Well, with the announcement last week that the first two series of the 2022 baseball season have been canceled due to the lockout, get ready for an onslaught of sky-is-falling claims from the baseball media.
You’ll hear familiar phrases like “tone deaf,” “greedy,” “exploitation,” baseball’s becoming a “niche” sport and it could go the way of horse racing and boxing, which at the midpoint of 20th century were two of the nation’s three most popular sports. Oh, and of course there’s also the “how could they do this?” unseemly money grab when people are suffering in a brutal war in Ukraine.
The latter is valid, but was also used during the dust-up over who’d get what during the pandemic-shortened 2020 season.
In fact, the onslaught has already started with no fewer than four columns in the Boston Globe last week alone. The last was by usual voice of reason Tara Sullivan and carried the title “Indifference has replaced interest in baseball and it is unfathomable the sport let itself get here.”
Two came from Dan Shaughnessy. I call him the prince of darkness because of his knack for making any misstep seem like a triple homicide. I’ve been reading the guy since the 1980s and during that time there have been numerous sports work stoppages and last week’s columns were dusted off “Armageddon is here” iterations of those written during the other disputes.
Then there was young Chris Gasper’s Norma Rae-inspired screed that (seemingly) took longer to read than War and Peace. It took the owners to task for exploiting the poor players. Problem is that amid all the overwriting he never got around to why we should care that players are being exploited.
And while I know full well the owners are lying and have been crying poor since before miserly Charles Comiskey’s pernicious ways made it seem like a good idea to eight of his White Sox players to throw the 1919 World Series, let me infuse all this with a little perspective. Or is it reality? Or sanity maybe?
The Players Association just rejected a proposal to make the minimum annual salary $700k as too low; the annual average salary is north of $4 million while an unlikable stiff like Bryce Harper makes $40 million a year for each of the next eight years. A guy who was so indispensable the Nationals won the World Series right after he left as a free agent.
So if that’s what exploitation is, someone, please, please, PLEASE exploit me like that!
Since the players are the actual product they certainly have a right to fight for what they help the owners take in. But with what they already get, why should anyone care one what they get, win or lose? Especially when they individually are just as greedy as the owners.
They claim to all be in it together. But that‘s only because a united front gives them needed leverage in their fight with the owners. But once that’s out of the way, it’s every man for himself.
Consider Max Scherzer, who took the Yankees to task last week for manipulating the competitive balance tax to hold their spending at the luxury tax threshold at “just” $188 million. Which he said considering their profitability they shouldn’t do.
That’s the same Scherzer who just signed a deal with the Mets to make a whopping $42 million for each of the next three years, while the guys at the bottom are making $600k. If Max were really interested in all his brothers in the labor battle he could kick, say $12 million of his $42 million into a fund for the guys at the bottom to split at the end of the year like a World Series share. It would still leave him with $30 million per, which I’m guessing he can get by on. And if others in his tax bracket like Harper and Mookie Betts did the same they could probably get the minimum guys over a million a year.
But we don’t hear that from Max, because he wants to get every last dime he can get out of the free market for himself. Especially since that’s what the Players Association preaches in fighting to avoid a salary cap like the one in the NBA that’s such a drag on salaries poor Russell Westbrook only makes $47 million a year.
Besides, that would be socialism. Except isn’t that, for better or worse, what a union actually is?
Fine. But if Max and his exploited compadres can do that, why can’t the Yankees? Then it’s may the better man/group win.
As for this adding to the woes of baseball’s declining national interest, I would point out that since there has not been a work stoppage in baseball, none of the decline (between 2007 and 2019) has anything to do with bickering over money.
Not to mention that while some may grumble during it, it’s all soon forgotten and fans come back every time. True even when a strike canceled the 1994 World Series and an entire NHL season was wiped out by the lockout of 2004-05. So don’t listen to the doomsday prediction because history shows they’re wrong every time.
As for the fan indifference mentioned by Ms. Sullivan, while it’s real at the moment, I’d argue it’s not specifically for the sport itself. It’s more of the “been there done that, so wake me when it’s over” variety.
So instead of looking at the glass being half full, this could actually be an opportunity to fix what really is causing the decline in attendance. Make one of the bargaining concessions be putting a structure in place for players and owners to jointly address everything from the cost of tickets to the pace of play to altering the way stat geek baseball is sucking the excitement out of the game.
That would make this stoppage constructive and if it takes until even July, it’s time well spent.
