Chapter 74

The final game of the series was scheduled for a national TV broadcast, which gave Brock some additional time at home.

It also gave people additional time to call him to seek comment. Meredith had brusquely informed anyone who asked a question about the media blackout – which had extended to 25 of the 30 teams by Sunday afternoon – that it applied to the caller, too. Some teams, the Yankees, most notably, refused to participate. Many of their players lived and breathed for seeing their names in the paper or seeing their faces on TV. Four other teams, Arizona, San Francisco, Miami and Baltimore, also voted to continue with the status quo.

Brock wasn't bothered by the stance either way. It was a personal decision to him. He hadn't voted one way or the other. Still, everyone considered him to be the focal point of the protest, partly because of what he'd told the reporter in the video and partly because they ignored denials from Al Perez, Cesar Davis and the union heads of most of the teams.

One of the few calls Meredith fielded with anything close to civility was from Julie Archer. The league had begun to pressure the teams to put an end to the media blackouts. The league, because of the Collective Bargaining Agreement, was powerless in this instance. The players were not in violation of the agreement and could not be forced to participate in after-game media interaction.

The league hoped the teams would be willing to step in to mediate the disputes. Some probably did. The Dodgers didn't. Julie told Meredith that Victor Turturro had informed the Commissioner himself that the action was a direct result of the Commissioner's inaction – which didn't sit well with the former used car salesman from Milwaukee.

The final game in Los Angeles with the Giants wasn't as close as the previous two. The Dodgers scored six times over the first two innings and cruised to an 8-1 victory.

Just as with the games earlier in the season, the media was allowed into the locker room shortly after the game. They clustered around a rookie pitcher who had thrown seven scoreless innings for his first Major League win, fully expecting him to be the one to break the silence.

Neither Al nor Cesar had pulled the guy aside to remind him of his commitment. They hadn't needed to. The young man got dressed silently while the reporters fired questions at him and then departed without a backward glance.

The rest of the players followed suit, leaving the team's clubhouse media coordinator to usher the writers and correspondents back out of the locker room. The Giants were also silent, but not because they were boycotting the media. They were silent because the three-game sweep left them eight games out of first place with only 18 more to play.

The only non-game highlight shown on most television shows came from the stands. First, one of the Dodgers ball girls made a spectacular snag of a foul ball just before it smacked a fan in the face.

The other was because of the outfits that many of the women along the third base line wore to the contest. Knowing the game was to be televised nationally, "Brock's Beauties" had decided to coordinate their fashions for the game. Instead of all wearing the same T-shirt, they went for "Daisy Dukes" night.

The women all wore cut-off shorts – some cut higher than others – and white shirts tied beneath their breasts to display their midriffs. Brock's suspicion that they all met in the concourse before the game – because they all walked down the aisles together – was confirmed by Meredith and Randi after the game.

Brock was at least thankful that Meredith's shorts didn't have half of her butt hanging out of the back. Randi's were close to being that short but nothing was on display from her either. Some of the women skirted the team's decency requirements pretty closely but none were turned away by security, apparently.

The biggest surprise was that Melanie, Zoe, Emmy and Susan agreed to play along. Brock wasn't certain that Melanie or Susan even owned a pair of blue jeans. He hadn't seen either of them wearing then since college. Zoe and Emmy both dressed more conservatively than most Southern California women did.

The only problem that Brock could see with the entire set-up was that it was patently obvious who the bodyguards in the section were – because they had worn their normal attire.

Meredith still wore her outfit when Brock arrived home – but Randi had changed into her customary evening attire (cutoff sweats and a tank top). Meredith gave a pirouette when Brock opened the door to come in.

"Did you like our new look?" she asked.

"Was that your idea?" Brock wondered. There was no recrimination in his voice. He was just asked.

"Esmi and Mandy," Randi answered. "Meredith tried to be the voice of reason actually. You shouldn't be mad at her."

