MLB sets 60 games after union’s rebuff
NEW YORK — Major League Baseball plans to unilaterally issue a 60-game schedule for its shortest season since
1878 after the players’ association rejected a negotiated deal of the same length, putting the sport on track for a combative return to the field during the coronavirus pandemic.
Six days after Commissioner Rob Manfred and union head Tony Clark negotiated to expand the playoffs from 10 teams to 16, widen use of the designated hitter to National League games and introduce an experiment to start extra innings with a runner on second base, the deal was rejected by the Major League Baseball Players Association’s executive board in a 33-5 vote.
Those innovations now disappear.
“Needless to say, we are disappointed by this development,” MLB said in a statement. “The framework provided an opportunity for MLB and its players to work together to confront the difficulties and challenges presented by the pandemic. It gave our fans the chance to see an exciting new postseason format. And, it offered players significant benefits.”
MLB’s owners approved going unilaterally with the 60-game schedule if the final arrangements can be put in place, a person familiar with the decision told The Associated Press. The person spoke on condition of anonymity because no announcement had been made.
MLB asked the union to respond by 4 p.m. today as to whether players can report to training by July 1 and whether the players’ association will agree on the operating manual of health and safety protocols. The schedule would be the shortest since the National League’s third season.
Given the need for three days of virus testing and 21 days of workouts, opening day would likely be during the final week of July. MLB already has started to investigate charter flights that could bring players back from Latin America, another person told the AP, also on condition of anonymity because no announcements were made.
The union announced its rejection, and the vote total was confirmed by a person familiar with that meeting who spoke to the AP on condition of anonymity because the balloting was not made public. The decision likely will provoke what figures to be lengthy and costly litigation over the impact of the coronavirus on the sport, similar to the collusion cases that sent baseball spiraling to a spring training lockout in 1990 and a 71/2-month strike in 1994-95 that wiped out the World Series for the first time in nine decades.
It also eliminates a $25 million postseason players’ pool — meaning players will not get paid anything above meal money during the playoffs and World Series — and $33 million in advance salary that would have been forgiven for 769 players at the bottom of the salary scale with lower rates of pay while in the minors.
“It’s absolute death for this industry to keep acting as it has been. Both sides,” Cincinnati pitcher Trevor Bauer tweeted in a rare instance of a player criticizing the union. “We’re driving the bus straight off a cliff. How is this good for anyone involved? Covid 19 already presented a lose lose lose situation and we’ve somehow found a way to make it worse. Incredible.”
The union said in a statement that the “board reaåffirmed the players’ eagerness to return to work as soon and as safely as possible.”
“To that end we anticipate finalizing a comprehensive set of health and safety protocols with Major League Baseball in the coming days, and we await word from the league on the resumption of spring training camps and a proposed 2020 schedule,” the union said.
With the collapse of a negotiated deal, playoffs are set to remain at 10 teams rather than expand to 16. The framework had included the expanded playoffs for both 2020 and 2021, and Manfred offered to drop its inclusion in the second season if players feared it would decrease their future bargaining leverage.
Spring training was suspended on March 12, two weeks ahead of scheduled openers, and the sides have reverted to the familiar financial infighting that fractured the sport in the past. An initial deal March 26 called for players to receive prorated salaries and gave Manfred power to set the schedule, but that agreement did not require MLB to play in ballparks without fans.
Until now, the latest openers were on May 1 during five seasons in the 1800s, according to the Elias Sports Bureau, but since 1900 it had been April 25 after the end of the 1994-95 strike. Players interrupted the 1981 season with a strike that started June 12, and the second half of a split season started Aug. 10.