I have seen on twitter and heard on radio, many times, individuals who seem to think that they are taking some moral high ground by rooting for the little guy, saying something along the lines of “why would anyone pull for the billionaire owners over the players?” or “why should the onus be on the players instead of the billionaire owners?” Even worse yet, the “millionaires fighting with billionaires over money get no sympathy from me” take.
Here is the thing, and this might be tough for some of you to hear, but it is not always about billionaires being “bad” or a matter of sticking it to the person with the most money. Equally difficult to stomach for those of you in the millionaires vs billionaires camp – and I am sorry that I have to be the one to tell you this – but some people make more money than you because they have a more valuable skill set or a greater desire to succeed than that which you possess… or maybe they are just more focused on their careers rather than bitching about what others have on phony twitter accounts.
This should not be about sticking it to billionaires, pulling for the little guy, or even millionaires vs billionaires, because it is not… instead, this is, in my opinion, a matter of two things:
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- Refusing to honor a previous agreement.
- The repeated failure of MLB owners to be bullish ON THEIR OWN DAMN INVESTMENT.
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Major League Baseball Players Association had previously agreed with MLB to take prorated salaries, a percentage in line with the number of games played in the season over the standard 162 games played… which is great, because it means that MLBPA has incentive to push for more baseball.
Perhaps the owners failed to consider the financial impact of having no fans in the stands? Regardless, this is not the responsibility of the employee. I have a general disdain for hypotheticals, but think about it like this: due to Covid-19 a number of grocery stores are subjected to shortened store hours, for this reason, many employees have seen their hours cut, but also, their maximum shopper capacity has been cut… so now imagine those grocery stores asking their employees to take an hourly pay cut in addition to the hours they are already losing. “Millionaires vs billionaires” guy, shut the hell up…
Nonetheless, here we are, with the owners wanting players to share in the financial burden in something that players have never before been directly responsible: revenue.
Yes, I realize that these are times like we’ve never seen before, and playing baseball in empty stadiums will be costly for owners, but tough shit – you had an agreement, so honor it – if the contracts do not have a clause that subjects players to pay cuts in the event of playing in front of 0, 1, 2, 3… fans, then I guess they should better prepare the contracts in the future.
This, however, should not be viewed as a costly season by owners, who have been, historically, in my perspective, very shortsighted. They continue to be take a bearish stance on their own position (looking back to 1981, 1987, 1994, etc). This season should be viewed as nothing more than a long-term investment into their own team and into the game’s future.
This is not to make light of Covid-19 or any of the hardships that many are facing, but the fact is that this is a golden opportunity to grow baseball, a sport that has seen attendance dwindling since 2007, in the wake of a tragedy, a pandemic.
There are no sports, Netflix and the likes have run dry, and people are still locked in their homes… give these entertainment starved people some baseball and they will always remember it fondly, to include many new fans.
Take it away? Well then it is 1994-95 all over again, and I predict many will abandon the game, but as twitter has recently learned, history does often repeat itself…
