SLIDING SCALE
MLB has safe plan forward if both sides can come to agreement
The overall level of the baseball is above average. The pitching is questionable or worse. There isn’t much speed. The defense is OK. The games are televised at some inconvenient times.
Yes, as it fills the entertainment gap during the sports hiatus, the Korean Baseball Organization has been providing a spot-on impression of every recent Phillies team, right down to the occasional Aaron Altherr sighting. Really, all that is missing is John Kruk complaining about his job.
What does it all mean? Only this: It is happening. It is happening and it is working and that it is proving that baseball can be played even under some new restrictions in a nation that has had a recent health challenge. And because it is working, it should provide a template, if not an incentive, for Major League Baseball to do as it has multiple times and resume entertaining the masses during times of national crisis.
That’s the deal. That’s always been the deal. And it is heading that way. Slowly. That’s how things generally in a sport where it takes five minutes to take one player off the field and wave in another. Everything is slow. Yet if the two-month delay in opening the season has provided baseball with anything, it has been an opportunity. For whenever the “Play ball” order is barked, baseball should be immediately ready to comply while also being in compliance with any health orders, reasonable or otherwise.
Quietly, that ramp-up is occurring.
Rob Manfred, the commissioner, held a video meeting with the owners Monday, outlining a financial plan to resume play. By Tuesday, a plan to resume a season around the Fourth of July weekend was presented to the Players Association. By Wednesday the union would snort at some of the proposals. It’s the usual labor-management dance. But eventually, they will all be doing the Twist, having figured out how to share the billions and how often the players have to put in hard labor in a week.
When that arguing is over, figure the players to agree to a temporary revenue-sharing plan, at least for this season, and that they will win a substantially higher portion of the profits than the 49 percent proposed by the owners, according to a report. Neither side can afford to appear greedy at a time when so many are out of work. There is a number they can agree on. And they will.
But what about the games? How will they look? Well, the Korean League is providing a preview.
At least until it is ruled safe to do otherwise, the games are being played in ballparks that are essentially empty. Odd? A little. But not horrifying. The baseball business model accepts the reality that home run balls often will sail into empty sections of seats. So visually, at least, it is not jolting.
Less immediately visible, yet 125 years overdue whether there was a virus crisis or not, the Korean players are being made to show better manners. That includes forbidding the participants from …. wait for it … spitting all over the workplace. Imagine that. Everyone has some regrettable habits. But that culture of taking a lung-clearing hocker every third pitch while soaking bullpens, dugouts, bases and equipment in germs is unique to baseball and needed to be stopped 11 million barrels of potentially disease-transporting saliva ago.
Also being discouraged are over-used handshakes and high-fives. Ultimately, such spontaneous expressions of joy must be allowed. But if replacing the handshake line with some informal elbow bumps hastens the return of an industry that employs thousands, it’s a reasonable price.
Korean players are also being tested, re-tested, and tested some more for signs of a coronavirus. And why not? While testing procedures will have to be formalized and medical supplies stockpiled, Major League Baseball has had sufficient time to meet those obligations.
Once the new health standards are in place, baseball can figure out how to conduct a season. Multiple reports are that the traditional National and American Leagues will be preserved, contrary to a revolting plan floated earlier to mingle the franchises in three 10-team monstrosities. However, because the season likely will be shortened to about 82 games, or the length of an NBA or NHL season, there will be less travel and more inter-league play based on geography. The NL East teams, then, could expect to regularly face AL East teams. The same would go for the Central and West divisions. So it will be more likely for the Phillies to play in Baltimore, Boston and Yankee Stadium than in San Diego, San Francisco or Dodger Stadium.
With more crossover games and rosters expanded to lessen stress on pitchers having not been sufficiently conditioned for a quick re-start, that will mean the designated hitter will be approved for all major league games. Once that happens, figure it to become permanent. Baseball has been looking for a way to correct that imbalance for years without being accused of straying too far from the original rules of the game. The pandemic has provided that escape route.
It’s all going to happen, the revenue sharing, the sparse crowds, the players refraining from spitting, the elbow bumps, the DH, a likely expansion of the postseason and, most important, the baseball.
It’s going to happen because it is time.
And it is going to happen because every night, from Seoul to Daejeon to Incheon, it is being shown how it all can safely be possible.