DETROIT � It began as a public-health crisis, as the coronavirus spread. And now, as only the arrogant oafs that run baseball can do, it's also a raging public-relations crisis.
A final, final, we-mean-it-this-time announcement is expected Monday from Commissioner Rob Manfred, and he has the authority to implement a season of 50-ish games. And I say this with more disgust than sadness: Why bother?
If it's 50 games or nothing, I say nothing. If it's a barren 16-month stretch between major-league games, or some little-league schedule where a team with a 24-26 record could make the playoffs, I vote barren. There's too much going on in this country, too much racial strife and uncertainty, too much still unknown about the disease, to waste our time figuring out how to get rich owners and players paid.
Only baseball, with its sordid history of owner-player distrust and outright disdain, can turn legitimate, complex questions of health and safety during a pandemic into a pig-trough fight over money. Only baseball, the sport that involves the least amount of player-to-player contact and is held in wide-open stadiums better suited to mitigation, could be so royally stubborn and myopic.
Like much of America these days, rather than listen and compromise, both sides dug in and won't budge. The owners look worse because amid baseball's supposed economic concerns, their revenue has continued to set records. So why not take the financial hit for one shortened season?
But sorry, the players are awful at playing the victim, brandishing their own brand of obstinance and divisiveness. They talk about the health danger as if they're being asked to man the hospital frontlines. Baseball responded with a 67-page safety protocol that some players found stringent.
