This year hasn’t gone the way we would have hoped. With the world suffering from many traumatic events, we fans can’t even turn to baseball as an escape.
We have been deprived of the game for 67 days and counting with uncertainty if a season will ever start. A lot of back and forth between MLB and the players has happened in the past couple of weeks. Both sides have continued to disagree on a pay scale for a potential season this year which has left fans feeling betrayed by both sides.
While many of us still hope for a season to happen, today the two sides could not be farther apart in negotiations which puts any thoughts of a season at risk of not taking place at all. According to ESPN’s Buster Only, some team owners have come out to say they would rather cut their losses and wait for a 2021 season.
“Sources say there is a group of owners perfectly willing to shut down the season, to slash payroll costs and reduce losses, and the disparate views among the 30 teams to have been reflected in the decisions to fire and furlough.”
Many teams have already started taking action to save as much money as possible by furloughing employees or releasing minor leaguers. While committing to such actions makes sense to owners for their short term, completing shutting down this season is the wrong move. Doing so puts the future of baseball at risk.
No evidence of progress yet in MLB/ players talk so no realistic hope to meet the “soft” deadline of tomorrow June 1 for deal. That deadline was soft for a reason, and hope remains to start season July 4 weekend — if a deal can be done by range of June 5-June 9.
— Jon Heyman (@JonHeyman) May 31, 2020
Time is running out to salvage what is left of a season and hope baseball can recover. Anything short of that would lead to the decline of the sport in the years to come. The current Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA) runs until after next season and you best bet that these events will be fresh on players’ minds. The risk of another strike happening next year is growing by the second. No occurrence of a season this year all but assures that a strike will happen, upsetting fans even more.
This is a time that baseball could have taken advantage of to gain more popularity and secure more fans. With all other sports scabbling to make their seasons happen, baseball could have been one of the first back and with people stuck at home, it would’ve given them the opportunity to fall in love like the rest of us. Instead, these events have cast a terrible perception on the sport and have caused fans to despise the structure of it driving them away.
Fans need baseball now more than ever. MLB and the players are running out of time to come to an agreement. The future of our beloved sport is in their hands.
