The fans come, millions more than ever before. The television networks pay, millions more than ever before. The teams profit, millions more than ever before.
The steroid era did not kill baseball, or injure it. Baseball absorbed a pretty stiff beating at the hands of Congress, and not undeservedly.
But after the last strike, attendance tumbled. After the steroid hearings, attendance soared. The fans have made their peace with the steroid era.
Tom Wilson doesn't buy it. He's a fan, a producer from Los Feliz. He loves nothing more than a day at Dodger Stadium.
Baseball sacrificed its integrity, he says, and there ought to be a way for fans to express their disgust without depriving themselves of a trip to the ballpark. He has just the way, or so he hopes.
He'd like to sell you a foam asterisk -- same as those foam fingers fans wave, except in the shape of a star. Booing isn't enough, he says, and throwing a syringe on the field is too much. Wave the asterisk, and take a stand.
He lugged 100 of them to Dodger Stadium two years ago, on a day the Giants were in town. He says he sold out, before guards shooed him away. He carted 1,000 to Shea Stadium in New York last year, on a day the Giants were in town, and he says he sold out there too.
The closer Barry Bonds gets to Hank Aaron's all-time record, the better for Wilson's business. This is about Bonds, isn't it?
"It's not about hating," he said. "It's about love of the game. It's about Barry Bonds and everybody else. He's not alone."
Bonds and the Giants come to Dodger Stadium this week, and Wilson would love to see asterisks rippling through the crowd. He won't.
He approached two major novelty manufacturers last year and said both refused to make the asterisk, for fear of losing huge accounts with Major League Baseball. After he found a guy in Texas to make the asterisk, he called around the country but could not find a sports store that would carry it, for the same reason.
We called one of the novelty manufacturers -- Wincraft, based in Winona, Minn. -- but no one there would talk to us. We called one of the stores Wilson did -- Wrigleyville Sports, across the street from Wrigley Field in Chicago -- and asked buyer Tim Boucher whether the risk of jeopardizing the license to sell jerseys and caps had influenced the decision not to stock the asterisk.
"Yeah," he said, "to an extent."
