jad

Done. (Someone will have to walk me through that, though.)

You're on.

I'd love to get back to the rhythm of listening to baseball (wait ... is my radio still working? Maybe I should replace the tubes.). But here's $100 saying the season will never get done. (Well, I don't have $100, because ... I forget why ... but still. ...)

Didn't MLB just respond by implementing the 60-game season? Again, the owners' stupidity is beyond me. They COULD have offered 64 games, and for that, the union would have given up its right to file a grievance, PLUS they would have started off the 2021 CBA fight on a good note. INSTEAD, they now have declared war (how does that help?), and risk having to fight a grievance, which it seems the Union is in a pretty good position to win (although even having to go through that legal battle is a loss--probably for both sides). WHY DO THIS? Because they didn't want 3 or 4 more games on the schedule?

https://www.si.com/mlb/2020/06/22/mlb-players-staff-test-positive-coronavirus-sense-urgency-negotiations Now what? (Given the number of people involved, that's probably not unexpected; certainly no worse than what was found at CLemson or U Houston. But at some point, we're going to realize that the strategy 'We're tired of this, let's move on' may not be very effective.)

You're right about that. The owners' short-sightedness continues to astound me. Who would want to invest in a business (whether an advertiser, a season-ticket holder, or a potential buyer of a franchise) that has one lost season in the past and a year or more of labor strife in the future? What exactly is their thinking in all this? Of course, I could just fall back onto the universal maxim: Never attribute to malice what can be explained by incompetence.

Well you're right, that's true. I'm living in the past! (2018!). So I guess we'll just have to move on to step 2.

Step 1 to bringing ticket prices down would be to eliminate the "entertainment tax write-off" that enables corporate American to gobble up expensive seats at minimal cost. [step 2 is to sharpen up one's pitchforks and guillotines ... but that may be a different discussion]

I agree. But sports would argue they are completely fan friendly. The reason for the high tic prices is because people will pay them. Same with movies (although no one complains about movie-stars' salaries). Same with rock concerts. Same, even with classical concerts! You won't have a more 'fan-friendly' league if you cut players' salaries by, say, 90%. You'll have richer owners. Right now, the owners are just in the last stages of what they've been doing all year: (1) getting rid of minor leagues (that fans love!). (2) screwing over minor leaguers (putting them out of work; refusing to pay those they have) in hopes of off-loading minor-leagues onto tax-supported universities (the football model). (3) screwing over the players (asking employees to take salary cuts or furloughs in order to protect owner's bottom line).

Florida numbers, predictably!, rising far too rapidly for the state to repress with feel-good comments or by firing scientists. Their plan now seems to be to fill up all the hospitals so that they can get to 0 admissions. Not a good sign for those of us who would like to see the NBA, football, or that other summer sport, have a season.

23 Clemson football players also tested positive. It's going to be very hard to pull off team sports this fall with numbers like that. The NBA probably has the best chance. As for ... what was that sport? The one with billionaire owners and guys with bats? ... I forget.

So the owners, with an easy compromise at hand (65 games?) refuse to budge. Wow. Nothing quite as cool as a bad-ass billionaire. I'm sure the fans are going to love to fill the internet with support of these guys and decry the players as LOSERS! This year is clearly lost. And likely 2021 as well, since it will only be a prelude to a strike before playoff times. If the owners are trying to show how tough they are, and how they NEVER will negotiate, they've done a good job. Good luck trying to get an agreement for the new CBA, which may well put the value of their franchises at 0 come 2022.

Not sure why you are turning this into an argument. I never said it's not a business. I said the owners treat this business as if it were a hobby (which of course legally is subject to all the same laws businesses are subject to.). If you want to argue, go ahead and make an argument you can then rail against. It's the internet. Anyone can be a bad-ass tough guy.

No. Not my intention. I don't understand what you mean. Explain? (I realize MLB has an exception that other sports do not.)

