In these pandemic-driven times it is usually comforting when there is a reminder of something from the pre-COVID-19 sports world.
Then, there is Major League Baseball.
As MLB struggles to find a way to begin its delayed season it has run up against a familiar stumbling block, the difficulty of its billionaire owners and millionaire players agreeing on a way to carve up the suddenly not-so-golden goose.
In good times, the two parties have clashed over three lockouts and four strikes in 48 years. Now, in trying times, when the goose is likely to be more silver or bronze than 24-karat, they are still back at it again.
Governors of three states hard hit by the virus, New York, California and Texas, and representing nearly a third of MLB teams, said Monday that they would be allowed to play games in their states under certain conditions. That means that barring a spike in positive cases, the two antagonists loom as the biggest barrier to getting the season underway if they can’t find agreement on salaries.
Back in March, when the pandemic caused the cancellation of the first month of the season, owners and the players union reached an understanding on the players receiving a prorated share of their salaries based upon how many games ended up being played and other concessions.
It was heralded as, someone once said, peace in our time.
And, of course, it hasn’t lasted. With the likelihood of their often publicly financed stadiums being empty for part or all of the season and no cash coming in at the box offices, the owners claim in a leaked memo that they will lose $640,000 a game.
To remedy the situation to their benefit, the owners have proposed that the agreement now be amended to provide for a 50/50 split of what are classified as game revenues.
That has understandably gone over with the players about as well as a fastball under the chin.
Up through the 2019 season, when MLB was recording a string of record-high profits in what has become a $10.7 billion-a-year industry, owners were loathe to cut players in on lucrative regional TV and other lucrative deals. And, the players accepted that not wanting any part of a salary cap.
Now, with the prospect of nobody in the seats in the immediate future or, perhaps, the entirety of the truncated season, the owners are suddenly looking for the players to subdivide the pain.
As agent Scott Boras, who represents more than 50 players, put it in a radio interview the other day, “You don’t privatize the gains and socialize the losses.”
Some of Tampa Bay pitcher Blake Snell’s more tone deaf meanderings aside (“On top of that, it’s getting taxed,”), the players have a point here.
Since the 1960s the players have fought a strict salary cap and to agree to one now, under these circumstances, would have the late MLBPA executive director, Marvin Miller, rolling in his grave. If he had one.
MLB released a 67-page guide to the protocols for handling health and safety issues the other day, which was thorough down to the prohibition against spitting sunflower seed shells. Now all that is needed is a road map to getting the owners and players on the same pathway to a start to the season.
Reach Ferd Lewis at flewis@staradvertiser.com or 529-4820.
