonia Sotomayer who ruled against the owners. Even the President Bill Clinton, who in between having his cigar smoked by Monica Lewinsky, intervened and ordered the players and the employers to sort it out. They ignored him. The fall out still rumbles on in Baseball in much the same way as the post Civil War Divisions in Ireland rumbled on for decades.
Cavanagh says: “In the present economic climate – and the way an awful lot of guys playing GAA and spending their weekends away at training camps and not allowing them to have weekend or part-time work in the evenings – I would hope people would be a bit more understanding about the way things are than they would have been three or four years ago.”
People may be understanding, they also are getting it tight. Might not just be the best time to go on strike Sean if you’re reading. You heard it here first. Incidentally Sotomayer has just been appointed to the US Supreme Court by Barack (Ignorant Fecker From) Obama.
