Rockpile

MLB’s proposal pits owners against players

Rockies news and links for Wednesday, May 13, 2020

By AJ Hendrickson@ProbablyAJ May 13, 2020, 6:00am MDT

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Clock is suddenly ticking on MLB’s 82-game season proposal | New York Post

As of Tuesday afternoon, the proposal to start the MLB season is in the hands of the players association. The players reps will likely convene to discuss the proposal and draft a response, thus beginning a negotiation period that will probably need to wrap up within two or three weeks for a chance at the proposed start date in early July.

There’s a lot going on in this proposal, some of which we discussed in yesterday’s Rockpile, and some of which you can read about in a million other places.

So instead, let’s talk about the aspect that for some reason isn’t being talked about as much despite this being a health crisis: health.

Rockies player rep Scott Oberg talks owners’ proposal for 2020: “Number one issue is going to be health and safety” | Denver Post ($)

So many of the articles I’ve read in the past few days have amounted to the writers being irritated by “greedy millionaires fighting with greedy billionaires.” And yes, the financial issue is a major concern for both sides.

But this isn’t a collective bargaining agreement. This is a proposal to begin playing a sport during a global pandemic. Sure, most of the players are healthy and young and thus in a lower risk category. But what about their families? And the coaches? And the hotel workers, cleaning staff, food prep people, bus drivers, airline personnel, clubhouse attendants, media people, muffin bakers, photographers, fishmongers, and whoever else is necessary to make games happen?

Some risk will have to be accepted. That’s a given. But how much? For players whose immune systems already attack themselves (Scott Oberg) or who don’t really have immune systems at all due to not really having spleens at all (David Dahl), the risks are pretty high.

Personally, I don’t really care who wins the money battle if we risk losing this:

Or this:

And I don’t think we can reasonably expect the players union to accept any plan that doesn’t address how we’ll look out for the fishmongers of MLB.

The most important aspect of any MLB restart plan | Sean Doolittle on Twitter

Yes, I’m including a Twitter thread in my Rockpile. That’s the world we live in now.

Sean Doolittle breaks down the health risks players and their families are being asked to expose themselves to. And because this disease is so new, there’s a lot we don’t even know about the risks—including the long-term implications.

This stuff is sort of important.

Passan’s 20 questions: Why financial battle over 2020 MLB season is about to get really, really ugly | ESPN

As Jeff Passan predicted, this week got ugly. Players are fighting with owners. Fans are fighting with fans. Sportswriters are fighting with sportswriters. And Jeff Passan is going a little stir crazy.

Aren’t we all.

Beyond perfect: Armando Galarraga, 10 years after the call | The Athletic

Hey, you know how there’s no baseball and everyone is arguing over money and stuff in the middle of a global pandemic?

Why don’t we instead talk about the good times in baseball?

Like remember that time Armando Galarraga threw a perfect game?

...

Oh. Right.

‘Hamilton’ Coming To Disney+ On July 3, Bypassing 2021 Theatrical Release | NPR

This has nothing to do with baseball. But you know what? We all needed some good news, and national treasure Lin-Manuel Miranda has answered the call.

★ ★ ★

Well, we already talked about who was the ugliest (it’s the owners). So now let’s address who’s the prettiest.