The 2020 season now rests in the hands of the players to accept or reject the owner’s proposals. Sounds simple – yea or nay. If only we weren’t human.
The 2020 MLB season now contains a must-read for all players and the Major League Baseball Players Association (MLBPA). It’s a 67-page health and safety proposal Major League Baseball sent to players not to be read to their children as a bedtime story.
It speaks of real life in Today’s America with all the risks associated with presenting yourself in any kind of a public setting.
To be sure, the document covers all of the dos and don’ts. It’s craftily written to avoid the obvious.
It’s a legal document that can be later used in court by MLB as a “We told you so” defense when they are deluged with suits by players, coaches, umpires, and families of lost ones.
The 2020 MLB Season – A Lure, The Players, Must Resist
The document is an invitation for a player to welcome the opportunity to do what he does best, even if it means walking into the arena as a gladiator from long lost times.
The 2020 MLB season rests on the lure of a man separated from what he loves, whether it is crushing a 97mph fastball into the night, or hitting the outside corner perfectly for a called strike three.
This is what they do, and it’s why they have trained for months to prepare their bodies for the grind of a baseball season. Some are multi-millionaires and some not, and all 600 of them are bound together by a single fact.
They are less than one one-hundredth of one percent of Americans to suit up to play in a major league baseball game. And typically, they are a band of brothers no less the kind we see on a battlefield.
Add to the mix a report by Bob Nightengale of USA Today that cites
No sunflower seeds? And no spitting? Really?
Former New York Yankees first baseman Tino Martinez hopes to clarify the problem players will have jumped into the fray with missives given to the New York Daily News. Seriously, this is our benchmark to pray from Today.
So, Imagine Yourself as Tony Clark, President, MLBPA
You have one player telling you he needs sunflower seeds to hit a baseball. And you have a former All-Star saying how hard it’s going to be for MLB players to learn how not to spit.
Meanwhile, you have another contingent asking, are they serious? I can’t take my wife or significant other out for dinner when my team is traveling to San Francisco?
While still another member steps boldly up to the plate shouting loudly – Give me my money, all of it, or stick it up…
Add to that the stubborn PR department of MLB led so adequately by the mouthpiece of Commissioner Rob Manfred spewing forth a series of half-truths preaching doomsday.
Buckle up, he shouts, this will be the end of baseball if team owners are forced to suffer the indignity of a $4 billion loss this season, even though it follows a record 2019 season of $10.7 billion in revenue.
Plus, you have the casual MLB fan, which given the nature of life in these United States Today, has no time or interest in drilling down to the finer points of right or wrong.
And so, maybe we can conclude that if nobody’s right, then everybody’s wrong? Though you, Mr. Clark, and the players you represent are part of that.
A Season Gone Awry And Maybe We Should Stop Trying To Fix It
When Stage-4 cancer is discovered in a patient, the treating oncologist doesn’t report to the family with a list of possible but not proven methods to “fix” the patient. Overdramatic, you make the call. I think not.
We could do this, and we can try that, but the patient will endure a high level of risk, hardship – and I’m afraid she will need to remain in quarantine – meaning the next time you see her will be in six weeks.
Similarly, the MLB 2020 season has been turned over to the will of nature. COVID-19 is the boss.
MLB can try to manipulate, cajole, deny, and circumvent the ground war the virus is waging. But at some point, surrender must be introduced into the vocabulary to forgo the risks of more cases, and eventually, more death.
In the same way, the cancer-stricken patient might say to her family – No, to all “treatments” – let’s just use the time we have to get my affairs in order.
You, Gotta, Know When To Hold ‘Em – And When To Walk Away
The planet’s survival does not hinge on the 2020 MLB season, as some are saying. The reverse is more in tune with our condition Today.
A vaccine is on the way, and when it comes, it will open all the doors we are seeking to enter.
In the meantime, let’s put the MLB 2020 season into an egg, which left to nurture in its nest will breed a 2021 season like no other.
Baseball, it is said, is only a game. True. And the Grand Canyon is only a hole in Arizona. Not all holes, or games, are created equal.
