It would appear that the owners and the player's union, in their heated negotiations toward (or away from) a new collective bargaining agreement, have forgotten that there is a third party whose needs and wishes need to be taken into account: the fans.

The owners and players are, essentially, arguing about money. How much of it there is, and who gets to keep what portion of it. What they seem to be forgetting is who the belongs to in the first place: the fans.

Who pays for tickets, buys concessions, buys jerseys and souvenirs, watches the games on tv and listens on the radio? The fans.

I will not make any grand claims about who the game "belongs to." Without the players, of course, there is no product. But if the guys just wanted to play, there are park leagues all over the country. The owners and front offices are needed to make the game into the big business that it is. But all their efforts go for nothing if they are missing one key ingredient: the fans.

Sometimes, they say, what the fans want is at odds with the "integrity of the game." The fans want offense, the fans want shorter games (or longer games). There are many spurious claims about "what the fans want" made to justify changes made to the game. Spurious because it's an illogical leap to say because fans like it when a beloved star hits a home run (listen to those cheers!), therefore they will like it if the ball is juiced, or if the players are juiced, or if the fences are shorter. That's wrong. There is one group of people who will suffer if the integrity of the game is compromised: the fans.

So some fans are doing something about it. Upset about contraction, labor squabbles, and other stupidities of baseball, fans around the country have decided to "strike first." A nationwide boycott of Major League Baseball is on for July 11th.

The Fan Strike concept came up independently in the minds of several fans around the country who began rallying people to their cause. These separate groups have now unified for July 11th, the day of the first regular season game after the All Star Break.

Will the owners or the players even notice? No one can predict. The likelihood that the stadiums will be competely empty, or that the Nielsen ratings show 0.0 for baseball games on that date, is very slim. Even if every baseball fan in America agreed to go along with it, informing them all is no simple task. But the MLB Fan Strike web site is receiving thousands of hits per day, and the MLB Fan Strike organizers have recruited "reps" in each city that will host a major league game that night.

I've signed up to boycott on July 11th. They're asking a lot. July 11th would be my first baseball fix after the layoff of the All Star game (which I don't count, especially during a pennant race!). But I'll do it. For the good of the game.

(For more information: MLB Fan Strike web site)