LAS VEGAS -- This city is hurting, and no one needed Wednesday's announcement that gambling revenues dropped 26 percent on the Strip to figure that out.
In the casino of the posh Bellagio hotel where baseball's winter meetings are taking place there are rows of unused slot machines, and bored dealers stand behind blackjack tables waiting for customers who aren't coming.
Things are different 30 floors above, where the business of baseball is taking place. General managers and club executives huddle in their suites to plot strategy for the upcoming season, while super agent Scott Boras welcomes bids that start in the tens of millions of dollars and go up from there.
There's always been a disconnect between the America of mortgages and car payments and the opulent gambling palaces that try to separate people from their cash. Up until now, Las Vegas pretty much thought it was recession-proof, but the new numbers don't lie and there's a sense of despair in this adult playground.
There's a similar disconnect between baseball and economic reality, as evidenced by the $161 million contract the Yankees seemed almost desperate to serve up to CC Sabathia before leaving Las Vegas. At the same time, Mark Teixeira is looking for a 10-year deal worth some $200 million, while Manny Ramirez wants to be paid more than any other player in the game.
Baseball is flush with cash -- teams brought in $6.5 billion last year -- and there are other teams just as desperate as the Yankees, so the Big Three will get their money despite warnings by commissioner Bud Selig for clubs to show some restraint in bad times. So will A.J. Burnett and Derek Lowe, because teams can't resist quality pitching even if they have to mortgage the future to get it.
You can't blame the clubs for spending millions, mostly because their fans demand it. They may be taken aback at the idea of giving Sabathia a mind-boggling $700,000 or so every time he takes the mound for the next seven years at the same time they're fearful of losing their own jobs, but they're even more unhappy if a rival club pays him to do the same.
Like Las Vegas, though, baseball is not recession-proof, though you wouldn't know it by the deals under discussion here. That became apparent this week when the owner of one of its premier teams, the Chicago Cubs, filed for bankruptcy protection and MLB.com said it was laying off some of its Internet staff.
The full impact of the economic meltdown still hasn't been felt by the sport, which is why Boras will still be able to peddle his clients for prices that look more obscene than ever. But that could change if the recession deepens and attendance begins plummeting next season.
People will still spend for entertainment even in a recession but, as the drop in the amount of money spent in casinos shows, they'll spend less. That means a family of four that goes to, say, six games a year might stay at home and watch two or three of them on television instead. The high end could be similarly affected as the $2,500 seats in the new Yankee Stadium go unused and companies cut back on their own entertainment expenses.
"It's nice to say baseball is not affected by a lot of things, but when you watch what goes on every single day and the different companies who you never even give second thoughts to, all of a sudden they're struggling and going out of business," Dodgers manager Joe Torre said. "These are the same people that are buying tickets and doing things, so it's frightening right now."
The Dodgers may be one of those teams already feeling the pinch. The team's attendance dropped by an average of about 1,500 a game last year despite the addition of Ramirez and an exciting late-season rush into the playoffs, and owner Frank McCourt seems hesitant to go after Ramirez or any of the big stars on the free-agent market.
Ramirez will end up somewhere, though, and for big money. Some team -- maybe even the Dodgers -- will put rational thought aside and give in to a long-term contract to appease their fans even if it makes little sense.
After all, Sabathia got seven years and $161 million even though recent history shows (Kevin Brown, Mike Hampton and Barry Zito come to mind) that it's ill-advised to invest in long-term pitching contracts.
But gambling is what teams do, even in these uncertain times. For the richer teams, at least, it's more preferable to take a risk and let someone else pick up the pieces if it falls apart than alienate fans by doing nothing at all.
The gambles are bigger this offseason, and the risks even riskier.
As one glance around the Bellagio casino shows, there's no such thing as a sure thing anymore.
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Tim Dahlberg is a national sports columnist for the Associated Press. Write to him at tdahlbergap.org