Ron Fowler took in two openers last week. In San Diego, on Monday, he watched his baseball team lose by 15 runs. In New York, on Wednesday, he represented major league owners in the first round of negotiations for a new collective bargaining agreement.
The large-market owners gripe about how much money they hand over to small-market teams that might not even try to win. The small-market owners gripe about how large-market teams exploit economic loopholes so ruthlessly as to make a mockery of parity.
Fowler, the executive chairman of the Padres, is chairman of baseball's labor committee.