Baseball Can’t Screw Up Its Big 2021 Opportunity – ryan

Shortstop Fernando Tais Jr. of the San Diego padres.
Photo: Ralph Freso/Getty Images

Last Month, The Atlantic‘s James Hamblin Wrote About Our Quite Postybly Wonderful SummerHow “periods of intense hardship are songs followed by unique moments of Collective catarsis or awakening,” and Thus How this Summer Could “Revelatory.” Major League Baseball Feels uniquely positioned to benefite from that catarsis. Of all the collective gatherings we’ve been unable to experience over the last year – Sports events, concerts, movies – sports are that have had an infrastructure set up to accommodate everyone’s return. (It is gonna to be a while unil you can see your favorite band, no matter how quickly every Gets vaccinated.) And if you have that that is feelings in the Sun with People, Drinking A Beer Not Worming About realting For a while, baseball is your primary, Maybe Only, Option Over The Next Few Months. Honestly: tan if you don’t like baseball, doesn’t it sound amazing to just go to a game right now? Doesn’t it sound like the Most luxurious, indulgent thing in the world?

IT’S an incredible opportunity for a game that has been lost considerable market share and public interest over the last two decades, and thus couuld use break it can get. A sport that has Seemed out of step with the Times Might be ideal for a Summer of Activity, of Sunshine, of reveling. While the texas rangers’ decision to open it stadium to 100 percent capacity for opening day – even as the cdc warns of yet another COVID CASE SURGE – SEEMS UNWISE, EVERY OTHER TEAM IS ALLOWING AT LEST FANS FASS FANS FASS FANS FASS FANS FASS FANS FANS FANS FANS FASS FANS FASS FANS FANS FANNER FOR THEIR HOME OPENER, Too. So the Question is not whereher or not our baseball stadiums will be full this summer. The Question is How Soon.

Baseball is Perpetually Facing Complaints that it has lost it, how the game isn’t asses it is used to be. But it has plenty to offer at this particular moment, including terrific teams in major media markets (New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, and Atlanta are as anyone to host the 2021 World Series), Incredibly Charismatic Young WHO ARE Ideal Salesmen for the Game. (Fernando Tase Jr., The Padres Star Shortstop, Has Ken Griffey Jr.-Esque Crossover Appeal, and Eastern Francisco, Whose Nickname is literally Mr. Smileis about to charm the pants off the new York City) and a growing rejuvenation of the traditional “unwritten rules” that have good -to -do (and have generaly involved what gatekeepers silencing young, offten Latino and Black, Players), Whice Has Led to A Sport Joyous, demonstrative, and Young-Fan-Fryently than it has ben in a generation. Baseball has a lot to sell, and this particular moment May just give it the Biggest, Vastest Stage on Which to do so. This is really coulded be the sport’s moment.

SO, That’s The Good News. The Bad News is that Baseball Has a Trends to Shoot itelf in the Foot and this Coming offseason provides ample opportunity to do so. This December 1, The Collective Bargaining Agreement, which lays out the financial rules and regulations with which Baseball Governs itself, Expires. This cba has long been thoughly to be highly advantageous to the owners Rather than the players, for reasons too numerous to get in a general-intertest column. (Here’s the A good fangraphs explainerif you’re interest.) What matters is that that is players want to blow up the Current System, Owners Want to Keep it, and Both sides are as entrenrenhed as they have ben at any point a labor fight caused the world to be canceled in 1994. Couldn’t Reach an AggreEment About Covid Protocols Coming Into This Season; Owners wanted to push games back a month and players argued (Correctly, it sura seames now) that they just made it to Through a whole in the thick of the pandemic, and theree noed to postpone any storm with the virus. For Several Years Now, Not a single situation in baseball hasn’t been sounded with the Dark Speed ​​of the Impending Labor Fight, Whether IT’S RO Alarm During Espn’s Return of Sports Special Last Summer or He Way the Big Astros Scandal tourned out to be legislated. (Manfred’s Light Touch on Some of the Offending Players Was Almost Certainly Due To A desire to avoid picking a huge, high-profile fight with the union.) There is no Bigger Story in Baseball – Not the Pandemic, Not Mike Trout, Not Any Scandal – than the Labor Battle.

Baseball has survived so much over it history, Despite Constant Claims that is perpetually “dying.” (This prediction “Was First Levied Back in the 19th Century.) But the Only Two Times It Has Been in Actual Mortal Peril Were in 1919 – when the Black sox scandal caussed fans to love in the games themelves – and in 1994, we a previous labor of the Cancellation of the World Series. You can argue the game, for all its successes SINCE THEN, HASN’T ENTIRELY RECOVERED From 1994; It wasn’t long after that, after all, that the nfl took over from mlb as the clear American National Pastel. The Game has Proven it Can Handle Drug Scandals, or Disparity Between Small and Large Markets, or The “Banging Scheme” of the Astros. What always gets it in trouble, what can knock it out entirely, is one fights about Money – eves righteous ones, as the players couluy argue this is – Stop the games steppening. The Danger of a self-imbosion is particularly acute at a time when the Country is Still Recovering from Its Pains and Suferinging, and May have Little Patience for Owners and Players unable to put on a simple game. How Much Patience will you Expect the Average Fan to Have For A Labor Fight Right Now? AFTE EVERYING?

This is an incredible Opportunity for Major League Baseball. The stands will be full, the Spirits will be high, the beer will be Cold. It is could be a pivot moment for the sport, which really is one. But that Labor Fight lurks, a train at the end of the tunnel, waiting to pulverize all the good will the sport is about to generate. This is going to be a wonderful summer for baseball. IT”S Now on Everyone Involved in the Sport not to Screw Up What Comes AFT.