Keith McPherson, like so many baseball fans in the New York area, grew up loving the always-contending Yankees, their consistent World Series trips providing the optimal springboard into baseball obsession.
On Tuesday, that obsession was stripped away with Rob Manfred announcing the cancellation of the first two series of the 2022 season, and with the public tension between owners and players, it's hard to imagine the cancellations stopping there. After a glimmer of hope in the late hours of Monday night into Tuesday morning, the players declared that any optimism was being pumped from the owners side to try and pressure the MLBPA into a deal, and that was that. The lights remained out on baseball, and fans around the world, including Keith, were left to deal with a reality where Opening Day is now an unknown landmark.
"Honestly, I'm down," Keith said. "I'm disappointed. I'm sad. I'm embarrassed. The reality has set in for me, and I'm always someone who is a glass-half-full person, and my glass is empty.
"I felt like this was the death of baseball today. Apologies if that sounds dramatic to you."
In a way, perhaps Tuesday's announcement killed a small part of baseball fandom for everyone who grew up loving the sport. MLB has not enjoyed a "normal" season since 2019, when Keith's Yankees came two wins short of reaching their first World Series in a decade. Another shot now seems incredibly far off, and not just because of questions surrounding the roster or the front office's priorities heading into the new season. The uncertainty now lies with whether the Yankees, or any other team, will even have a chance to compete in the Fall Classic.
"I feel like a chunk of myself has been taken today, and I'm helpless, and there's nothing I can do about it but watch and hope," Keith said.
"I don't want people thinking this is all Rob Manfred's fault or the owners fault or the players. They're all at fault. This didn't need to happen."
But it did happen, and now the question lingers: how long will it last? Regardless if it bleeds into summer or stops at only the first two series of the season, Tuesday's announcement inflicted damage onto a game that millions have enjoyed since childhood.
"I don't think it needed to come to this," Keith said. "I'm hurt. I'm not gonna lie…I know it's dramatic to say that I felt like I was going to a funeral, but I felt like I was going to a funeral."
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