Manfred expected to mandate season
MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred has no choice.
It’s ugly. Too ugly. Too acrimonious, with the labor negotiations filled with accusations and allegations, played out publicly in the streets.
Manfred is expected to mandate a 60-game regular season, likely starting July 27-29, after the players association soundly rejected MLB’s latest proposal 33-5 in a vote by their executive council.
Yet he told owners he had no plans to implement a season Monday or even Tuesday, a high-ranking official told USA TODAY Sports. He spoke only on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak publicly.
His delay leaves a slight crack open in negotiations, but after nearly three months of talks it seems highly unlikely they can suddenly reach an agreement.
“The full board reaffirmed the players’ eagerness to return to work as soon and as safely as possible,” the MLB Players Association said in a statement. “To that end we anticipate finalizing a comprehensive set of healthy 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 players will show up to their home cities for workouts, go through several days of testing for COVID-19, and begin a three-week training camp starting in early July.
Who knows, maybe the pandemic will shut things down once they’re all together? Maybe COVID-19 will continue to pitch a no-hitter and make sure that no sport starts, even with baseball being a non-contact sport.
But they will at least try.
In the midst of a pandemic raging around the world, with a country trying to finally change 400 years of racial in
justice, the two sides never came close to a resolution.
And even though there’s a scheduled season, the bitterness has sucked the soul out of any joy.
Oh, sure, there will be games, but there will be hostility. Gone are the expanded playoffs. Gone are the enhanced broadcasts. Gone will be anything but minimal cooperation.
There will be grievances exchanged, with each side accusing the other of intentionally sabotaging negotiations. There will be players ripping owners. There will be owners ripping players.
And there will be no fans in the stands, instead sitting at home, trying to figure out how to feel about the season.
It will be beyond ugly, with a free agent market that will be virtually nonexistent with teams snubbing players, blaming their economic losses.
There will be long-term damage caused by the impact of the stalemate.
You think this was nasty, just wait until they start negotiating toward their next collective bargaining agreement, which expires Dec. 1, 2021. Hello work stoppage, it’s baseball again.
The game has badly suffered enough since we last saw it played, shut down on March 12 with the pandemic. Thousands of employees have been fired or furloughed, with others taking massive pay cuts. The minor league system has been gutted. The amateur draft has been disemboweled.
Fans likely will be kept out of stadiums all year, guaranteeing the fifth consecutive year of an attendance decline. Players will lose about $2.5 billion in wages. Every team will lose hundreds of millions, with several owners perhaps forced to sell their teams.
The game is back, but who knows how it will look.
Play ball, like it or not.