"I'm not mad at anyone," Brock replied. "I was just asking. It was really pretty funny. I told the Giants second baseman earlier in the series that our last home game was lingerie night for the section. I think he's going to skip their series with the Rockies that weekend to come down. Now, he's positive I wasn't joking."

"Don't let Mandy hear you've suggested that!" Meredith said.

"They'd never let us in," Randi told her. "They tossed a girl out last year for coming in wearing only a bikini top. They made her go out and put a T-shirt over top and told her they'd toss her again if the T-shirt came off during the game."

"But tank tops with no bra are OK?" Meredith asked. "I saw one woman at the concession stand who was spilling out of her top. I would rather see a bikini top than that."

"I don't make the rules," Brock commented. "I know they are really particular about that. I wondered if some of the fans would get tossed for having their bottoms hanging out of their shorts."

"What were you doing looking at other people's bottoms?" Meredith asked. She held her frown as long as she could before it turned into a smile. "I'm kidding. Regardless of what you read on the internet, women dress this way so people will look at them. It's a shame you didn't play tonight."

"It gave me more time to check out the fans," Brock said with a laugh. "I knew this was going to be my game off. We play an early game tomorrow. Fred has not hit well in day games so I'm going to play second. Jim wants everyone fresh."

"Is the boycott still in effect?" Randi asked.

"Looks like it," Brock replied. "I'm not sure if the other teams held firm. Tomblyn didn't even bat an eye. He got dressed and left while they were still trying to get him to talk."

"The Daily Sports Report ran an op-ed piece calling you 'spoiled and childish, '" Randi informed him. "I guess they finally got their servers back up this afternoon. They were still down when I checked this morning though."

"You both know I had nothing to do with this," he said with a shrug.

"So, apparently, do a lot of people," Randi replied. "They comments section was shut off for the piece so the fans started to post comments on other parts of the site. I only read a couple of them. One said the paper was a disgrace and another called it irresponsible."

"I'm sure a lot of people agree with what the paper claims about me," Brock told them.

"Some," Meredith agreed. Randi had agreed to be the one to inform Brock in case it caused him to get irate. "Even some at the game thought that. But you still signed autographs before the game. You still tossed a ball or two into the stands like you always do. That helped to show the public that this isn't about them. It's about the way that people in the public eye have been treated by the media in recent years.

"It's not just baseball players or athletes in general, it is actresses and musicians and authors. The media has come to expect that anything you do or say is fair game for publication. If you don't do something exciting enough, they'll print an unconfirmed rumor or innuendo from an unnamed source. Yes, you get a lot of money to entertain people. I understand that. But that doesn't mean you should be expected to sacrifice every moment of privacy or be pilloried because you have an opinion."

"I saw a country musician came out in support of gay marriage last week," Randi added. "She's not gay but she said that she thinks gays should have the right to get married if they want to. Most of her fans probably think the same thing but the media made it a huge deal. The only backlash she got was media-driven. The fans didn't stay away from her live shows; they didn't urge radio stations to stop playing her records. Her fans said, 'Gee, that's swell, ' and got on with their lives. It's the reporters who won't let it go. Personally, I think they hope she backtracks and then they can nail her on that, too. That's the way these people are. They are petty and insecure. They lack the ambition or the talent to write a novel so they wind up at gossip magazines or blogs. I wish I could take the same stance as you have. If I didn't have the new show to promote, I would do the same thing. I'm not sure anyone would notice but I'd do it just to support you. Sadly, the show depends on the free advertising that reviews give us so I'll have to play along. But I hope you know that a lot of people in Hollywood support what you're doing. They can't come right out and say it but they support it."

