Manfred: ‘We owe it to our fans to be better’

NEW YORK » Rob Manfred knows many fans were angered by the financial fight between Major League Baseball and the players’ association during a pandemic.

“We need to get back on the field, and we need to in a less-charged environment start to have conversations about how we — and the we in that sentence is the commissioner’s office, my staff, the clubs and the MLBPA and the players — can be better going forward,” he said Wednesday during an interview with The Associated Press. “We owe it to our fans to be better than we’ve been last three months.”

Spring training was cut short by the novel coronavirus on March 12. The sides reached an initial agreement on March 26, which was to have been opening day. That deal called for players to receive prorated salaries, get $170 million in advances and receive a guarantee of service time in the event no games were played this year.

When it became clear the only way to start the season was to play in empty ballparks, the sides battled publicly over what the agreement meant.

Owners said players needed to accept additional cuts and proposed an 82-game schedule starting around the Fourth of July. Players argued they shouldn’t have to accept less than the original deal called for. But that agreement didn’t bind Manfred to start the season with no gate revenue.

Vitriol rose in baseball’s worst infighting since the 7½-month strike of 1994-95 wiped out the World Series for the first time in nine decades. The union rejected the last proposal for a financial agreement, then finished protocols to play in the pandemic on Tuesday and promised players will start reporting July 1 for a 60-game season scheduled to start July 23 or 24, MLB’s briefest since 1878.

“The focus here was on a day’s wage for a day’s worth of work,” union head Tony Clark said during a separate interview with the AP. “That’s what we believed was fair, and that’s why we maintained the position that we did.”

In the view of many, the outcome left losers on both sides. MLB already has experienced four straight seasons of declining average attendance.

“In my opinion, it’s a damn shame that the ramifications of this are going to be felt for a long time,” said Cincinnati catcher Tucker Barnhart, the Reds’ player representative. “I grew up a baseball fan, I’m a baseball fan first, and I think it sucks that it’s had to go on the way that it is. But I hope that getting out and playing will kind of mask some of the bruises that the game as a whole has taken over the last few months.”

MLB intends to start without fans in ballparks, even in places where government and medical officials allow some spectators.

“I think we need to get on the ground running and get comfortable that we can play games in empty stadiums safely before we move forward fans,” Manfred said. “My patience in that regard is in part based on the fact that there are so many different situations. Some places there looks like there’s no prospect, other places they’re more aggressive. I think we need to be patient and even where we have the option, we need to make sure that we know exactly what we’re doing before we jump into it.”

Owners decided to go ahead with a season despite the threat of a grievance from the union, which has claimed MLB did not adhere to provisions in the March 26 agreement requiring the longest schedule economically feasible. That deal also included additional provisions such fans being allowed into all 30 ballparks and no relevant travel restrictions.

“Every time you make a decision like this, you balance risk and reward,” Manfred said. “I think the clubs felt that the most important objective was to get the game back on the field, and because that was the most important objective, they were prepared to bear whatever risk was associated with a grievance that is — let me be really clear about this: utterly without merit.”

Clark would not directly respond when asked whether lasting damage had been inflicted.

“I think there is an opportunity to move forward, move our game forward,” he said. “And as it relates to the atmosphere in general, the lines of communication remain open, and we’ll count that as a positive in the days ahead. “