Labour peace could be in danger
Make no mistake: There has always been a huge difference between current Major League Baseball commissioner Rob Manfred and his predecessor, Bud Selig.
Manfred is a bottom-line businessman seeking to maximize revenues. He worries about the outside view of his sport. He is concerned about the TV time frame of the industry — shorter games, fewer relievers, more balls in play, a game that fits into a three-hour TV window. Selig was first and foremost a mirror-fogging baseball fan, a purist who had to be convinced by others to make any move that diminished the game’s history, look and feel — except in 1994.
When Manfred addresses media or players, there are no romantic, tearyeyed Field of Dreams memories. As such, any outside view of the relationship between the commissioner’s office and the MLB Players Association led by former major-leaguer Tony Clark is that they are liable to butt heads more than at any time in the past 24 years, ever since the disastrous strike of ’94.
Since that time there has been labour peace, the longest stretch without a work stoppage of any major professional sport in North America.
The current collective bargaining agreement expires at the end of the 2021 season and, reading between the lines as presented by Clark and Manfred this week, there are storm clouds forming on the labour horizon.
Battle lines are being drawn. Clark believes that the 100 six-year MLB free-agents that were without work as spring training arrived were victims of another form of collusion, while Manfred feels that it was just the result of a commonality of information available to 30 teams, a shared analytics.
According to a source, MLB has already made overtures to the union to get together in the same room in an effort to discuss improving the game, things like a pitch clock, reducing the impact of defensive shifts and finding ways to take time off the average game, even before this deal expires. The players association will need something in return; any negotiations are at an impasse.
In the meantime, two issues that are looming and of interest to Canadian fans are expansion and gambling.
Every year at the all-star game, the commissioner is asked about expansion and the possibility of the return of baseball to Montreal. There is enough money in place, with a group led by Stephen Bronfman and Mitch Garber, but there is also the issue of a suitable stadium. And there will be no expansion until MLB has worked out other stadium issues, especially in Tampa.
Relocation would be ideal for Montreal because it involves less upfront money than expansion and the city would get a better team with a farm system already in place. But that’s likely not going to be the case.
“I hope I’m around long enough to see us expand,” Manfred told Fox Sports in a TV interview in D.C. “I thing 32 teams would be great for our sport. It opens up a whole host of things. You get to four-team divisions, which work better in the schedule.”
“You could geographically realign. You could have a little different playoff format, a lot more flexibility.
The commissioner was asked which cities might be leading candidates for expansion. He hesitated then rattled off a lengthy list.
“We have a real list of cities that are not only interested, but are viable in terms of baseball,” he said. “Places like Portland, Las Vegas, Charlotte, Nashville in the United States, certainly Montreal, maybe Vancouver in Canada. We think there are places in Mexico we could go over the long haul.”
One interesting name on that list which has never really been considered before is Vegas.
The immediate success of the NHL in Sin City and the fact that the national pastime is all of a sudden interested in introducing gambling as a source of additional revenue, makes Las Vegas one of the frontrunners. But Manfred may be making a huge mistake in dipping MLB’s toes in the waters of legalized gambling. Sure everyone knows that betting is the lifeline of the NFL, but its presence opens a Pandora’s Box of damage to baseball, with inside information available from dozens of levels of the industry that may cast into doubt the integrity of players, umpires, trainers, front-office staffs and others.
“We see it as a challenge and an opportunity,” Manfred told Fox.
“Talk about the challenge first. There would be no commissioner’s office (think back to Judge Kenesaw Mountain Landis) if it were not for the threat of gambling and the need to protect the game. “We know we need to be out there, active with the states and federal government, depending on how this is all going to unfold, making sure laws get passed. It would put us in a position to defend the integrity of the game. That is our responsibility and we intend to accept that responsibility.
“Gambling can drive fan engagement. You want to take advantage of that fan engagement. Gaming has a way of swallowing things up. Fans get passionate about it.
“It can get too close to the sport, it can get too big, so we want to take advantage of a fan engagement opportunity without having gambling get too intrusive.”
Landis, the game’s first commissioner, would be rolling in his grave, while Pete Rose is likely preparing a case for reinstatement.