MLB Owners: A textbook lesson in how to steal the show from the players

MLB owners remain a tightknit group while the players union flinches every time someone goes off the reservation – negating the essence of unionism.

MLB owners, players, for most of us, we don’t care who wins what in the negotiations to settle the salary differences between the two. All we want is our baseball splashed on television to celebrate the 4th of July.

We want to see the spectacle of a designated hitter in the National League, and players spaced appropriately in the dugouts and stands. We want to see if Pete Alonso is the real thing, and maybe even seven-inning doubleheaders.

We look forward to an experimentally expanded postseason, with the chance there will be World Series games after Thanksgiving played at neutral sites and record-setting TV ratings.

But for those directly involved, the MLB owners and players, these negotiations are far-reaching, serving as a prelude to the full-fledged talks on a new agreement when the current one expires at the end of the 2021 season.

MLB Owners Taking It To The MLBPA

For those of us who are interested in the nitty-gritty details of the negotiations, we are witnessing an old fashioned whopping leveled on the players by MLB owners.

Using the media most effectively, MLB owners have gotten their story out to the public uninterrupted, and usually, before the players’ union (MLBPA) received the same notifications.

It’s down and dirty, but the owners don’t seem to care. MLB owners “get” what the players never seem to digest.

You see, MLB owners know we hate them, despise them for their wealth and greediness, and determination to become even wealthier while 47 million Americans are no longer employed.

This, while the players hold on to the naive belief, they hold the public trust, and that somehow we forgive them for rising to the top of America’s one-percent.

That somehow, Gerrit Cole is forgiven for drawing a cool one million dollars for each of the 36 starts he is expected to make in a typical season.

How MLB Owners Are Getting It Done

We notice, too, there isn’t one owner who’s come out to apologize for making demands on the players to cut their salaries even more than they have. Not one, not one owner has spoken out.

Meanwhile, several players have come forth to defend the fact that owners are trying to screw them. For the most part, it’s been a disaster.

Former players have jumped in as well, even though they have no dog in the race.

Occasionally, it works out as plus as it did in a story appearing on nj.com, in which now-retired CC Sabathia laments how MLB owners have put the players in a “bad position” in the battle for money.

But then, there’s also schizophrenic Mark Teixeira, who drew down $213 million during his playing days, doing his version of the Derek Jeter “flip,” first proclaiming he saw things through the eyes of MLB owners.

At some point, though, it must have dawned on Teixeira that as an ESPN analyst, these are the same players he would seeking to interview for intel on the upcoming game.

Two weeks later, no surprise, Teixeira is now concerned MLB owners may be out to “break” the players union.

MLB owners are in such disarray, and that’s mainly because they have an energetic and articulate spokesman in Commissioner Rob Manfred. Everything runs through his mouth or press release.

On the other side sits Tony Clark, President of the MLBPA. All you need to know about Clark and the job he is doing can be found doing a simple search on YouTube using Tony Clark MLBPA.

There is nada, nothing from Clark in the last two weeks, a major faux pas and a reason why players are speaking out on their own. Leaders are supposed to lead, especially in times such as these.

This IS More Than “Give Me My Baseball”

If you’ve gotten this far, it probably means you have at least some interest in things other than “Give me my baseball.”

For me, I just hate to see the players get outmaneuvered by MLB owners for no reason other than a lack of effective leadership at the top.

If Max Scherzer can make a coherent argument on behalf of his peers, why can’t Tony Clark do the same?

When the dust settles, MLB players will be wise to take a deep breath. Are those representing you doing so in your best interest?

Because if the MLBPA leadership remains the same, MLB owners will wipe the floor with their sorry remains in the negotiations for a new agreement in 2021.

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