LETTERS TO THE EDITOR: Ignorant Conclusions

Peter Morrison ("In the Spirit of the Game", DP 1/16/95) ignorantly concludes, "Make no mistake, the owners are to blame." Morrison attacks the owner's demands for a salary cap as based upon "flawed and self-serving" reasoning. It is Morrison, however, who exemplifies "flawed reasoning" in his superficial analysis. Whereas in other competitive businesses, management makes decisions to maximize profit, in professional sports profits are often sacrificed in order to win. Likewise, winning teams do not always make profits. As a result, owners like the New York Yankees' George Steinbrenner and the Baltimore Orioles' Peter Angelos, who are willing to lose money on their hobby of owning a baseball team, have spent enormous amounts of money that have sent the salary market spiraling upwards. Teams such as the Pittsburgh Pirates and the Seattle Mariners, without comparable sources of revenue, are unable to compete at this salary level without spending massive amounts of money that they cannot afford to spend. Morrison proposes revenue sharing as a panacea to baseball's woes. Revenue sharing in baseball, however, is not a feasible solution. Even if teams were to share all revenues evenly amongst themselves, the problem of artificially high player salaries would persist due to the willingness and ability of independently rich owners to lose money. A salary cap is the only reasonable answer. It is not a coincidence that the two professional sports organizations that have not been victimized by damaging labor disputes in the last year, the NFL and the NBA, have salary caps. It is time for Donald Fehr and his player's union to abandon their excessive greediness and strive for a comprehensive labor agreement that ensures a competitive game. PAUL DILLER Wharton/Engineering '96 To the Editor: Ian Blake ("Adventures in Holiday Shopping", DP 1/18/95) seems to think that the best way to confront overt racism is with overt homophobia. He seems oblivious to the fact that he is trading one form of oppression for another, equally disturbing one. Mr. Blake's desire to have "vengeance" on the white security guard who monitors his shopping and tries to goad him into shoplifting is completely understandable. That African-Americans must still confront such profound bigotry both saddens and angers me. But I am horrified at his method of coping with the situation, which was to transform himself into his own vision of a wretched, repulsive monster: a gay man making a pass at another man. Mr. Blake's "portrayal" of a gay man is insulting, twisted, and ignorant. Then again, attempts by one group to impersonate members of another, whatever the reason, have never been terribly accurate or enlightened -- as Mr. Blake himself should know. Twice Mr. Blake calls this scenario "scary." It's scary all right, but not for the reason which he assumes. It's scary because Mr. Blake has gone from victim of prejudice to perpetrator with barely a thought for the implications. Mr. Blake apparently believed he could starve the forces of oppression (if only temporarily) with his "hilarious" performance. In reality, he has offered them dangerous nourishment. ED KAKO Graduate Student, Psychology To the Editor: On January 16th, the DP's lead headline read, "Judge gives ex-student 20 more years". Reading the article below showed that he was sentenced to three more years than the original sentence, bringing the total to twenty. On January 17th, the DP's lead headline read, "SFS mistake creates false refund offer" and "Lines of students let down." Reading the article showed that according to an SFS staff member ten people had been "let down" as of 2:30 p.m. There were no other facts as to the numbers, except for the writer's claim that within a space of five minutes four people were seen coming out complaining about the mix-up. On January 16th, the DP's headline said "U. Massacred" and "Penn dominated in every phase". Both statements are ambiguous and could be taken to mean that Penn had won. For an institution that's so ready to jump on other people the moment they make a mistake, the DP seems to be given to distorting facts and just plain bad proof-reading. VIJAY KRISHNA Graduate Student, Physics