I need to take a break from my wall to wall viewing of the Winter Olympics where I continue to wonder how a nation with the greatest military, most wealth, and most guns, can't figure out how to find someone that can cross country ski, and shoot a rifle, to win just one gold medal in the Biathlon?
Instead, I'm going to focus my attention on why these two clowns hate baseball. In case you are unfamiliar with twiddle dumb and twiddle dee, that is the Commissioner Rob Manfred on the left, and staring him down is the union president Tony Clark.
Clark is a former player who decided that he was the guy that would finally break the owners back. Since he has been in charge of the union the owners have gone on their only winning streak in the history of the sport.
They have managed to generate the greatest revenues in league history. Sold teams for record amounts of money. Managed to reduce the median income and and players share of owners revenue. All while claiming that they are so poor that they can't possibly keep the game going.
Manfred, meanwhile, has taken it upon himself to do everything in his power to ruin the most perfect game ever created. He eliminated most of the minor leagues. He continues to insist that the game needs to be sped up, for god knows what reason. He keeps trying stupid ways to do it like, putting a guy on second base in extra innings, insisting on a pitch clock, trying to eliminate the shift, and a host of other ideas that I try to forget every day.
Between these two dopes, they would take the game to new low levels only seen in televised woman's lacrosse. Many fans are calling this latest work stoppage the billionaires versus the millionaires. I think of it as dumb versus dumber.
The players union believes that they should receive 99.9% of all the revenue generated by baseball with no limits on how much a team spends, or how much a player makes from day one in baseball.
The owners, through Manfred, believe that the players are replaceable and that they should be happy with whatever crumbs the owners care to share with them. I'm pretty sure many owners think fans will come to the games just to see the ballpark and scoreboards. Who needs players?
The owners are supposed to be presenting their latest non offer to the players later today when the union will tell them no thanks before they even finish their power point presentation. The headlines will be "No Progress."
Spring training is going to be delayed, the regular season start is nearly in trouble already, and the fans will once again be hurt by all this. They will figure out a way to come to an agreement eventually and my prediction is that we the fans will end up being the ones paying for all this nonsense. Emotionally and financially.