The National Basketball Association has enjoyed a renaissance of publicity the past few years, hailed mostly for its progressive attitudes going back to the ejection of noted racist slumlord and part-time lunatic Antebellum Donald Stirling. Under the enlightened if cadaverous Adam Silver, the 30 franchise operators have allowed their employees considerable latitude to speak out on non-basketball matters, from mundane matters like social justice and politics through to planetary shapes.
Which is why (a) it is good to see that the players are not behaving as robotic parrots as regards the putative restart of the season. There are those who want to play and take their chances. There are those who think the safety protocols are too uncertain to play. There are those who think the optics of sequestration are offensive given the current climate. And they all seem to be speaking right up because player empowerment is antithetical to player orthodoxy.
Major League Baseball, on the other hand, has essentially stopped its search for informed opinion at the middle finger stage, In an argument that has always broken down along class lines — "The players are greedy" and "the owners are greedier" — a third option has revealed itself.
Murder-suicide, in either order.
The weekend developments — a new old offer from the owners, a new old rejection from the players followed by an ultimatum for game dates and times, and the increased likelihood that an arbitrator is going to be brought in to tell someone to take a knee — have magnified what the game has been all along, which is two sides fighting over which half of the pie everyone is going to eat.
But at least Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa were there to make everyone remember what baseball did the last time the owners hated the players this much.
What the players have won , after years of dithering toward a middle that doesn't exist, is a new appreciation for its union, for solidarity within that union, and the fresh understanding that management cares not about games but about bankable inventory. They should have known this already, but every new generation of players has to see it with its own eyes. The least important part of MLB to MLB is the B -- baseball.
What the owners have won is — well, nothing, really. A re-energized union the year before a collective bargaining agreement is not skilled management. Also, commissioner Rob Manfred looks less like a bully than a tool now, which by any assessment is a significant demotion. To save beinbg the new Bowie Kuhn, will have to make the kind of P.R. pivots Roger Goodell has attempted, most recently nine days ago without success.
On the other hand, if the owners do shut down the game, they will show as their predecessors did in 1994 that they are as willing to blow things up just to see where the shrapnel hits. Then all they have to do is reinvent steroids to get folks back to the game they have trashed so aggressively. Also, we still know almost none of the owners by their leanings, although Arizona's Ken Kendrick, Chicago's Tom Ricketts and St. Louis' Bill DeWitt stand out as strident hardliners. Whether they are leading that faction or just part of the chorus is uncertain, and we also have no idea where the moderate voices are without resorting to blind guesses, like Milwaukee's Mark Attanasio, Tampa Bay's Stuart Sternberg or New York's Fred Wilpon, who is trying to dump his team on some unsuspecting soul and doesn't need the aggravation.
In other words, anonymity remains their best friend; fortunately, some of them will feel compelled to speak out loud sooner or later and reveal themselves. It always happens that way.
We learn more tomorrow, and barring complete capitulation by the owners, some arbitrator is about to learn how migraines work in a pandemic. But at least he'll have a job until the owners try to fire him for not reclassifying the players as livestock.
Man, baseball's great — especially with some balsamic vinegar garlic steak sauce right at the end of the grilling cycle. Until then, we return you to Homer Porn.
