Minor league season cancellation an unkind cut

For all the sacrifices and deferred dreams the novel coronavirus forced upon the sports world, many are paired with some solace, knowing that there will be a next year.

One sector, from top to bottom, doesn’t have that luxury.

The long-anticipated announcement Tuesday that Minor League Baseball’s season will be canceled is a blow to thousands of minor leaguers who just saw the thankless, debt-inducing, harrowing road to the majors sidetracked, perhaps permanently.

It is a gut punch to the staffers still remaining at the 160 affiliated minor league clubs who have held on through furloughs and pay cuts and added even more creative duties to their usual titles in the name of keeping their jobs. With an entire calendar year of virtually no revenue, many more will lose their jobs. And it might represent a death knell for dozens of franchises that MLB placed on a chopping block in the service of shaving a few nickels and creating more efficiency, long-term growth of the game.

With the Pro Baseball Agreement between Major and Minor League Baseball set to expire this year, MLB last autumn identified a group of affiliated clubs that could be targeted for contraction, in the name of making the player-development process more uniform.

A new PBA reportedly included up to 40 teams possibly contracted, some with historical ties as significant as Jackie Robinson and others with stadium renovations so new that their towns are still paying them off.