Players, you’re up. Please jump on this down-the-middle, meatball pitch thrown by MLB owners and crush it out of the park.
After a week in which owners and players stubbornly stuck to their guns while this great-but-hurting country was brought to its knees again, finally someone blinked Monday morning. The owners gave in big-time, offering players 75% prorated pay with no sliding scale in a 76-game season that would run from around July 10 to Sept. 27 and include no draft compensation for free agents for the first time in 45 years.
That’s reportedly a $200-million budge from what we heard last week that owners reportedly were threatening to mandate based on their March 26 agreement: 50 games with full prorated pay.
This is a more than fair offer. Even players making the major league minimum would bring in $198,268 for a half-season of baseball instead of $563,500.
Hopefully, players will come to their senses and accept this offer because now definitely is not the time to fight for every last stinking dollar when millions of baseball fans have been out of work for months due to the coronavirus pandemic and now also pained because of racial injustice, the protesting, rioting and more hurting.
Players should take a moment and realize 99.9 percent of fans won’t make $200K this season and that it takes a lot of regular people at least four-to-six years to earn that kind of coin.
My guess is the players will look at this latest proposal from owners as a good starting point to keep negotiating and in the coming days they will respond with another counter.
Hopefully, Phillies outfielder Andrew McCutchen’s “LOL” tweet right after reports of the owners’ new offer began circulating on social media isn’t what most players are feeling. I enjoyed getting to know McCutchen when he was a Yankees outfielder for a few months in 2018, but I’m LOLing at his response.
McCutchen already has made almost $92 million in his stellar career, and he’d get $7.04 million this year instead of $20 million in a 76-game season at 75% prorated pay. Sorry, but it’s pathetic for anyone to mock making just $7.04 million for a half-season of baseball that was caused by a pandemic that has inflicted almost two million Americans and killed more than 110,000 in the U.S.
Every day that passes without an agreement isn’t just another day the start of a season will be pushed back. Every day owners and players fight about money, they risk losing more fans. Many already are beyond fed up that owners and players would have the nerve to fight about money when America is in its worst economic crisis since the Great Depression.
Here is part of an email that was sent my way over the weekend by a frustrated senior citizen named Philip Cusa.
“I have been a baseball fanatic for 65+ years and a Yankee fan from the beginning after finding a Mickey Mantle baseball card in 1954. I have been disappointed in how this great game has lost its momentum as the national pastime it should be. But greed and narcissism have taken over the game.
“During this time that all Americans are suffering, it is disgusting to see the way self-centered, uncaring, selfish ballplayers have acted. It is disheartening. This is not how Mickey Mantle, Yogi Berra, Bobby Richardson, Lou Gehrig or even Babe Ruth would have acted. They would have done their job. That’s right, their job!
“If the ballplayers and the owners cannot come to an agreement, I hope the whole season goes in the toilet. The game shouldn’t even be considered a national pastime. These guys are playing a game, damn it! They’re not saving lives or providing services to the community in need.
“Give me a break! I, for one, will not pay to go to another baseball game or watch one on TV or any other venue. A very sad way to end a lifetime of enjoyment. It makes me sick to my stomach.”
I’ve received many other emails in recent weeks from fans, plus phone calls from friends and family, and almost all of them sided with owners even before Monday. Even my baseball-loving father, an 80-year-old suburban Pittsburgher who never made $40,000 in a year working for decades at a glass factory, is anti-players in this fight.
Now that owners have done their part to meet the players halfway for the good of baseball – for the good of the country – the players need to do the same ASAP.
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Randy Miller may be reached at rmiller@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @RandyJMiller. Find NJ.com on Facebook. Tell us your coronavirus story or send a tip here.
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MLB owners gave plenty in new proposal. Players should accept plan for 76-game season | Opinion - NJ.com
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