This is why I say the owners view this as a hobby, and not a business. Because from a business point of view, their position (they want to WIN, PERIOD) is nuts. At this point they are arguing over peanuts, when they could easily say, "OK, Tony, let's call it 65, or ... no? ok, 68. Deal." Instead, they dig in, and issue statements disparaging their greatest asset--the players. Perhaps they won't lose this season or post-season. But with the CBA looming, the players likely hold the cards next year--all they need to do is play out the 2021 season, take their cash, and strike immediately before the post-season. What is the ownership attitude toward this? Do they figure that by eliminating the minor leagues, as they have, they can just hire a bunch of cheap 'replacement players'--a strategy that has not worked at all when it was tried by other leagues? Do they really think fans don't give a crap about Mookie, or Mike Trout or Bryce Harper? If this were a business, there is no way an owner would be willing to risk the catastrophic losses that could well result from bad owner/player relationships.

When I was in h.s., that was "long distance." I remember we were told to do 4 laps once (that would have been less than a mile)-- only a few made it without walking.

Ha! What a tool! I played three sports in h.s., hockey in college, tennis, golf and squash as an adult, ran four marathons, and I can guarantee you, I NEVER ran a 6 minute mile or anything close. Thank God my coaches were not wannabe badasses like this guy.

Yes, I agree. MLB made its first real offer yesterday. Obviously, they should just "do it," but I'm sure the owners' egos are so involved now that they will INSIST that it be THEIR offer that is the final one, not one made by players. (F*ck it: shake on 65 and have each side walk away claiming victory).

Wall Street Journal had a nice article today about Kansas city agreeing to pay minor leaguers and not treating low-level employees like s***, as opposed to firing staff and screwing the minor leaguers as other franchises have done. When you hold up a relatively poor franchise like KC as a model of civil behavior, which shames the greedy, cost-cutting actions of major franchises, that tells you pretty much all you need to know about MLB 'management'. When I see players f*cking over their trainers, house-keepers, gardeners, and lying about their finances in public, then I will be willing to entertain the thought that 'both sides are at fault'.

I don't know how many times this point needs to be made: ticket prices have NO relation to player salaries. They are set by bean-counters to maximize the gate. It doesn't matter if payroll is 200 million or 200 thousand. The calculation is the same. If you can sell a seat for $150, there is no way you are going to let it go for $10. The fans' belief that if you cut player salaries down, ticket prices would drop is ridiculous. Sure, we'd all like to walk to Fenway and get a $3 bleacher seat on game day. But guess what: Fenway is FULL! What kind of logic suggests that if prices were dropped, then suddenly there would be thousands of tix available? Lower player salaries all you want--all you are doing is putting more money in the pockets of the owners, who have pretty much revealed their true colors the last couple of months (firing staff, getting rid of minor leagues, screwing over minor leaguers).

https://www.si.com/mlb/2020/06/16/baseball-owners-players-coronavirus-stoppage

I like it because it's perfectly designed for TV. You don't have to pay full attention. You can do something else while the game is on. You won't miss anything because everything will be replayed. (And bec. of Replay--the worst thing that has ever happened to sports--there's hardly reason to watch the play as it happens, since you won't know whether it stands or not). That said, you're right. I used to love boxing--it's almost impossible for me to watch anymore. And football may well head down that road. It's no longer as easy to revel in the big hits, since we can no longer ignore the catastrophic effects they may have.

Of course they did. And of course everyone else did (in some fashion--likely not as blatant as trash-can banging). Even those of us who played in the days when 1 = fastball, 2=curve (on the off-chance the pitcher even had one!), love to play the game of de-coding signs during the game. So none of the geeks employed by the team did this? None of the players studying film ever do this? Another example of Manfred's incompetence: this should have been solved three years ago. Instead the league responded with a chest-thumping warning "Now REALLY! DON'T! I MEAN it this time!" and ineffective rule-changes (limit of catcher's visits).

It's not easy to make Roger Goodell look like a statesman, and Gary Bettman look like a mastermind (although he's had a good record recently, including innovations to the game, such as the 3-man overtime, which ROCKS!--cf. the pathetic efforts at rule-changes of baseball and football.). But making others look like geniuses is something that Manfred has down. I don't see how any semblance of a season can be saved. But that will be barely a blip on the screen once next year rolls around, and owners goad the players into open rebellion.

But then, gosh, people disagree sometimes, and ... and even say mean and hurtful things to me ...