The bell may be tolling for Major League Baseball.
Once the preeminent sport in the country, “the National Pastime,” now the sport of baseball is teetering on the brink of demise. And it’s all their own doing.
As other sports leagues around the country and the world begin to announce their plans to return to the fields and courts, baseball seems to be moving in the opposite direction — if it’s moving at all. Years of bickering between MLB owners and the MLBPA have started to boil over into a host of bad faith proposals, non-starter conditions and social media quarrels. And now, as we move closer to July, there have been no less than three proposals from each side that have been rejected outright by the opposing side.
Look folks, the writing’s on the wall. Baseball is not going to recover from this.
Now you might be thinking that’s an overreaction. That the two sides will come together on an agreement, there will be a shortened baseball season and everything will go back to normal next year. But that’s not what’s going to happen.
Sure, there will more than likely be baseball this year. We’ll have some fun for a few months, spring training will return next February and next season will start on time. But what about after that? The Collective Bargaining Agreement expires at the end of the 2021 season, and after seeing the way these two sides have battled over prorated salaries and how to safely return to play, I don’t have any faith that they will come together easily.
So that means after 2021, we could be looking at a lockout/players’ strike. And if that happens, you can pretty much finish off baseball’s eulogy.
Let’s put it this way. When you have people like my parents — who are die-hard Red Sox fans and watch every game, every year — saying that they’re not sure if they’re even going to watch baseball again, you’ve got problems. When fans like that think that both sides have gone off the deep end, you have nothing else. Younger fans are already largely gone, so once the die-hards get fed up, you can pretty much call it a day.