Cancellation Is Blow to Fans, Big A Workers

While baseball fans wonder whether Matt Williams could have broken Roger Maris’ home-run record or if Frank Thomas could have won the Triple Crown or if they’ll ever forgive major leaguers enough to attend another game, Trent Breitenbucher wonders whether he’ll ever return to work.

The baseball strike and subsequent cancellation of the season Wednesday not only cost Breitenbucher his job selling souvenir programs at Angels games, he also lost his day job in the team’s customer service department, where he had worked for the last seven seasons--a very cruel Angels double play.

“I’m getting unemployment now,” said Breitenbucher, a 45-year-old Corona resident who earned more than $2,000 a month from both jobs. “Financially, it certainly has been a setback for us, quite a loss of income. I have to be concerned about my family and their welfare. Meanwhile, we have a bunch of millionaires arguing against billionaires.”

The players have already lost more than $150 million in salary and baseball owners may lose more than $600 million in revenue because of the strike, but the biggest losers are people like Breitenbucher and the other 1,100 temporary employees of Anaheim Stadium who are out of work, and the baseball fans who live for the excitement of September pennant races and October playoff and World Series games.

“It’s disgusting, and as a fan I feel cheated,” said Mark Tuerffs, a 38-year-old Yorba Linda resident and longtime Angels season ticket holder. “I don’t know where I am. I can’t go out on my patio at night and hear (Dodger announcer) Vin Scully. . . . I’m a rotisserie league player with nothing to do. I’ve had to concentrate on my family and work. It’s been a miserable summer!”

At least Tuerffs still has his job as partner of an Orange County food and beverage flavoring manufacturing company. Richard Geske, a 43-year-old Brea resident, hasn’t been so fortunate.

Geske spent the last three years juggling two jobs during the baseball season, rushing from Unocal Corp., where he was a researcher, to Anaheim Stadium, where he was an Angels usher. The baseball strike eliminated his supplemental income, and Geske found out last week that he’ll be losing his Unocal job because his research unit is being sold to a private company.

“The stadium had just been a fun thing, but now I look at it as income that would have really helped,” Geske said.

Most stadium employees--ticket sellers, ushers, parking lot attendants, concession stand workers--still get to work home games for the Los Angeles Rams. But many said Wednesday that 10 football games do not begin to make up for the last 21 games of the baseball season that they will miss.

“I’m kind of broke,” said 20-year-old college student Dina Tasso, who said she makes $35 to $100 a night selling popcorn, peanuts and candy at a mobile concession stand. “This is my only job, period. It’s the only job I’ve ever had. I was hoping it wouldn’t come to this. It makes me mad.”

Pete Carr, a 69-year-old Santa Ana resident and retired Marine Corps sergeant, has worked as a parking lot attendant for 11 years, earning $30 a game. He is angry about the strike.

“We’re losing our jobs and this is supplemental income for us old guys on Social Security,” Carr said. “Why should these players get millions? I don’t think these guys are worth it.”

It’s certainly not the first time baseball has alienated the public. There have been eight major league work stoppages since 1972, including the 50-day strike of 1981, which wiped out 712 games, and the 32-day spring training lockout of 1990.

Many fans said they’d never come back after the 1981 strike, and many threatened to boycott games after the 1990 lockout, but they still flocked to stadiums, setting attendance records almost every year throughout the 1980s and early ‘90s.

But this is the first time in 90 years that the World Series, America’s most revered sporting tradition, will not be played, and some believe the cancellation will cause irreparable harm to the game.

“I think this will tick a lot of people off,” said Ricky Kikuchi, a 27-year-old financial analyst from Chino Hills. “It seems like neither side is going to budge, and I’m tired of it. The game has changed way too much.”

But will fans come back?

“Personally, I hope not, but it seems there are more fans than there is good sense,” said Dave Coombs, a 48-year-old Anaheim resident who owns three Orange County bike shops. “I’ve been an Angel season ticket holder for 15 years, and I’ll probably go back because I’d never be able to get seats as good as I have now.”

So will Horace Hertz, a 45-year-old partner of an Irvine accounting firm, but not because of his love for the game. Asked Wednesday if he cared that the baseball season was ending, he said, “Yeah, about as much as I care that Yasser Arafat is sick today. I just don’t even care. This whole thing is absurd. I’m totally indifferent.

“I follow baseball, I’ve had Angel season tickets for 15 years, and the only reason I won’t give up my seats is because my son likes going to the games. Otherwise I’d cancel them tomorrow morning.”

Tuerffs said he’ll be back too. He and neighbor George Stubblefield, a 38-year-old area sales manager, still have eight more stadiums to visit in what has become an eight-year quest to see all 28 major league parks.

“But I’m on strike too,” Tuerffs said. “I’m not going to wear any major league merchandise--no caps, T-shirts, nothing. As long as this greed and the strike goes on, I don’t care if both sides get hammered.”

Joe Ryan, a 36-year-old real estate executive and longtime Angels fan from Fullerton, thinks Wednesday’s decision to cancel the playoffs and World Series may actually help baseball in the long run.

“If they had resumed the season now there would have been real low turnouts at games, and it would have just added fuel to the fire that people are tired of baseball,” Ryan said. “I do think people are burned out on baseball this year, and it would have come back on real weak footing.

“But time heals all wounds. If they can settle this thing in the off-season I think people will come back in spring training.”

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