As baseball owners fritter away time on the clock, there seems to be a perception that some do not want to actually play any games.
The last week has seen a sense of progress for sports leagues as plans are being made for the return of sports and potentially creating a fall cavalcade of live sports for fans deprived of them since March 11 due to the coronavirus pandemic.
The NHL announced its plans last week while the MLS came to an agreement with its players to restart the season earlier Wednesday. The MLS announced their plans shortly before word circulated about the NBA’s plans for a July 31 in Orlando.
The NBA’s plans for a return are expected to be finalized Thursday when the agreement is expected to be approved with 22 teams returning and the possibility of play-in games. If all goes right and the NBA finals goes the distance that game would take place on Oct. 12.
Under normal circumstances Oct. 12 is when NBA teams have played most of their preseason schedules and are making roster decisions for the season. And under normal circumstances, baseball would be in the midst of its postseason and in the ALCS and NLCS.
Under those circumstances, a majority of the sports world focuses on the playoffs but as baseball owners fritter away time on the clock, there seems to be a perception that some do not want to actually play any games, a perception that seemed to gain momentum when ESPN’s Buster Olney reported earlier this week that a small group of owners were content with no games being played if players did to agree to the additional pay cuts, something owners are implementing are non-playing team employees in the form of pay reductions and furloughs along with the elimination of the $400 weekly salary for minor league players that Oakland owner John Fisher implemented despite being worth an estimated $2.2 billion by Forbes.
Those cuts owners were hoping to get out of players come after the March 26 agreement was reached in exchange for $170 million in an advances and an assurance that if the season does not happen each player would service time for 2020 that matches service time accrued in 2019.
In mid-May, it was believed baseball’s return would take place July 4 with a truncated half a season played in home ballparks with empty fans. If that actually happened, the second spring training would have started soon and social media images of players working out on their own would be replaced by images of players working out in spring training complexes.
Mid-May was also when the AP reported teams were saying a proposed method of getting a season going without fans would still result in a $4 billion loss, a figure that was echoed by commisoner Rob Manfred on CNN a few days later
Since then players have expressed their dismay in various forms such as Max Scherzer’s tweet while also showing the generosity when David Price pledged $1,000 to Dodgers’ minor leaguers not currently on the 40-man roster.
