Ripped ball in an empty stadium.
At 1:24 p.m. Pacific Standard Time on Tuesday, March 1st, 2022, the Major League Baseball Players Association unilaterally rejected the owner’s “Best and Final Offer.” The sides are so far apart that there doesn’t seem to be an end in sight for this stupid lockout that is literally ruining my favorite sport.
For 34 years, I’ve eaten, slept, dreamt, and everything else baseball (I’ve sprinkled in a little theater and occasional family). Baseball is my first love. I remember being 15 years old and watching Junior and Senior go back-to-back. I remember listening to Rick Rizz and Dave Niehaus on the radio.
Baseball cards, I collected so many stupid baseball cards, for the gum first, and then for the value of the cards. I remember trading a 1985 Donruss Alvin Davis for a 1984 Fleer Kirby Puckett. It wasn’t even the worst trade I ever made; that came later when I traded a 1984 Topps Olympic Card of Mark McGwire for a 1991 Alex Rodriguez. I was such a homer back then.
I fell in love with the game of baseball. The smell of fresh-cut grass, the imperfectly perfect chalk lines that arbitrarily end in a rectangular batter’s box. The sound of the crowd, the pop of the mitt. Baseball gets all of the senses going. Then there’s playing the actual game. The strategy and nuances that make baseball a game of inches. A place where you can get so much accomplished by being slightly more aware than your opponents.
The romance of it all. The history, the stories upon stories. My first game was at the Kingdome when I was 13 years old. I had gone to Cheney Stadium a couple of times to see the Tacoma Tigers, but nothing compared to being inside the Kingdome. It had this smell too, it was a different smell, but to me, it was baseball.
I played baseball in Junior High and High School and went on to play baseball for the United States Marine Corps team in 1996. Traveled all over North America to play in exhibitions, tournaments, and leagues. Played baseball at RFK, Coors, and at several spring training sites in Arizona, including Peoria. I was a pitcher that also played centerfield. I love baseball.
I’ve stuck with baseball despite the downtrodden years that the Mariners have had over the last two decades plus. New favorite players, still having moments. But now, with a lockout looming over the league and canceling regular season games, I hate. I love the sport, but I hate Major League Baseball.
I’m not really a traditionalist, the game evolves with the culture it’s in, and that’s acceptable to me. The business side of the game is important to Major League Baseball, but I hate it. I hate that while I’m coaching little league this spring and into summer, I’ll also have to explain the greed that exists and causes these things to happen.
Further, I hate that I can’t say, “you swing just like Mitch Haniger,” because then the little leaguer can’t go and watch him that night or at some point and go; my coach says I swing like that.
I hate that I have to explain to my boys that Major League Baseball has decided that developing them as fans isn’t important. We are not entitled to Major League Baseball, just like they aren’t entitled to our money. Yet they play with it like they are.
Baseball is in the midst of another work stoppage. In 1994, it was devastating, and the only way that baseball made a comeback was because the players were allowed to cheat, and some of them chose that route. Resulting in amazing stories, but when the cheaters were found out, it stained Major League Baseball and most players that excelled during that time.
No matter what fans hear as the lockout is extended into the regular season, understand that this is 100 percent on the owners. Owners that could easily be replaced by other owners, which might make the sport better. Former Mariners President John Stanton made himself a lightning rod and exposed one of baseball’s dirty little secrets. So he’s in the crosshairs of why this is happening.
You can try to pin this on the players, but you can’t just switch out the players; the product becomes inferior at best and on par with the KBO or Japanese Leagues.
I think about leadership first. What does an extended time away from baseball look like through the lens of our 30+ aged players? In 1994, 5.3 percent of all MLB players retired and left baseball permanently. 5.3 percent worked out to 55 players back in 1994. Every year players retire or never play at the MLB level again. Of those 55 players, 40 of them were free agents at the end of the 1994 season.
Then there are the Seattle Mariners and how this stoppage will impact them. There are many different ways this delay could go, but none of them good. The M’s obviously have a potentially large window of opportunity to be winners. That success is predicated on the devotion of their fans and their willingness to come out to the stadium for games.
The Mariners are full of youth, but the opportunity to trade for an impact player and acquire one or more impact players via free agency will be subject to a frenzied, sped-up situation when the lockout ends. That puts the window of these players’ abilities is at stake.
If the free agent pool gets small enough, then the pecking order typically goes like this: big market + big spenders (Yankees, Dodgers, Red Sox, and Padres) get the first pick, then big market + smaller spenders (White Sox, Cubs, Astros, NL East except for the Marlins, etc.). Next up are emerging spenders like the Mariners, Brewers, Blue Jays, and Rangers. The Mariners have a massive opportunity as they have a strong, youthful nucleus, but that window gets shorter the longer the lockout lasts.
A shortened season for 2022 doesn’t impact the Mariners either way. The factors that are still in the air are who will they acquire and how impactful will pitching be? While their free agent opportunities might be limited, they should enter the 2022 season with one of the best, deepest bullpens in the league, and that’s going to help them win more games than not.
In conclusion, with the lockout now set to impact regular season games, I hate the corporation of baseball, Major League Baseball. Especially with what is happening in our world, the selfishness and greed of all of those involved in these negotiations continue to ruin the sport I love. MLB messed up the return during COVID; they are now going to take a backseat to the NBA, March Madness, NHL, the NFL Combine, NFL Draft, and everything else that is happening in the world. Selfishness and greed.
How do you feel about the latest Major League Baseball work stoppage? Feel free to vent along with Joe in the comments section below.