Imagining a world without absurd player salaries and where fans rule supreme

Black Friday now signals the beginning of the Hot Stove Season, when sports media, TV, radio and print begin to demand that the Mets and Yankees “open their wallets” to spend as much money as possible to sign free agents of all wishful, faded or departed value.

While it’s unknown to what extent these credentialed and convinced influencers spend their own money to study their subjects — do they dig for tickets, parking, games on cable and streaming TV? — they don’t seem to mind or care.

Few even consider, let alone openly lament, the escalating costs for fans and family to remain fans. Yet they remain insistent that the Mets and Yanks, having failed to cash in on previous unrequited wild spending sprees from Giancarlo Stanton to Juan Soto, do it again but even harder.

Thus, at the risk of being accused of being a communist, socialist or realist, I ask this: