Editors note: As of press time, an agreement had yet to reached regarding the labor strike.

Let us assume, since you’re reading this today, that baseball resolved nothing last night and have since gone on strike for the NINTH time since 1972.

It is not a difficult thing to assume.

Hell, I’ve banked on a strike since Monday, the day I began putting this column together.

But now, let us assume something much more difficult to prove: You’re grumpier than Lou Pinella after an inept call at the plate about this.

Because if you’re upset about the strike, that means, at one point, probably a long, long time ago, you cared about baseball.

I certainly did.

But do you now? After all that’s happened this year? These past seven years? After how extraordinarily easy baseball has made it for a fan not to care?

Do you care?

I don’t.

The steroids, the money, the World Series games starting too late for the Eastern time zone kids to watch, the second baseman homering to the opposite field – really, this list is longer than the Oscar speech from the actor with a large family and a lot of gratitude.

It’s interesting. Our country was founded on a premise that The Man should not be trusted; He should be revolted against, kicked in the teeth. We should have blatant disrespect for Him, form unions against Him, make peace signs that He’s opposed to.

And now, with my generation playing professional baseball, The Man is the one making sense, the one wanting to curtail the wildly extravagant salaries my generation demands, hoping to give small-market teams a chance in October and wanting drugs to tarnish the game no more.

Baseball owners know a salary cap – where no salary exceeds a pre-set limit – isn’t going to happen. But they hoped a luxury tax might.

This would have placed a tax on any team’s payroll next year above $112 million. It would have helped retard the salary growth.

The players wanted none of it.

The players also never resolved the details of a random drug testing program, which included “recreational” drugs like cocaine, which is so recreational John Entwistle, The Who’s bassist, died from it this summer.

Nor was increased revenue sharing agreed upon, which would have given some profit, after deductions, to a pool that would have redistributed the money evenly to all 30 teams.

Not that baseball is in the black anyway.

Last December, baseball commissioner Bud Selig told Congress his sport lost nearly $1.4 billion over the past six seasons. Only five teams made a profit in 2001, he said.

Alex Rodriguez, the shortstop for the Texas Rangers who makes $21 million a year, told the Associated Press last week he’d take a 30 to 40 percent cut in pay if it’d help baseball.

Wow. That’s great. But first stick your 25 karat gold medallion where your platinum-plated teeth are.

And it’s not like baseball is well-liked either.

This month, a poll ABC News conducted found that fewer than three in 10 Americans are baseball fans. Forty-four percent said they were fans at the start of the season.

So why should we care?

We shouldn’t.

We should quit watching baseball. Whenever it returns.

We should quit buying baseball memorabilia.

We should quit thinking of baseball in terms of how great it once was and can be again.

People will come, Ray. If they want to give a farewell to baseball, yes, people will most definitely come.

People will come from miles away for reasons they can’t easily explain.

People will pay their $25 ticket because they’re used to paying their $25 ticket. This is modern baseball, after all.

And people will take their seats, the view not as good as hoped, and watch baseball, modern baseball, which is not the sport that made this country great, but resembles much of what’s hurt it.

And people will listen to rock music between batters and perhaps miss a couple of innings because of the amusement park behind the stadium.

And people will marvel at the retro-style park recently assembled and paid for with the people’s money.

And then, people will stand during the seventh inning stretch with fists raised, giving baseball its final salute.

Middle fingers reaching for the sky.

Paul Kix is a senior in journalism and mass communication from Hubbard.