It was March 26, when the excitement of the 2020 baseball season left me. I didn’t know what was going on, and frankly nobody knew what was going on. The Coronavirus was taking its grip on the United States and everyone was fearful. The sports world gasped for breath as players from all leagues packed up to head home, not knowing when they would be back to play the sport that put food on the table for them and their families. A source of entertainment just blew out its last breath of air until nobody knows. So baseball fans waited and waited for a sign that baseball would be back. All the while knowing that Covid-19 was in full force without a vaccine in site.
There were so many pushes to try to get the sport that I grew up watching back on the field. After about a month into this pandemic, talk was having all teams play in Arizona at three different fields, one being the Arizona Diamondbacks stadium. Then it was have the spring training teams both Cactus League (Arizona) and Grapefruit League (Florida) play each other in their respective leagues, then play a World Series with the Cactus League versus the Grapefruit League. That all sounded good until it wasn’t, that proposal failed.
Now in the fourth month of this pandemic, life is somewhat getting back to a new normal, with businesses opening, people going back to work, states lockdowns being lifted, and people leaving their homes with masks. If that’s what this new normal is going to be, then so be it. Life has to get back.
Baseball is pushing hard to return. The entire baseball organization is losing money which resulted in some organizations minor league teams having to cut players just to make payroll. When MLB (Major League Baseball) shut down, all the organizations promised they would pay their minor league players $400 a week on a month-to-month basis. That hasn’t banned out for some teams, others it has.
The latest proposal the MLB owners have sent to the MLBPA (Players Association) is an 80-game season starting July 1 and extending the playoffs from 12 teams to 14 total. Owners wanted to cut salaries for games not played. Now I’m going to interrupt that statement right there. Now remember these players are millionaires. Cutting their salary for games not played would result in these players still being millionaires. There are over 41 million people in the USA that have lost their jobs. And people that do have jobs that can’t work right now, do not get paid. So not receiving money for games played seems reasonable to me. At the end of the day these players are once again, still millionaires. So don’t get me wrong, I know there are more issues within this proposal that I just don’t know about, and that’s okay. These are just the highlights the baseball fans are hearing the baseball players complaining about.
Move forward to this past Sunday, May 31. The MLBPA sent back to the owners an updated proposal that included a 114-game season beginning June 30 and ending October 31. Playoffs would extend into November. All this sounds good to me, let’s get it done? If a player doesn’t want to play because of the risk of getting Covid-19, then that player can opt out and not play the season. The league would also have a salary deferral plan if the the postseason is canceled or shortened due to another breakout of COVID-19. To me, this risk has to be taken because we all have to get back to work, even ball players. Athletes today are the most healthy in the world. The proposal also moves forward to say all teams will play in their home ballparks (which I like). I didn’t read anywhere saying the National League and American League would be switched up, that still might be the case. What is known is new schedules would have to be made up especially if teams in their respectful divisions play only in their region. For example, the NL East plays their division and the divisions in the east, most notable the AL East. No timetable was set to get the yah or nah back from the MLB owners. But I assume this will come quickly, maybe even today or tomorrow.
So as I am finishing up this article, BREAKING NEWS on MLB Network from @jeffpassan. Passan works for ESPN. According to Passan’s tweet:
@JeffPassan Major League Baseball intends to propose a shorter season in which they would pay players a full prorated share of their salaries, sources told ESPN. The league believes the late March agreement allows it to set the schedule, and that this would fulfill players’ pro rata desire.5:11 PM · Jun 1, 2020
Owner’s originally said 80 games and players countered and said 114 games. So the number of games will be somewhere between those two numbers. Begin date is still June 30, but teams would need a couple of weeks before to get ready and finish up some spring training work. This is positive news for baseball. More than likely there will be no fans in ballparks, and maybe later in the season begin to let fans back in to the games. Players can still opt out of playing the 2020 season if they have any Coronavirus concerns.
Whatever happens, America needs baseball back to the point where I seem to beg the league to figure something out every time I read a Twitter post or read a full story about the 2020 MLB season. Things are turning in the right direction where I feel we will have baseball in 2020.
Follow me on Twitter @makirkley for up-to-date tweets, and my views on what’s going on in the world of sports.
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