We would hardly be the first to point out that if the MLB owners had spent as much time talking to the MLB Players Association as they have trying to swing the PR war, the regular season just might start on time (we’re only about two or three weeks from Opening Day being delayed, and there is more hope of Joe Strummer coming back to life than an agreement in that time). But then again, the owners have never been able to see the forest for the trees, or what was really important.
But then, this isn’t really about getting anyone to like them. It’s about trying to apply pressure to the union from any source they can find in order to get it to crack. And to hopefully do that before owners lose out on too many home dates with their precious luxury suite revenue and RSN deals. They don’t want to be handing out any refunds to TBS or ESPN, but they also don’t want to have to make any sacrifices in order to avoid that fate.
The call for federal mediators didn’t work, because everyone saw that for what it was. Leaking things to their favorable media members has only made them and the writers look worse. Though that’s a tactic they’re happy to try again, apparently.
And hey, if you need someone to display sympathy for the clearly wrong with historic credibility, even if that entity has spent years destroying said credibility, who better than the New York Times?
This, of course, is horseshit, and no one specializes in horseshit quite like the NYT. There is no “crisis.” MLB owners have gotten all the resistance of a puppy pining for belly rubs in the previous CBA negotiations, and with that freedom have done their best to destroy the game. The players are merely trying to get a majority of its union paid more — players with less than three years experience make up 63 percent of MLB rosters and all make the minimum — and reinstall some more competition between teams to make the season more interesting for more fans. These are hardly outlandish pursuits, but the owners will do anything to make them seem so instead of just talking about them with the union.
And there’s no boogeyman, mentioning Scott Boras’s name used to be the surefire way to turn fans’ stomachs. There used to be a time when Boras was the Grim Reaper to a lot of fans. He was the reason your favorite player on your favorite team was leaving. He was the one who didn’t care about you or what your team was building. He was the one turning players into mercenaries. Before Boras, as the myth went, players were simply playing for the love of the game and only to bring you the World Series you’ve always dreamed about. But then Boras whispered sweet nothings in their ears and they became heartless, greedy, and self-absorbed. Basically, Boras turned everyone from Rick Vaughn in Major League I to what he was in the beginning of Major League II.
It’s unlikely most fans see Boras that way anymore. He simply represents a portion of the workforce that spent decades getting the Joan Collins Special. Is he bombastic? Sure. Is he up his own ass just a little too much? Almost certainly. But he does a necessary job, and the owners’ crimes against the sport are much more obvious than his.
The owners weren’t done yesterday, turning to the playbook marked 2005.
Obviously, any testing system would be part of a new CBA, and there isn’t one. But owners have never been shy about portraying players as ruthless, morality-stripped cheaters, be it steroids, sign-stealing, foreign substances, whatever (no wonder they can’t market any of their players). This isn’t a story, and while the two anonymous sources aren’t labeled on the owners’ side, it doesn’t take the team from CSI: Poughkeepsie to figure this one out. Maybe if the players can be thought of as juicing freaks, they’ll lose sympathy.
But again, it’s hard to think that fans care at all about PEDs, especially right now when there’s no baseball. Fans certainly have cooled on holding a grudge against Barry Bonds, or whoever else, and that torch is basically carried by crusty median folk now. This isn’t a thing. And the owners’ desperation to paint the players as villains is getting pathetically desperate.
The owners should have learned they can’t win a PR war, and if their true aim is to crack the union, they’re going to have to miss games, and players’ checks, to do it. Or they could realize they’ll print money and their franchise values will continue to grow no matter what the agreement is, and stop chasing the one dollar right in front of them so everyone can have five down the road. But we know that’s not how this works, as being ungodly rich also means constantly demonstrating why you deserve it, which is never admitting you’re wrong and making sure no one else can have any of it. So ‘round and ‘round we go.