For Major League Baseball, time is of the essence. The NBA, NHL, WNBA and MLS have all figured out a way to return from the coronavirus pandemic and all plan on starting sometime in July. Meanwhile, baseball, the sport that many figured would be the first to come back and in which it would be easiest to play while maintaining social distancing keeps shooting itself in the foot, leaving the fate of the 2020 season at stake.
Make no mistake, if the owners and players can't find some common ground and figure out the conditions upon which we'll actually see games this season, it would be catastrophic. Catastrophic on the same level as the 1994-95 strike that cancelled the World Series. Maybe even more so. And they know it. So, that begs the question: Which side will give?
Playing this out in the media is only serving to make both sides look bad, too. Millionaires and billionaires are fighting over money at a time when 30 million people are out of work and the teams themselves are laying off or furloughing employees left and right. It comes off as worse than tone deaf. It comes off as selfish. Plain and simple.
Both sides have legitimate points. But that doesn't matter. Because to the American public, a public that is both looking for some sort of entertainment--any entertainment--and trying to figure out when their next pay check is coming, neither side is "right." In fact, they're both wrong. And the fact that this is all playing out the year before the CBA expires serves as a pretty good indication of how those negotiations are gonna go. Because if they can't agree now when you'd figure both sides would be willing to give a little, how's it gonna go next December?
Some owners have indicated that they're content with not playing at all this season. Their thought process is likely something along the lines of "I'm gonna lose money anyway, and I'll lose less if we don't play at all." They haven't been publicly divulged, but I'd imagine it's teams like Oakland and the Angels, teams that are being so thrifty they've stopped paying their Minor Leaguers, who almost certainly won't have a 2020 season.
Now let's consider the consequences of missing an entire season. The last MLB game that counted was Game 7 of the World Series on Oct. 30, 2019. Assuming next season starts on April 1, that's 17 months. Do they really think they can disappear for 17 months and everyone will come back? Baseball fans are used to a game nearly every day for six months. Now you want them to wait a year and a half? People will develop different viewing/entertainment habits. Not to mention the animosity that will have built up during that time.
Baseball has lost it's lofty status as "America's Pastime," having long since been surpassed by the NFL. At best Baseball is No. 2, although the NBA is making a charge for that distinction. Now, with July restarts planned in the NBA and NHL, Baseball won't enjoy being the only game in town during the summer. Instead, they'll be going head-to-head with the NBA all season. And they always get crushed by the NFL in the fall, anyway. Now you're talking about the NFL and the NBA/Stanley Cup Playoffs well into the fall. Plus college football.
They're in danger of getting lost in the shuffle even if they do play. If they don't, there will be plenty of other viewing options to keep people occupied. And, with some NBA owners wanting to push that season into the summer already, you can bet they're using this as a test-run for potentially making that switch permanently. In other words, Baseball needs to do whatever it can to keep its potential audience. And cancelling the entire 2020 season amid a global pandemic over money won't do that. It'll alienate them.
More significantly, neither side will engender any goodwill or trust when they return in 2021. You'd have to assume fans will be allowed back in the stands by then. But owners will have just as big a problem selling tickets as they did in 1995. And those who do go to the games probably won't be too friendly towards the players, either. The boos won't be reserved to players on the visiting team. And rightfully so.
What makes this whole thing so frustrating is that there's obviously a middle ground to be found. Both sides are just too stubborn to find it. The players want to play more games. The owners want less. Neither side wants to budge. And that's really the simplest of the issues they're facing. That should be one of the easiest!
The players want 110 games, with the season ending in late October and the playoffs extending into November. Major League Baseball is worried about a second wave of the outbreak wiping out the postseason if it's held that late in the year, which is a legitimate concern. Ending in mid-November would also make for a quick turnaround before Spring Training starts in February (unless they want to delay next season, too, which would be completely unnecessary).
But, let's not forget that the players are the ones who'll be taking all the risk. They'll be the ones out there on the field exposing themselves to possible infection. So, the fact that they want to play more games and take that risk shouldn't be taken lightly. It would be easy to say their desire to play so many games is all about money (which it probably is), but it also shows how dedicated the players are to playing something that at least comes close to a representative season. The owners' 50-game plan does NOT do that.
I'm not sure if that 50-game thing was actually serious or not, but, either way, it's dumb. Do you know how random a 50-game sample is in baseball? That's two months. It's not even a third of a season. And the players' reaction to it was essentially, "why bother?," which is legitimate. In fact, if they were to go ahead with a 50-game season, I can see a lot of players sitting out. For a number of reasons.
You know what number would work, though? The 82 that the owners originally proposed! That's half a season, which is just about right considering when it would be starting. All the logistics for that are easy to figure out, too (13 games against your division, 6 interleague games against the corresponding division). It really is the plan that makes the most sense.
All that's left is to figure out the money. Both sides need to realize that they need to give a little. There probably won't be fans all season, so owners aren't getting gate receipts. The players won't agree to anything less than their prorated salaries, though. And if they play an 82-game season, they get half their salary. It's that simple. Why complicate it just so you can "win" when both sides have already lost in the court of public opinion?
We're running out of time for the baseball season to be saved. It's time for the adults in the room to tell everyone to stop fighting and get it done. Because if not, the economic repercussions will last far beyond 2020.
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