MONEY CRAWL
Financial war between MLB players, owners likely will result in ugly labor dispute
W E ARE back there again.
It was a blissful stretch, really, a good 20 years when the economics of baseball could only annoy you if you wanted them to, when you could close off your mind to the billionaire owners and the millionaire players and simply enjoy the sport again, if you were so inclined. It was a nice run. It really was. And it’s as dead as disco now. Because every day there is some new warning flare shot high into baseball’s sky, and they aren’t the kind of arguments we’ve been filling our days with these past couple of decades: replay, steroids, pace-ofplay, the DH, pitchers who don’t finish games, hitters who don’t care about striking out, the war over WAR … all of these, and more.
Now, of course, we have daily updates and non-updates on both Bryce Harper and Manny Machado, both seeking contracts north of $300 million, neither presently earning 50 cents.
Now, on one day we have Justin Verlander (who will earn $28 million this year) railing against the stagnant free-agent market, and on another we have Jacob deGrom (who will earn $17 million this year) admitting he’ll have to consult with his agent about the possibility of limiting his innings if he doesn’t have an extension in hand, and we have Adam Wainwright (who will earn but $2 million this year after taking home $19 million last year for 40 ¹/3 innings of work) hinting that baseball players might stage a walk-out this summer to protest all the rank-and-file free agents.
Here’s the thing: In a vacuum, it shouldn’t matter what those guys are being paid, or what they’re not being
paid. In a vacuum, we all answer to bosses, and we are all underpaid in our minds, and we would consider it an unquestioned violation of our rights as workers if all the bosses in our chosen fields got together and put artificial limits on what we could earn.
In a vacuum, it’s even possible most would agree with them.
But we don’t live in a vacuum. We live in a world where, even after 42 years of free agency, we are still stunned by what baseball players do get paid, and are utterly unmoved what they don’t get paid. And so slowly — ever so slowly — baseball’s public image is recalibrating to where it was in 1972, in 1981, in 1985, in 1994, whenever the owners and the players have started spoiling for a fight.
And that means that a lot of working folks — often acting against every impulse and instinct they own — begin to feel empathy for the owners, begin to sneer darkly at the players. It has happened every time, going back to the first strike in ’72. The players are the bums. The owners are the victims. Maybe it isn’t quite as one-sided as it used to be, but the more fans you talk to, the more you realize the owners still carry the day in the court of public opinion.
It informs everything about the re- lationship between the owners and the union. For crying out loud, there may never have been a less effective commissioner in any sport than Bowie Kuhn — who made Roger Goodell look like Pete Rozelle — and this summer will mark his 11th anniversary inside the Hall of Fame. Yet Marvin Miller, who used to make Kuhn look like an ambulance chaser every time they sat at the same bargaining table, has yet to come close to induction.
And look: It is never going to be easy for players to gain widespread empathy, nor should fans be expected to offer it. Not at those salaries. Not at these prices. You can believe — as I do — that baseball players absolutely should fight for every nickel they can in an industry that reached $10 billion in revenue last year built entirely on their backs.
Doesn’t mean they’ll ever win over the people who fork over half a week’s pay if they want a day at the ballgame with the works with their family.
This day was inevitable, it always was, it always will be. We had a nice run fretting about Rob “The Fixer” Manfred planting a man on second base in extra innings. Soon enough, odds are we’ll wonder where any of the players are. Unless we’re looking at a picket line.