You should be mad at baseball.
Even though there is another week before we officially start carving off regular season games, the acceptance of a snail's pace negotiating schedule has alway been unacceptable. It has stripped us of the February routine that is as simplistic as watching baseballs being thrown back and forth, bats offering sounds that immediately remind us the end of winter isn't far off, and just the kind of overall normalcy our society craves now more than ever.
John Henry should be answering questions from Jonny Miller while sitting on a Fort Myers bench this week. That sort of time-honored tradition, along with the first wave of spring training games, have been stripped from us. Now, instead, we have doomsday deadlines and 15-minute meetings.
There is undeniably anger, and maybe even a growing wave of apathy. All fair.
But the laziest of narratives lingers, helping dominate polls, columns and sound bytes. It's the one that suggests baseball is finally digging its grave ... for good.
It sounds good, but that's not the reality. Sorry.
When baseball does come back - whether it's in April, May or June - its fans will follow.
First of all, labor stoppages don't bury leagues or sports. That is a historical fact. And why many will suggest this is different because the idea of baseball isn't exactly a straight ball right down the middle for the attention-span-starved sports fans, allowing for this delay to push it off the cliff, it's another false notion.
It certainly will not help matters if tweaks to the game (hello, pitch clock) aren't made when this dust settles. The opportunity for change is part of this whole hiatus, and it would be nice if the two sides didn't blow it.
But the foundation that is baseball's following, that undeniably finally strengthened with the younger demographic in 2021, isn't going anywhere. It's never going to be the NFL, but soak in these 2021 numbers from Statista.com:
NBA
Not a fan: 54 percent
Avid fan: 18 percent
Casual fan: 29 percent
NHL
Not a fan: 62 percent
Avid fan: 11 percent
Casual fan: 27 percent
MLB
Not a fan: 44 percent
Avid fan: 18 percent
Casual fan: 38 percent
Here's another one: As of August 2021, an MLB team was the highest rated in 16 of the 20 markets where its team shared a market with an NBA and/or NHL team.
Football may own a day of the week, but baseball owns months of the year. (Yes, the ones that don't include the NFL.) News flash: People won't be turning their backs on heading back to Club Fenway on those nice summer days and nights because of labor strife.
But here's the part of the equation that those predicting this is soccer's or the USFL's big chance: Baseball will have an ace-in-the-hole when it returns, the excitement of an offseason in the heart of spring training.
There are HUNDREDS of professional baseball players needing new teams, including big-ticket items like Carlos Correa, Corey Seager, Freedie Freeman, Kris Bryant, Trevor Story, Seiya Suzuki, Nick Castellanos, Carlos Rodon, Kyle Schwarber, and Clayton Kershaw.
The flurry of players finding teams leading up to December kept baseball more viable than ever in the days after a pretty energizing postseason. Those jumper cables will be brought back out the minute the padlocks are taken off.
Don't get this proclamation twisted. Boardroom back-and-forth is never a good thing, particularly when it is replacing actual on-the-field action. It stinks. Always does. Always will.
But don't take the bait when the subject comes up. Those who don't care for baseball still won't. But those who do, will once again. It's that simple.
Don't let your rage blind you from this reality.
Thanks to MacFarlane Energy for their season-long baseball partnership. Depend on MacFarlane for all your heating and cooling solutions in both greater Boston and on the Cape at MacFarlane Energy dot com
