Major League Baseball stands at a crossroads that tests our core American values. The Los Angeles Dodgers just spent a whopping $392 million on players while the Miami Marlins spent only $70 million. That means the Dodgers pay each player more than five times what the Marlins pay theirs.

A salary cap would put a strict limit on how much teams can spend on player salaries. Most other major sports leagues use this system to keep things fair. The idea is simple: no team should be able to buy championships just because they have deeper pockets.

Instead of a real salary cap, baseball uses something called a luxury tax. Teams can spend as much as they want, but they pay extra penalties if they go over certain limits. The wealthy teams just laugh at these penalties and keep spending anyway.

Back in 1994, baseball players went on strike for 232 days to stop owners from putting in a salary cap. The players union fought tooth and nail to protect their right to earn as much as the market would pay. They won that battle and have kept salary caps out of baseball ever since.

Here’s where conservative principles come into play. America was built on free markets where hard work and talent determine your pay. If a player is worth $50 million because fans will pay to watch him play, shouldn’t team owners have the freedom to pay that amount? Government interference in private business deals goes against everything we believe about capitalism.

But there’s another side to this coin that troubles many patriotic Americans. When only the richest teams can compete for championships, it destroys the level playing field that made baseball America’s pastime. Small-town teams in places like Kansas City or Pittsburgh can’t compete with the coastal elites in Los Angeles and New York.

This hurts the fans who make baseball possible. Hard-working Americans in smaller markets watch their best players get stolen away by big-city teams with endless money. Families save up to take their kids to games only to watch inferior teams that have no real chance of winning.

The answer isn’t more government control or socialist-style redistribution of wealth. Instead, we need team owners to show some backbone and negotiate a system that preserves both free market principles and competitive fairness. Real Americans want to see merit win over money, and our national pastime should reflect the values that made this country great.