MLB Finally Has a Plan to Play Baseball in 2020, but its Future Looks Very Dim
Of all the professional sports leagues that were trying to implement a plan that would allow them to resume playing games amid the COVID-19 pandemic, MLB may have had the brightest and harshest spotlight. A bitter negotiation process between the players and owners was seemingly going nowhere; players wanted to ensure their health and safety were the highest priority and that they would be paid a fair portion of their contracts, while billionaire owners cried poor that they were losing money due to the lack of games and kept lowballing players who would be putting their well-being on the line to play baseball. Yet somehow a deal was finally reached.
After players rejected the fourth deal the owners put in front of them, the owners unanimously agreed to proceed with a 60-game season under the terms of a deal made with the MLB Player’s Association back on March 26. While there are still many kinks to work out, MLB has finally joined every other professional sports league in at least having a plan to resume games.
As is the case with every other league, the unconventional season structure raises questions in terms of the sport. How legitimate will the World Series champion be if it only had to play 60 games under unprecedented circumstances? It is much easier to bat .400, a feat no one has accomplished in nearly 80 years, in a 60-game season than the usual 162 games. If a player accomplishes that feat or any similar ones will they be considered legitimate? What makes MLB unique among other sports is how much of a marathon the regular season is. Plenty of teams have played well in their first 60 games only for things to fall apart over the next 102, which means we could see some very unusual playoff contenders.
This is of course assuming that the league actually resumes play. We have seen coronavirus cases not only spike up in many states across the country, but in clubhouses for every sport as well. We are beginning to see players opt out of the season due to the risks involved, including Ian Desmond of the Colorado Rockies, Ryan Zimmerman and Joe Ross of the defending champion Washington Nationals and Mike Leake of the Arizona Diamondbacks.
It’s becoming increasingly likely that we will not see professional sports played again in 2020. While this would be devastating to every player, fan and owner, MLB has the bleakest future of any North American professional sports league. The discussions of how to safely and fairly play baseball during a pandemic have expanded the rift between players and owners, all before the collective bargaining agreement is set to expire at the end of 2021. It may be a very long time before we see MLB games again, even after the COVID-19 pandemic ends.
Report: Michael Rosen
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