Can I trust you with some pretty sensitive information? I've developed a case of entrepreneurial fever recently and come up with an idea that I think is going to help me strike gold.

With the cost of attending a Major League Baseball game becoming more and more expensive, I'm planning to start my own lending business aimed specifically at the baseball fan.

Essentially, I'll loan people the money they need, at a modest interest rate, to finance a trip to their local ballpark so they can see their favorite team in action. I anticipate that the financial windfall from my little venture will be enormous.

I know all of you feel the heartburn when the thought of heading to Fenway crosses your mind or when your kids ask to get tickets to a Red Sox game during the summer. Your brain automatically goes into calculator mode and before you know it you're sucking down the Pepto-Bismol like Coca-Cola.

Well, brace yourself because there's reason to believe that the cost of attending a Major League game will actually increase -- yes increase! -- in the near future.

Back at the beginning of spring training, Jonathan Papelbon, Prince Fielder, Cole Hamels and Nick Markakis, four of the sport's brightest young stars, each expressed their dissatisfaction over their organization’s reluctance to meet their 2008 salary demands. Per the Collective Bargaining Agreement that exists between the owners and players, their teams had the right to arbitrarily and unilaterally renew the players' contracts for salaries they deem fair because none of the quartet had amassed enough service time to qualify for arbitration.

Papelbon, Fielder, Hamels and Markakis all publically criticized and/or made thinly veiled threats directed at their respective organizations, explaining that they felt they deserved to be paid "fair market value." For those of you unfamiliar with this term, it's simply another way of saying player X should receive a paycheck equal to that of players at a similar production level.

Papelbon took his campaign a step further and announced that his goal was to establish a new salary standard for the game's top closers. (The Sox eventually did what most would consider the prudent thing and appeased Papelbon by agreeing with him on a salary of $775,000, nearly double what he earned in '07 and $25,000 more than the previous high paid to a reliever not yet eligible for arbitration.)

While some of you will argue that the stars were simply exercising their capitalistic might or pursuing their own self-interests, don't be fooled by what this was really all about. These guys knew the unspoken code that exists in their sport and understood that they had a responsibility to the Major League Baseball Players Association, and by extension their fellow players, to "get" as much money as they could as soon as possible.

We know this is true simply by observing the culture of the game. More so than in the other major sports, players are expected and, although I can't prove it, I believe instructed, to pry as large a bounty as possible from the owners' war chests. From the perspective of the Players Association, accepting anything less than "fair market value" at contract time is a grave act of disloyalty and an obscene offense.

So what's the big deal? Why should we care? The answer is because we're the ones who ultimately end up paying for it.

Whether it's through higher ticket prices, costlier concession items or increases to our cable bills because NESN raised its rates, cost increases always get passed on to fans.

Moreover, every time the fair market value bar is raised or a new salary threshold is established, it guarantees that the next round of pay raises will be both larger and inevitable. About this there can be no debate.

So tighten your belts all you blue-collar baseball fans. Times are changing and it isn’t for the better, well, not as far as you're concerned.

It's too bad the people who run baseball aren't as passionate and dedicated to representing the fans' interests as the Players Association is in advocating for its constituents.

Maybe one day we'll all rise up and finally say enough is enough. Nah, there's no chance of that happening. Although I find that kind of discouraging, I've got to believe it's going to be good for business.

This column was written on June 9, 2008.