I think MLB will have a season.

"If that doesn't happen -- if they can't agree on a deal to play in 2020 -- baseball will become a loathed presence on North America's sporting landscape, scorned by many fans. The labor fight will merely be deferred, with escalation in some form all but assured because of the unresolved issues.

Next spring, with only months remaining in the current collective bargaining agreement, the players are more apt to use the threat of a strike. Owners, already damaged by the money losses this year, could be more inclined to dig in and wait out the players, aiming for a lasting reconstruction of baseball's financial model. The labor fight could go on and on, and by the time it all plays out, it's impossible to know how many fans, feeling alienated or disgusted, will leave baseball behind once and for all.

The only sure thing is that the owners and players will lose, unless they settle this standoff that risks mutually assured destruction.

So they have to make a deal. Right?"

We'll see.

I think fans are angry when forced to confront the truth about pro athletes.

Pro athletes are not your friend. Neither is Matt Damon. Neither is Flo from those commercials.

I enjoy baseball as much as anybody, but baseball isn't going to save you and baseball isn't going to save this country:

"Over 100,000 deaths in the United States from the coronavirus. More than forty million unemployed workers. Brutal discrimination flooding news feeds. Protests in Minneapolis. Presidential tweets being censored for glorifying violence. Beloved sports bars and restaurants shutting their doors for good."

Right.

Puts some perspective on a silly diversion like baseball, no?

Also, the President's tweet was not censored. Twitter is a private company and ... oh, forget it ... my goodness, I have tried to explain this on the Internet for over twenty years.

"Baseball can be the first sport to provide a sense of normalcy; a dosage of healing and vital change during these uncertain and tragic times. Instead, players and owners, millionaires and billionaires, are squabbling about pay cuts and how to make up for lost profit — ensuring that baseball fans, their community of consumers, feel like they’re the last thing on their minds."

Fans are not the last thing on the minds of baseball players and owners.

The last thing on their mind, technically, is the Star Games episode with the stars from Gimme a Break. Remember those shows?

"Fans, having accepted they will likely not be attending games at ballparks this year, want baseball, at the very least, to return to their daily lives through their television screens. Fans have seen, read and heard enough about the public back-and-forth between Major League Baseball and the Players Association to understand how this will play out

Money could end up being the reason baseball doesn’t return in 2020."

Oh no! Not money! Players are greedy? Owners are greedy? In 21st Century America? I'm shocked.

Listen up, poor people ... "middle class" people ... sub-millionaire front line  losers. Rich people don't care about you other than your value as a consumer.

"The feud between MLB and the players may go on for another week, maybe even another month. It will go on as long as it takes for both sides to reach an agreement on salary and, to a smaller degree, health protocols. Major league players are the best at what they do, and they perform in a system that greatly rewards them for those talents. But the longer the groups squabble, the more they have to lose. For now, fans are following along closely. But the clock is ticking on the longevity of their enthusiasm for the sport."

I think they're going to play baseball this year.

The feud will be quickly forgotten; a short-term unnecessary PR hit. Forgotten until the next contract negotiations.

They'll play, alright. Half a season, goofy scheduling, empty ballparks, bad TV ratings after an Opening Day surge, and general difficulty trying to attract young fans, speed up the game, compete with other entertainment, and legitimize the results of an 80-game season.

Ultimately, it doesn't even come down to money. The virus will make the final decision.

At this point, it looks optimistic that the health concerns of the players can be mitigated. But we still don't know much about the virus and it could have a second surge throughout the planet, throughout the country, and surely throughout a baseball locker room.

Tim Tebow.

This probably overstates the case in both directions.

The next three months can't elevate MLB to the top and the pandemic alone can't kill it.

On the other hand, MLB shouldn't act like nothing's wrong.

Casual fans aren't missing it too much.

Consider the source.

Alex Rodriguez, a well-known paragon of effective and conciliatory MLB player/owner relationships, is now the voice of all the American frontline heroes. Such as himself.

The biggest star of the city is Mike Lupica.

Can Lupica go an entire article without bringing up the 2004 ALCS?

Also, there is no such thing as biggest star of the city:

"The nickname for Aaron Judge, of course, is All Rise. Except he keeps sitting down, even though there is no Yankees right now and no baseball."

I get it!

His nickname is "rise" (like a judge, which is his last name), but he "sits" because he is injured.

The turns of phrase are truly genius.


"Judge looked like one of the biggest and brightest stars in baseball. He hit 52 home runs in 2017 and finished second in the MVP voting in the American League."
Correct.

