Viewpoint: MLB doesn’t need coin money

I, too, found the idea of a commemorative coin being struck with proceeds going to Major League Baseball (can I even say those words in a letter to the editor without paying MLB a royalty?) to be about the most offensive thing I’ve learned about in a long time.

Author:
NMN
Publish date:
Nov 5, 2012

By: Bruce Walker

I pretty much have to agree with David Harper on the state of commemorative coinage in the United States.

Here is a sport comprised of teams owned by billionaires, who lean on local governments to subsidize them, so they can continue paying outlandish salaries to players who are little more than mercenaries with zero team loyalty.

I mean think about this for a minute. The average pitcher in the MLB nowadays is getting around $5,000 a pitch. Intentional walk? Twenty grand! And these guys need the coin collecting community to step up and fund their hall of fame? Give me a break.

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The whole sport has pretty much been destroyed by greed, starting back when the first sky box was installed some years ago. If they are going to strike a commemorative for baseball, it should be for the death of the sport and the egalitarian ideals it once stood for.

And of course it doesn’t stop there. Just as Harper predicted, we now have a commemorative in the pipeline for the Lions – which of course will be followed by one for the Kiwanis, which in turn will lead to one for the Knights of Columbus, at which point there will be cries of separation of state and religion being violated since the Knights of Columbus is a purely Catholic organization. Can’t help but wonder where it will all end, perhaps a commemorative for Planned Parenthood?

Without question, the commemorative coinage program, run as it is by Congress, an august body occasionally sporting public approval ratings in the high teens, needs to be shut down.

The only other option, as I see it, would be turn the entire matter over to the U.S. Treasury Department with all proceeds retained by the Mint and subject matter determined by someone other than the corrupt, pandering bozos running our nation’s Legislature.

This “Viewpoint” was written by Bruce Walker, a collector from Kansas, City, Mo. To have your opinion considered for “Viewpoint,” send email to david.harper@fwmedia.com.