The Michigan Daily Edited and managed by Students at the University of Michigan Friday, June 18, 1976 News Phone: 764-0552 Basebdll's debauchement THE ACTIONS this past week involving the Oakland Athletics, Boston Red Sox and New York Yankees base- ball teams underscores the absurd monetary shenani- gans which threaten to make a shambles of a sport whose charm and lore have found a niche in the hearts of Americans for over one hundred years. If the signing two years ago of star aitcher Catfish Hunter by the New York Yankees for $3.75 million wasn't enough, the Oakland Athletic's eccentric owner, Charles Finley, staged one of the gaudier clearance sales of the century early this week when he sold two of his star players to Boston for $1 million a piece and another lu- minary to the Yankees for $1.5 million. However, Baseball Commissioner Bowie Kuhn Wednesday held up the transaction until he could in- vestigate this latest manifestation of big money taking over the sport. We hope the commissioner looks seriously into the FOR RHODESIA PANAMA CANAL/UB latest of the sport's sweepstakes. The bartering of name players for lofty sums has become rampant, and usually involves only teams whose coffers can accommodate the athletes' high price tags. Clearly, New York and Boston are two of the wealthier teams in their league, and, espe- - cially in the Yankees' case, fast becoming the only teams able to afford the cliched 'superstar". MIU JR The classic institution of baseball has held strong through the years. To see it degenerate into a battle of owners and bankbooks would be a national tragedy. Innocence lost at Loch Ness ... By JIM '[OBIN HAD TO WRITE this before they find the loch Ness Monster. A bunch of men with cameras are poking around that twisting tech in Scotland, and some morning this summer the New York Times, sponsor of the praject, will tell the world in held hetidlines that it can for- get one of its only remaining legends. the M onster wil be a \Monster n lintter, but just a damned ''amtphiittes reptile'' nr sanmething like that, a mere atnittii rather thian ppari' tion. They'll catch it nd dis- plas it and tie it down with soae L tin cluifi'atan, shun it in a tank at Sea Wtirld se middle-aged ladies in stunglasses and h'iir-nets can Itinch their hushands and say, "Rex, get ever here and look at this thing" 131aspheity'm llo% dare the New York Times- assault the mystic underwater castles of magina- tine where The Mtonster slinks and slithers! Don't they under- stand the delicious fear of a twelve-year-old first contemplat- ing Loch Ness and its -hideous reptilian treasure? Loch Ness -- the very sound of it is fog and darkness and mysterious, unseen presences. And new they mean to rob the senses of that shiver felt at night under flimsy sheets when thoughts of The Monster creep Upon the restless sleeper. Not that the adventure itself is without appeal. Far from it There is little I would like so much as to jettison this drowsy Ann Arbor summer in favor of the storied mOuntains and mists of Drumnadrochit, -Scotland, where the Times/Academy of Applied Science expedition is pursuing its quest. There's an- other word long departed from the popular tongue - expedi- tion. They used to careen off into jungles and canyons and up mountains all over the world; now adventure is passe. 'Told to find Dr. Livingstone, a modern day Ienry Stanley would probably beg off, claim- ing lost Traveler's Checks and an expired Diner's Club card. Ah, adventure. There is little left. A hardy adventurer of to- day named Robert Marx, a treasure hunter, recently de- clared to an Esquire writer, "Adventure is a full time thing with me, always was, always will be. I'm building this ship and that is what these con- now, you see, an authentic rep- funded scientists in Scotland lica of a four-thousand-year-old are intent upon. The conquest Phoenician sailing boat. I'm gon- of a myth, and a myth is no na sail the fucker from Israel more if smote with fact and to Yucatan, partly to prove that analysis and the light of sci- the Phoenicians got here first, ence. but mostly for the adventure of And so I take up the cause it man, for the adventure of it." of The Monster, and I weep But adventure is not conquest, for its approaching exposure. But more than for The Mon- ster, I weep for ourselves. If they find Loch Ness's legend, as they have climbed MutmiI Olympus to debunk the Greek uds life will lose one more seet piece of the thrilling, and the world will descend one step further toward that Doomsday of McDonald's and soap operas that beckons to man's blandness and cowardice. Not that The Monster can only be known through courage. Indeed, it is hardly as excitin" when confronted with anythint other than terror, or at least, - the sort of vicarious terror ex- perienced from across an ocean, through imagination alone. Im- agination is what is at stake; the loch is huge, wandering, shrouded in mist, cloaked in sober forests that warn off visi- tors - the perfect homeland for imagination. Here it can k run free. If they capture The y[ Monster, they'll capture the im- agination as well. The Monster will be but a "species," and Loch Ness will be only a "habi- Shfpa .:,tat." Some fool with a Polaroid SX- t l 1 70, the official camera of the s ; expedition, will put the mystery ' u of Loch Ness to rest this sum- mer, perhaps is doing it right now. Let us pray that a new one swims in from the sea. Jim Tobin is co-director of AP Photo the -summer editorial page.