San Francisco Chronicle - (Sunday)
After lockout, baseball will survive, thrive
The Giants were in capable hands with the bright and perceptive Austin Slater serving as their player representative in labor talks, but as he pondered the notion of a reduced schedule last week, he said a very strange thing.
Predicting that a shortened season would be “a black mark on the game,” he said, “Hopefully, fans will recover and come back to the ballparks, but you never know.”
Actually, you do know. They’ve always come back, and they always will. This year’s Opening Day will be a festival of enthusiasm and goodwill, and that would have been the case under any schedule restrictions.
Was there damage done? Absolutely. We’ve repeatedly pointed out the insensitive blunder of wrecking people’s plans for spring training or the early games of the regular season. Negotiators kept claiming the fans’ interests were their first priority, but that was simply a lie. When these two sides are interminably locked in bitterness — 99 days this time around — they consider the fans like they care about a goat’s diet in the Andes.
Slater added (again, before the settlement), “I don’t know if we’re going to have another steroid era to save the game. The league lucked out that there was a home run chase like no one had ever seen before (Mark McGwire hitting 70 home runs to Sammy Sosa’s 66 in 1998, a surge of national attention that helped ease the pain of losing the 1994 World Series to a labor dispute). I can’t predict the future, maybe that happens again, but I’d say the chances are just pretty low.”
Let’s cut Slater a break here. He was 2 years old when the 1995 season arrived, about to offer a typical feast: Cal Ripken breaking Lou Gehrig’s endurance record, the wild card making its debut and creating the Division Series — an instant sensation when Seattle’s Ken Griffey Jr., slid joyously across the plate to eliminate the Yankees. Tony Gwynn hit .368, Hideo Nomo won Rookie of the Year (as the majors’ first Japanese player in 30 years), and magic became routine in the hands of Greg Maddux, Pedro Martinez, Roberto Alomar, Omar Vizquel, Larry Walker and Barry Bonds. Attendance took a hit, but the following season launched a steady increase in league average.
In other words, it was bigleague baseball. The McGwireSosa chase “saved” nothing, for there was nothing to save. Through the grumbles and muttering, people rediscovered their passion — just as they did in the early 20th century (pervasive gambling), 1981 (a 51-day shutdown in the middle of summer), 1995 and last season, after a devastating pandemic left the ballparks empty. The game has never been dead, or even close to extinction.
Put it this way: Just six months ago, the Giants and Dodgers were locked into one of history’s great postseason races. There were terrific stories throughout the game, the playoffs were riveting, and everyone knew there would be labor trouble in December. Sure enough, it got really bad, but then it ended. Why in the world would fans need to be “won back” with such terrific memories still fresh?
They need nothing of the sort. As a national pastime, baseball has expired. As lifeblood to the masses, it is undefeated.
Giants’ worthy gamble
With the first major signing of the post-lockdown marketplace, the Giants set themselves up to dominate the first two games of any series. Imagine you’re Cody Bellinger, Freddie Freeman, Christian Yelich or any other elite left-handed hitter in the league. First comes Logan Webb, with his devastating two-seam fastballs and changeups, and then something completely different: lefty Carlos Rodón, who agreed to a two-year deal (with an opt-out clause) Friday. Rodón has some of the most electric stuff in either league; his fastball-slider repertoire has been compared to Randy Johnson’s. (Anything close would be fine.) … We’d love to know how White Sox manager Tony La Russa feels about losing Rodón, who was practically unhittable (and did throw a no-hitter) last season before fatigue laid claim to his arm. But his final impression was encouraging. Although the Sox lost that elimination game to Houston in the ALDS, Rodón’s stuff looked pleasantly familiar. … Because it’s baseball, with its strict requirement that fans absorb a few knockdown blows, last week’s news can’t all be good. Now there’s an agreement between MLB and Apple TV+ to carry Friday night doubleheaders each week. In other words, if the Giants are playing the A’s on a Friday evening, as part of this package, the only place you can watch is via this streaming service — and that includes any local bar that calls up Comcast SportsNet for its baseball telecasts. As a reluctant convert to streaming, I can assure tradition-bound fans that it’s not such an unwieldy process. But it adds up. To really be tuned in to all sports, you need to sign up for Amazon, Paramount, ESPN+, Peacock and now Apple TV+. And this is only the beginning of an earnest assault on your wallet. Sometimes a single NBA game imparts many truths. The Brooklyn Nets went into Philadelphia on Thursday and exposed James Harden (3-for-17) once again as a fraud in big games. Defiantly backing the cause of new arrival Ben Simmons, who was relentlessly booed by the fans of his former team, Kevin Durant had a masterful shooting night, snarled at Joel Embiid and let everyone know who’s in charge. The Nets can’t finish this job if Kyrie Irving plays only home games, but Irving hasn’t lost one bit of his peerless repertoire. … Aside from the ongoing majesty of Tara VanDerveer’s Stanford team, the upcoming women’s tournament could be a gem. Two 20-year-old sophomores, UConn’s Paige Bueckers and Iowa’s Caitlin Clark, are probably the two best players in the country — and what a blessing that the WNBA sets 22 as its minimum age for players to be drafted. Bueckers has been brought along slowly in the wake of knee surgery and appears close to full comfort. As for Clark, let’s get her in a 3-point-shooting contest with Stephen Curry, Damian Lillard and the WNBA’s Allie Quigley of the Chicago Sky. Like Curry, Clark has been known to cast off from 35 feet — successfully — and her overall game has captivated many, including Durant, since her high school years. “She always had the ball in her hand, everybody was playing off her, she just commanded the whole game,” Durant said recently on “The ETCs” podcast. “It looks like everybody on the court is way slower when she gets into her stuff.”… Great moments on the internet: Steve Vucinich, an A’s clubhouse/equipment man since the team arrived from Kansas City in 1968, announced his retirement, effective after spring training. All hail his Friday tweet, a photo of an immaculate A’s clubhouse in Mesa, Ariz., with the proclamation, “We are ready!”