This is the online version of our daily newsletter, The Morning Win. Subscribe to get irreverent and incisive sports stories, delivered to your mailbox every morning. Charles Curtis is filling in for Andy Nesbitt.
They say deadlines spur action, particularly when it comes to labor disputes in major sports leagues.
And it sounds like there’s a deadline coming in Major League Baseball if the players and owners don’t figure out how to bridge the financial gaps both sides are facing.
MLB informed players that if there’s no agreement by Monday, regular-season games will start being canceled.
Now, you may think fewer than 162 games a year isn’t a big deal. But this isn’t the NBA or the NFL, where fans returned after labor disputes — heck, even the NHL rebounded from its lockout-shorted season a decade ago.
The problems facing baseball go beyond this lockout, with the future of the game at stake — younger fans may not want to watch the version of baseball that exists now, with a game that has less of the ball in play thanks to a variety of factors from analytics to better pitching to the shift.
The lockout ending may not address those issues. But it means the game can’t suffer any setbacks right now as the future is being worked out. Losing games and more fans now — remember, the 1994 strike nearly crippled baseball — is already starting off on the wrong foot.
This weekend is crunch time. There can be no games lost this season, or an entire year wiped away. After this is solved? Then it’s time to find a way to improve the product.
Get it done.
Quick hits: How the sports world reacted to Russia invading Ukraine … Steph Curry’s fit … NBA house swap! … and more.
— How the sports world reacted to Russia invading Ukraine, from the Champions League Final moving to Formula 1.
— You’ve got to see what Steph Curry wore before a Warriors game on Thursday.
— Josh Hart and Larry Nance Jr. swapped houses after they were traded for each other.
— Peacock hid Kevin’s famous chili recipe from The Office in its terms of use.
