For months we watched a public mudslinging fest take place
between MLB owners and the Players Union. While the two sides have always been
at odds, it’s leadership that the sport’s commissioner is supposed to provide.
Rob Manfred may be a very intelligent man, but you wouldn’t know if looking at
the results of his actions.
Major League Baseball owners are represented by one man, Manfred.
He was chosen having come from a labor negotiations background. With the sport
likely coming to an ugly labor dispute following the conclusion of the 2021
season, it was Manfred who would be tasked at following in Selig’s footsteps
but not making the same mistakes. Unfortunately, we are now here, a place that
has given us an unprecedented set of parameters, and a terribly worse set of
mistakes.
While money was made out to be the reason players were
publicly disparaged by those who own the teams, a reality is that any season in
2020 would be played during a worldwide pandemic. Although the rest of the
world has done an exemplary job of flattening their curve and combatting the
virus, this one is still seeing new records every day. For baseball to be played
in that structure, players wanted their fairly agreed upon pay, but more
importantly a safe environment in which to work.
After the dust settled on economical issues, we were given
resumption. Now six days into the new Summer Camp (which mind you, has a
sponsor and branding intended to drive those owner’s immediate revenue), we’ve
already got a long list of avoidable mistakes. Manfred and MLB have not come
through with the necessary PPE in order to properly protect those within the
game. Testing is being done, but results aren’t streamlined to meet deadlines,
which has now caused multiple organizations to cease operations during a three-week
sprint to get ready.
The way these five days have gone is reflective of a very
ugly reality. It’s a lack of leadership and follow through that paints the
picture as a “set it and forget it” type of scenario. We were given a date for
resumption, so everything was just going to fall into place. Major League
Baseball is set to unveil the 2020 schedule tonight, but we have no reason to
believe we’ll logically make it to that point.
Whether now or in the future, whether the league gets its
act together or not, Manfred needs to begin asking himself for accountability.
He’s banged a drum for years that the game must be changed. Pace of play
initiatives and poorly thought out marketing strategies have done little to
benefit even the intended bottom line. While routinely chomping on his own feet
whether by calling the World Series trophy a piece of metal, or publicly
suggesting the league never intended to play anything more than the minimal
amount of games, he’s become more court jester than duly appointed judge.
Other sports have returned thus far, and while we’re still
going up against a relatively unknown enemy, the reason to believe in
positivity on those fronts is because leadership has ensured a strong plan of
action. Rather than denigrating the product and squabbling over who will make
more money, the first course of action was how would this be accomplished, and
then everything else was allowed to figure itself out with proper runway to
ensure follow through.
I certainly hope we have a 2020 Major League Baseball season
to watch. The Twins are going to be very good, and the nightly drama of a
60-game sprint should be a blast. If we don’t though, it won’t be on the
players opting out or the virus causing them to consider that action. It will
be on leadership, specifically that of one man, who fell completely short.
