Bye Bye Baseball

Apparently the MLB and MLBPA’s CBA meeting on Thursday lasted just 19 stinking minutes

February 17, 2022

It’s Thursday afternoon, February 17th, 2022. At the time of writing, we are 48 hours past when pitchers and catchers were scheduled to report and 42 days out from Opening Day, and the MLB and MLBPA are still no closer to agreeing to a new CBA than they were when baseball operations came to a grinding halt in December. Since then there has been a protracted stalemate punctuated by a few limp proposals and counterproposals, none of which anyone, including the parties that drafted them, believed had any chance of being approved. On Thursday, both sides met for the latest round of talks. With the clock ticking and fan frustrations starting to roil, the MLB and MLBPA sat down, looked each other in the eye, and said “how do we get this thing done.” JK! They were in and out in 18 minutes.

12:59 p.m. to 1:18 p.m. You gotta be kidding. If you forgot how much gets done in the first 19 minutes of a face-to-face meeting after two years of living la vida Zoom, this sums it up pretty well.

It’s pathetic. Really it is. Baseball isn’t what it once was, but there is still sooooo much money to go around. Minor leaguers shouldn’t be struggling to put a roof over their heads and the owners shouldn't have to worry about their, um, Telluride ski chalets. And therein lies the reason baseball isn’t what it once was:

People are sick of this sh*t.

Fair or foul (the MLB hasn’t experienced an official lockout since 1994-95, but did have a high-profile spat with the MLBPA in 2020 resulting in a 60-game season no one liked or wanted), baseball is the sport most synonymous with lockouts. Too often it seems like both sides are looking for an excuse not to play, and Thursday’s 19-minute middle-finger feels like proof of that and then some. Needless to say, the so-called “soft optimism” that things would get done well in advance of Opening Day has turned to total mush and shows no sign of improving. In fact, it might be time to start searching for a spring sports alternative. We hear Augusta, Georgia is pretty nice this time of year …