For a moment coming into this week it looked like things might actually line up well for Major League Baseball, in spite of itself.

If the billionaire owners and millionaire players could finally get together on a re-start to their pandemic-paused 2020 season, the prospect of a grand Fourth of July opening was still sitting there waiting for them.

After months of acrimony, the opportunity to save a considerable portion of the season and do it from a red-white-and-blue July 4 launch party looked like a best-case scenario.

Who knows, maybe they could even play doubleheaders on that date, a morsel to the fans who have been left to watch MLB Channel re-runs and Korean Baseball Organization games while waiting somewhat patiently for them to get their act together.

Time was when Fourth of July (not to mention Labor and Memorial Day) doubleheaders were de rigueur in the sport. But, then, the owners saw they could milk fans and TV partners for more money and players demanded more time off and Fourth of July doubleheaders became more of a rarity than perfect games.

Oh, well, it was a good idea, while it lasted. Which, at this point barring a near miracle, you’d have to say might have been until Monday, when the owners’ latest proposal not only fell short of what the Players Association was looking for but it appeared to widen the divide.

The owners proposed a 76-game schedule, but not at the fully prorated salary level that had been agreed upon by both sides in the March 26 accord. Instead, the owners offered to pay players on a 75% prorated basis if there was a postseason and 50%, if there wasn’t.

After years of the owners gobbling up record profits for the $11 billion industry, the idea of suddenly sharing the losses understandably rings hollow to the players, especially after the March 26 deal. As player agent Scott Boras has famously put it for the past month, “You don’t privatize the gains and socialize the losses.”

Oh, and by the way, the Los Angeles Times reports, they wanted players to sign off of an “acknowledgement of risk,” agreeing not to hold the clubs liable should any of them contract or die from COVID-19 due to unsafe conditions.

Clearly, it was an offer the players could refuse. And, perhaps, only to the surprise of the owners, they likely will.

So, it looks like it could be back to Square One, except that it is getting later and later in the calendar and the two parties are getting further apart instead of closer. Progress this isn’t.

They have gone from talking about a 114-game schedule to 82, 76 … and who knows what’s next. Fifty?

Meanwhile, the NBA, NHL and MLS have managed to find common ground on their plans to resume. And, training camps for the NFL are just around the corner, which should serve as an additional wake-up call for MLB because the longer it takes to find a resolution, the more competition it is going to have for the entertainment dollar and viewers.

If the impasse ends up torpedoing the 2020 season, not only is MLB going to lose big money that commissioner Rob Manfred says is at risk, it is going to face problems in rebounding for 2021.

The pandemic is no longer the biggest problem that confronts baseball’s return. Instead, it is the inability of the two sides to find the resolve to work around it.

Reach Ferd Lewis at flewis@staradvertiser.com or 529-4820.