"I'm not doing anything!" Brock stated – again. "I told you: They didn't give me a vote. I wasn't in the room or even aware it had happened. I found out when everyone else did – when Al told the media to go screw after his home run. I'm glad it wasn't me who hit it because I would have answered questions from anyone but that woman and ruined everything. I'm not even pissed off at anyone but her. Sure, I was annoyed in Tampa when they acted like idiots. I get irked when some asshole sticks a camera in my face while I'm signing an autograph or chatting with a fan. But I recognize that they have a job to do and most of them do it as well as they can. The only person who set out to purposefully create mayhem was that awful woman from The Daily Sports Report. She is the only one I would have completely ignored."

"I know that but everyone else sees it differently," Randi argued. "Perception is reality. That's what the site was trying to do. They were trying to skew the perception in their direction by painting you in a bad light. I'm not sure why they thought they could get away with it. Maybe they just didn't realize how popular you are or maybe they've done it to others before and no one said anything.

"Brock, I know you know this. Editing a tape to present the case you want to present isn't new. It happens in coverage of criminal cases. It happens in political debates. It happens in interviews with controversial figures. Sometimes they edit the tape to keep someone from looking like an idiot. But others times they do it for the sole purpose of crafting public opinion. They use their forum to get other people to believe what they want them to believe. Most people won't go the extra step of verifying what they see is what actually happened. They will simply see it, believe it and start to think worse – or better – of the person in question. That's what has to stop. If you had actually said what they purported you to say, I would have little sympathy. I mean, we all get angry and say things we know we shouldn't. That's not what happened. They doctored the video to show you in a worse light than you deserve. Then they compounded it by shifting the blame."

"How did they do that?" Brock asked. He had made it a point to avoid coverage of the incident at all cost.

"They said that the video was edited by an independent web coordinator with no affiliation to the paper or the company that owns the paper," Meredith explained. "It was like what the agents wanted to happen in Las Vegas. They found some poor guy to shoulder the blame. The site said the guy had been reprimanded, whatever that means. They seemed surprised when people didn't take them at their word and wanted a statement from the man and to know exactly how he'd been punished. They posted a statement saying it was a personnel matter and couldn't be discussed."

"I thought he was unaffiliated with the company?" Brock asked. "Well, it doesn't matter. You know, people are giving them exactly what that company wants. They're getting hits on their website. People are buying their print copy. This is making them relevant when all we want is for them to go away. They are going to be able to raise their advertising rates and increase their profit margin solely because they misrepresented my statement. Does anyone think that's fair?"

Neither Meredith nor Randi could answer his question with anything more than a shake of her head.

The Dodgers wrapped up the National League the following weekend in San Diego. The Giants late-season collapse continued – the team claimed it was because of the injury to their starting catcher – and they slipped into third place in the division behind the Rockies.

The media boycott continued for more than two weeks. The league, frustrated in its ability to get the individual teams to force the players into line, finally announced that 'The Daily Sports Report' would not receive credentials to the playoff contests slated to begin the following week.

The union asked its reps to take another vote before deciding whether to agree to end its support of the blackout.

Only a few were surprised when the vote turned out identical to the one before it. Most players, it seemed, enjoyed the lack of intrusion in their lives. The union reps notified the leadership that the boycott would cease if the league followed through in the playoffs but not before. If the league wanted it ended beforehand, the credentials had to be pulled immediately.

The Commissioner was embarrassed again but gave his grudging admission that the players were within their rights but said it would be something the league would want to bargain over before the next CBA was ratified. Brock couldn't figure out why the man was taking such a hard stance. The media had never been kind to him and, indeed, frequently had portrayed him as a buffoon.

Al tried to put it into perspective before the team's final home series against the Padres.

"Most fans don't come to games, ' he explained, although that much was obvious to Brock. "They follow their teams through newspapers and radio – or now via a computer. You know, we extended our boycott even to the announcers employed by the team. The team could compel us to appear for an interview but they couldn't make us speak. That meant the last two or three weeks have been nothing but coaches and managers to present that aspect of the game to listeners. What would we do if the media suddenly stopped covering us? We'd become women's basketball, that's what. There would be no interest in us. Our attendance would drop. This is not supposition. This is a fact correlated from newspaper strikes in the 1960s and 1970s. It might not be as bad now. There are bloggers and Tweeters and all that other shit. The Mets almost folded in their first year because of a strike. They were horrible to begin with but they also couldn't get fans to notice them. If the papers hadn't gone back to work in March 1963, the Mets probably would have been relocated to Florida.