It wasn't long ago.


"So he might have been lucky to get on the field 100 times, after he missed 50 games in 2018 and 60 games in 2019. I’ve pointed this out before, but you know when Mike Trout has missed 50 games in a season?

Never, is when."
 

You know how many times David Wright missed 50 games?

 

I don't know.

 

It was a lot.

 

Didn't bother Lupica because Lupica was in love with the Mets.

 

 

"Jeter played shortstop, for 20 years. He played 19 full seasons. He missed 50 or more games in a season exactly one time, when a broken ankle suffered the previous October wouldn’t heal properly. Then came a quad strain and then came Jeter finally being shut down for good. In the end he played just 17 games in 2013. Other than that, the fewest games he’s ever played in a full Yankee season was 119."

 

What is the bar you're setting here?

 

Mike Trout and Derek Jeter?

 

 

"Maybe Judge does have a ton of Jeter in him. But he seems to have some Mickey Mantle in him, too. Mantle once looked like Superman, too. Until he wasn’t. He kept fighting through injuries, almost all of them to his legs, and finally limped away from the game for good when he was 36."

 

Now Lupica is comparing Judge to Mickey Mantle and acting like a Mantle career would be a disappointment.

 

Mantle is a baseball immortal.

If Judge manages half the career of Mantle, he would be not only the biggest star in New York, but a sure HOFer himself.

 

 

"If there is baseball by summer, imagine what it would be like in the place I started calling Baseball New York a long time ago if we had Alonso hitting homers on his side of the city and Judge hitting them on his side. Neither one of them chasing 50 this season, just each other."

 

"Baseball New York."

 

 

"Judge shouldn’t just be one of the stars of baseball. He should be the biggest star in New York sports right now, because of those 52 during the ’17 season, during which Judge carried the Yankees all the way to Game 7 of the American League Championship Series against the Houston Trash Cans. Mickey Mantle hit 52 in his Triple Crown season of 1956, and then in ’61, when he was chasing Roger Maris and they were both chasing Babe Ruth and Mantle ended up with 54."

 

So I think in a roundabout way you're saying that Alonso has passed Judge as the best player in  "Baseball New York"?

 

Yeah.

 

No one cares.

 

Yankee fans just want Judge to get healthy and, when he does, he'll probably be a great player. Maybe not as good as Alonso, who knows? I think, for any current ballplayer, the juiciness of the baseball will affect their numbers quite a bit.

 

Having said that, it's almost impossible to imagine Judge's career approaching Trout, Jeter, or Mantle.

 

 

Also, if you're going to create a place called Baseball New York, and you want to discuss the current biggest star, it's crazy to not even mention the Baseball New York player who has won back-to-back Cy Young Awards.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Not sure how often I agree with Bob Nightengale.

"Let’s see, we had Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker chastising the players for opposing MLB's revenue-sharing plan, saying they owe it to fans to take a pay cut and play ball during this horrific economic crisis caused by the pandemic. Never mind that the narrative is false.

Former All-Star first baseman Mark Teixeira urged players to bow down to MLB owners and accept their revenue-sharing proposal for the good of the country. Never mind that he earned $213 million in his career.

...

'After this agreement was reached,' Boras told USA TODAY Sports, 'you can’t come forward with a dynamic and say, "Hi, I want to privatize the gains and socialize the losses."'"

Fifty percent of $0 is $0.

We can only hope the contract negotiations are not a moot point.


Surely, there is little public appetite for typical collective bargaining.

But I also don't think it's up to MLB players to give the country hope or put their own welfare at risk.


We know MLB players aren't essential.

You know how we know?

Because they aren't risking their lives on the front line:


“The problem is you have people all over the world taking pay cuts, losing their jobs, losing their lives. Frontline workers putting their lives at risk. These are unprecedented times."

These are very different outcomes, "taking a pay cut" and "losing your life."


I don't expect the players will take the PR hit complaining (too much) about pay cuts.

But they will demand safe working conditions and refuse to put themselves and their families at unnecessary risk.

The opinions of Rob Manfred, Tony Clark, and Mark Teixeira don't matter.

The virus gets the last word.

The greatest play in baseball history?

This is the most fun the author has had a baseball park, ever.

An old, fat steroid cheat pitcher gets a lucky swing in a May game vs. the Padres.

I think (hope) Gary Cohen was being ironic when he excitedly called it the greatest moment in baseball history.