So long time, no post. Just some thoughts that have been going through my head with the lack of baseball, but the promise that it might be coming soon. The title says it all, and as much as there is plenty of (potential) blame to go around, it seems to me that the Player’s Union has been thoroughly out-maneuvered and has a lot more to lose if an agreement can’t be reached to get games moving again.
Its a repeat of the Millionaires v. Billionaires war from the 1994-95 Strike, but with a twist. The owner’s have provided a road map to the players and fans to bring baseball back this summer. It will be without fans, it will be a shortened season, with bastardized divisions, but it will be baseball. The country desperately wants this to happen, and seem ready to accept it in whatever form possible. Anything else is just details.
One of those key details is compensation. The owner’s stand to lose money by staging games without fans, and the players have been asked to share that cost. To the average person right now, stuck in their home since March watching Korean baseball and E-sports, that seems like an awfully small price to pay. If the players hold up the plan based on something as ugly as money, they become the bad guys in the story. The owners are willing to take their lumps, but the players just won’t play ball.
Its not fair to the players, but its how this will play out. And statements by players like Blake Snell have give the fans obvious targets. If their argument was that they feared for the health of themselves, their families, and the families of all the staff who would be asked to endanger themselves, it would make perfect sense, and would much more clearly align with the concerns of everyday Americans.
Instead, fans see a guy slotted to make $10 Million, who’s already made more in the few short year’s of his professional career, and who is getting paid to play a game complaining that he’s going to only make a couple of million instead. That isn’t going to sit well with many people, and if games are not played this year because a compromise can’t be reached, the damage to the sport is going to be deep and lasting.
Blog to be Named Later 