Baseball's Breaking Point

Baseball’s Breaking Point 

by Adam Babetski

The scene is the same every morning. After SportsCenter goes over the new developments in the NBA, NFL, and NHL’s plans to resume play, it takes a brief break to cover baseball. Jeff Passan, ESPN’s senior MLB writer, graces the screen for roughly five minutes, and reports one of the three events that cycle in perpetuity: Major League Baseball has delivered a proposal to the Player’s Association, the Association has unanimously rejected it, and both sides have returned to trying to win their staring contest. It has become as much of a breakfast-time tradition as brewing a cup of coffee.

Baseball is in flux, though neither side appears to be in much of a hurry to get out of it. After the Coronavirus Pandemic took off in the United States in mid-March, the league took action by stopping Spring Training and postponing the start of the regular season. In the three months since then, the owners, led by Commissioner Rob Manfred, and the MLB Players Association, led by Tony Clarke, have been unable to accomplish much of anything. According to baseball insiders, a deal between the two sides has never been close, and now an agreement appears to be unlikely. Fans have been split over whether to blame the League or the Player’s Association when in reality both are equally guilty.

The owners hold most of the cards. They are wealthier than the players, they control their rights and contracts, and they have almost all of the league’s resources. The only way that the players can effectively counter them is by refusing to play without their demands being met. Unsurprisingly, that is the tactic the players have chosen but instead of meeting them at the bargaining table, the owners have decided to wait for the players to blink first, which has resulted in almost nothing being done. The “soft deadline” of June 1st to come to an agreement has come and gone, and the owners’ newest proposals are just minor variations on what the players have been rejecting for months.

Manfred may decide to exercise his ability as Commissioner to override the negotiations and make his own rules for the season. He has recently put out a trial balloon for a 48-game season with full prorated salaries for the players that do not require the union’s permission to be instituted. If the league decides to use the nuclear option, the Collective Bargaining Agreement negotiations following next season would make the 1994 strike look like a playdate in comparison.

At the start of negotiations, players were publicly raising their concerns about playing during the peak of an easily transmissible virus, which they were certainly entitled to do. However, the focus of the debate quickly devolved from the health and safety risks of COVID-19. Instead, the two sides have dropped the pretense and are haggling over potential profits and player salaries, and both are using the fans as hostages. Tampa Bay Rays pitcher Blake Snell has stated that he will not play this season for less than half of his 7.6 million dollar salary because he’s “risking his life”, but he will play if he makes the full amount. By Snell’s logic, money reduces the risk factor of the Coronavirus. Meanwhile, the owners have been complaining about “biblical” financial losses if they do not get their way. Mind you, every team in the league is worth more than one billion dollars.

The fans have been split as to which party is in the right, but in a fight between billionaires and millionaires, there is no “sticking up for the little guy”. Tens of millions of Americans are unemployed, including a significant chunk of baseball’s fanbase. That number also includes the blue-collar employees who allow baseball to operate the way it does. Even more worrisome is the fact that this petty argument is following on the heels of the Astros’ sign-stealing scandal, which culminated in Manfred handing out an embarrassingly weak punishment and Clarke doing everything in his power to shield a roster of cheaters from further scrutiny. 

Baseball has faced adversity in its history and has triumphed every time. During World War II, some of the best players in the league, including Joe DiMaggio and Ted Williams, left the game to defend their country, and yet baseball continued on. After 9/11, the country rallied around the Yankees, who became a symbol of hope in the face of terrorism. In 2020, both the players and the owners seem to value money over the love of the game. All the while, they are alienating the very people who keep their sport afloat, and are losing more and more young fans to basketball and football with each poor decision they make. This year could become the first year without baseball in the sport’s history, which dates back to the Victorian Era. 

Baseball needs the fans, but do the fans need baseball? We’re about to find out.