Everyone is right and everyone is wrong about re-opening MLB

If you haven’t heard from every commercial, politician, and friend, we are living in unprecedented/trying/uncertain/turbulent times and none of us knows exactly what will happen next.

A few hours before the NBA shut down practically in the middle of games on March 11, most of us would not have guessed that we’d be nearing the end of May without a single game in American pro sports.

Now, naturally, there are pushes to move forward and “re-open” much of the country, including Major League Baseball.

This has the potential to be incredible. Or a total disaster. Nobody can say for sure.

Because the thing is, when it comes to bringing back baseball, everyone is right and everyone is wrong.

Fans Are Right

The fans just want baseball. Over 30 million people are without regular work and are struggling harder financially than any professional athlete who isn’t a minor league baseball player.

They don’t want to hear someone set to make over $1 million – even after a paycut – complain about that. Millionaires versus billionaires is a lose/lose fight when you are talking to people who just hope they’ve got enough cash on hand to cover all the bills this month.

Also, fans cannot be expected to collectively come to a conclusion about the science behind exactly how baseball can return. Nor should they truly be expected to weigh out all the economics and know for sure who is being fair and who is being greedy.

What fans know is that baseball players and owners live a privileged life that most of us would give just about anything to have and that doing their jobs brings immeasurable joy and even purpose to people’s lives.

Fans Are Wrong

Wanting it back their pastime and being sick of not having isn’t quite good enough.

Unfortunately, this is one of those situations where the general public is being forced to have a debate without all the facts on the table. We don’t really know how much money the owners have or how much they stand to lose. We have to take their word for it. Or, y’know, incredibly not.

Also, very few of us have PHDs in microbiology. Insisting that baseball return regardless of the specifics could end up in a scenario that either gets a lot more people sick or dramatically increases the amount of power that owners have over the game, undoing so much of the progress made over the last 30 years.

Even if you aren’t picking sides between science and economics, almost all of us would be elated the very moment they announce an official start to Spring Training. The problem is that we have virtually no way of knowing whether or not that is a good thing in the grand scheme.

If baseball comes back for two or three weeks and needs to get shut down again, or if this whole mess leads to a strike at the end of next season because the players have lost far too much leverage, it won’t feel so great that we got baseball back this summer.

Owners Are Right

That hurt to type out a bit. We could dive deep into the weeds and discuss the arguably shifty way in which these businesses are run, but the fact remains that many American businesses don’t just have all of that cash on hand ready to distribute, regardless of how wealthy they are.

It is intellectual laziness to conclude that because they have the personal wealth to cover paying players (which they 100 percent do) they could shell all that out and be fine. Most of it is (purposefully) tied up in assets and investments and they do need to continue to have money on hand for the future or the system won’t hold up.

Of course, they could prove this point by opening up their books and not doing so practically forces one to suspect they have more cash to distribute than they are letting one, but it is still the case that too many people are oversimplifying how much money the owners have and how much they stand to lose. There is a threshold which, if crossed, wouldn’t just be bad for the owners, but for everyone in baseball.

Owner Are Wrong

Open the damn books and settle this one real quickly.

Players Are Right

Forget for a moment that they all make way more money than us which can be specifically frustrating during these turbulent/untamed/curious times.

The players, as a collective, have one piece of leverage in this entire conversation.

Whether they are worried about their personal health – such as a player like David Dahl who doesn’t have an important organ (spleen) to the immune system – or more worried about the precedent of fairness, such as Nolan Arenado, who has spoken about the important work the MLBPA is doing right now, the only thing the players can do if they feel they are being taken advantage of is not play. And they are the ones assuming all the risk.

That destroys fans. And there is almost no way around that. If the players would just agree to play, we would have baseball. Some fans will never get beyond that hurdle.

But once they takethe field, there is nothing they can do to protect themselves, each other, and future generations from an ownership group that has a long and detailed history of doing everything they can to pay employees less while taking home more.

So, it may seem like they would refuse to play baseball because some of them are going to make $3 million instead of $9 million. However, the truth is that the players may need to refuse to play baseball to make sure that the owners can’t force them to do whatever they want, whenever they want. That’s a reality.

This is the importance of the collective bargaining agreement. That’s why we work out contracts. That’s why it is important that players can trust the owners at their word. Otherwise, baseball has far bigger problems than whether or not we can squeeze in an 82-game season in 2020.

Players Are Wrong

Let Tony Clark do the talking. Blake Snell (and anyone else) spouting, “I gotta get mine,” is an automatic L during a time in which so many are wondering how they are gonna feed their children.

I Am Right

Clearly I’ve laid it all out for you here. Got it all figured out.

Baseball should come back as quickly as possible, but only if it is safe and fair.

That felt easy…. then again “safe” and “fair” are going to be defined differently by just about every individual.

I Am Wrong

Five years ago I sat in a sports bar (remember those?) speaking to the owner of a fledgling media company, talking about whether or not I would be the best fit to lead his Rockies coverage into the future. We talked about the history of baseball in Colorado, my experience writing and podcasting, as well as other life interests like music and even politics.

At no point during that meeting, where Brandon Spano eventually hired me, did he ask if I was an expert in how best to deal with a global pandemic.