The MLB is an Embarassment
Let me start off by saying I love baseball. It’s ingrained in every fiber of my being.
I’ve been going to games ever since I was young with my dad, brother, grandfather, friends, and other family members.
I go to Phillies Opening Day every year. I’ve been playing fantasy baseball with a group of friends for over ten years.
Every season, that same group of friends and I go on a road trip to a new MLB stadium that we’ve never been to. Baseball isn’t just another thing. To me, it’s a way of life.
That’s what makes what has been playing out between the MLBPA and the league over the past three months even harder to stomach.
After suspending the season on March 12th due to the COVID-19 pandemic, it was always expected that baseball would be back this summer to play a shortened season. Both sides even laid the groundwork to come back in a March agreement. And it’s that very same agreement that is holding things up.
The players believe they should be paid their full pro-rated salary. The owners are asking them to take an additional pay cut on top of the one they took in March. There have been multiple offers back and forth, but at the end of the day, the negotiations have been nothing more than a farce, with neither side really willing to back down.
This past weekend, the union decided to end talks with the league. Tony Clark, executive director of the MLBPA, cited the fact that the league’s offers have not been serious. He’s putting the decision in the hands of MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred, who can impose a season of any length. He ended his statement with, “it’s time to get back to work. Tell us when and where.”
Throughout this whole process, baseball has become a laughingstock. In the midst of a global pandemic, with millions of Americans out of work, baseball needed to present a picture of unity. No one wants to see millionaires and billionaires fighting over money. But that’s what it has come to.
With the CBA expiring after the 2021 season, it seems these failed negotiations are more posturing for the CBA negotiations instead of focusing on what’s best for the sport in 2020. And because of that foolishness and shortsightedness, the 2020 season, the 2021 season, and seasons beyond will be impacted.
While both sides shoulder the blame for this, it’s amazing that they can’t act like adults and come to some sort of a compromise. Neither side will walk away happy with any agreement, but isn’t that a sign that it was a good deal? Instead, all this bickering is doing possibly irreparable damage to the sport.
Regardless of the truth and in spite of the fact that the league signed a billion-dollar deal with Turner Sports to allow them to continue airing playoff games, baseball is seen by the general public (and the national media more often than not) as a declining sport, being surpassed in popularity by the NBA. Which, by the way, is ready to resume their season at the end of July.
If baseball had it’s act together, they could have been starting their season at the beginning of July, making them the only sport playing at the time. People are starved for live sports, and this could have been time to reinvigorate a fan base and attract a new audience.
Instead, it’s just baseball being baseball, not able to get out of its own way, and furthering the discord amongst the fans.
In their offers, the players were ready to mic up more during the action. Anyone who watched the All-Star Game last year saw how great that could be for the sport. They also discussed holding offseason events, such as an All-Star Game or Home Run Derby, to bring in more revenue for the league. Both would be crucial to growing the game. The likelihood of that happening now, with negotiations stopped, is slim to none.
It’s absolutely mind-boggling that both sides are being this stubborn. The players are hurting their free-agent value this offseason. With owners already claiming they’re strapped for cash, the big deals we’re accustomed to might not be there. Add in these fights between the players and ownership, and it makes it even more likely that many owners won’t throw many at the top free agents. (If Matt Klentak and John Middleton don’t throw all the money they have at J.T. Realmuto this offseason, they both need to be run out of town). The owners are risking alienating fans, and having them not come back next season, further reducing their revenue. And it will be tough for fans to forgive this and come back next season.
Fair or not, baseball is perceived differently than other sports. The same scandals that could rock any professional league, like steroids, for instance, impact baseball differently. In the NFL, we want bigger, faster, stronger athletes, no matter what they need to do to get there. Caught with PEDs in the NFL, serve your suspension and you’re back in the fans’ good graces.
In baseball, get caught with PEDs and become a pariah to the game. And rightly so, but the lack of continuity between sports shows how baseball, for all its failings, is still elevated to a higher degree in terms of integrity. So it stands to reason that a work stoppage, lockout, or missed season would have the general public thinking about baseball differently than they would for a missed season in another sport. And that means fewer fans in the stands.
As was mentioned earlier, Manfred can impose a season of his desired length if he so chooses. While that still doesn’t seem likely, especially with Manfred telling ESPN on Monday that he’s no longer confident there will be a season this year, it’s been reported one could be in the 45-50 game length. That’s less than 25% of a 162 season. Not worth it at all. Stats would be skewed and a World Series championship in a 50-game season wouldn’t feel earned. But all this time wasted is leading us further down that path.
Baseball has messed up big time. This has been an absolute embarrassment, and everyone involved in the process should be ashamed of themselves. They should be ashamed for holding the fans ransom for three months. They should be ashamed for squabbling over millions of dollars while unemployment levels rival those during the Great Depression. They should be ashamed for acting like children.
Earlier this week, Mike Trout, who never speaks, started echoing the new rallying cry of the players; “Tell us when and where.” When the GOAT speaks, his words have volume. And when they’re going against the league, it’s not good. The animosity between the players and the owners hasn’t been this high since 1994 when a strike ended that season and forced the cancellation of the World Series.
Attendance dropped by about 20% in the 1995 season, and fans were irate. If the owners don’t think that same thing is going to happen after this, they’re nuts. If both sides had kept the negotiations private and ended up not playing, that would have been fine. If they ended up not playing due to the health and safety concerns both sides had, that would have been fine and understandable. Instead, they made it about the one issue they shouldn’t have made it about – money.
With the way things are currently going, baseball is once again heading down the path of alienating the fans and substantial revenue losses. Even for the damage, the steroid era did, it actually helped to excite the fans again after the ’94 strike.
There’s nothing like that coming this time around. Baseball needs to get out of its own way and fix this now or suffer another, more permanent, black eye.
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Categorized:National News Phillies