"Part of the Pirates downfall can be traced back to the newspaper strike in Pittsburgh in 1992. Remember, the Pirates were good then. Not only did the fans have no way to follow the team, the strike and strikes by those who sympathized also limited disposable income for a lot of fans. The lack of fannies in the seats and money for team-related items are part of what caused the payroll purge that led them to 21 consecutive losing seasons."

"But you said those facts aren't relevant today," Brock pointed out.

"They're not as relevant," Al corrected. "Yes, there would be other sources of information. But that's true of the WNBA and the soccer leagues that formed in the last 10 years. They started to great fanfare and lengthy media coverage. The stands were packed and people were buying their jerseys. The coverage dwindled. It always dwindles for women's sports. Don't ask me why."

"Because people don't care about women's sports," Brock said succinctly. "There are perhaps a dozen women's sports programs in the United States that can sustain themselves. UConn basketball springs to mind and maybe Tennessee's women's basketball. The rest of them rely on public funding because fans will not support them no matter how good they are. Believe me, I went to Duke. The women's program was as highly ranked as the men and they would see 200 fans a game. You might think that the decline of women's professional leagues stemmed from a lack of publicity but I think an argument could be made that the lack of publicity stemmed from the dwindling amount of fans in the seats. You saw how the country reacted to the World Cup win. There was talk of expanding the professional league in the U.S. But no one was willing to back a losing proposition so instead the league folded. Al, I agree that we have to have a healthy relationship with the fans. The point about connecting to fans outside of the stadium is about the only one I can completely agree with.

"But the relationship we had with the media wasn't healthy. We have given and given and given and gotten nothing in return. We're better off finding different venues to reach our outlying fans. Hell, Al, we're better off having a town crier go house to house and spread the news to those without an internet connection. Regardless of what you think, the need we have for media coverage is not great enough to permit the amount of intrusion into our lives that they expect to be granted. There have to be limits. For the last few years, we've allowed the media representatives to buy or trade or scare us into letting them whittle down the area that's solely our own.

"Personally, I think the locker room should be just like the clubhouse: off-limits to the media. I think those of you who want to speak about the game or are willing to subject yourselves to their questions should have an area set aside for that purpose. Those who don't want to talk should be allowed to dress in private and leave. I find it preposterous that I am expected to dress in front of females I don't know and wouldn't like if I did know them. I am positive that I'm not the only person who thinks this way. There was a guy in Cleveland two years ago; he refused to shower until the media left the locker room. They had to hold planes for him. They had to delay bus trips back to the hotels. They had to keep security working until Javier was showered, dressed and ready to leave. He claimed it was against his religious beliefs to allow a woman not his wife to see him without clothing. I'm not crazy about dressing in front of dudes I don't know. It's not a sexist thing.

"You know, I asked Chastity about how they're set up. I mean, if they allow reporters into the locker room before everyone is dressed. She looked at me like I was insane. She asked me why I would ask such a ridiculous question and she was appalled when I explained that we allowed access to the locker room at a certain time regardless of a player's state of dress because it's designated a 'work' area. She told me that even male coaches are not permitted in the locker room area until someone gives them the all-clear sign. We have a female trainer and now a female GM who wander around as if it's nothing. But that's off the topic. The other part of the coin is that we don't allow all journalists in. We allow only print, television and radio mediums. We don't allow bloggers in the locker room after games. We don't allow people who work solely for web sites. The CBA clearly prohibits those people, although the Supreme Court has classified them as journalists for Constitutional protection. That wasn't our idea. It was the owners who pushed for that."