Nationals' Pitcher Sean Doolittle NAILED EVERYTHING In This Twitter Thread
I saw this Twitter thread last night and it brought up a few good points that I'd like to touch on.
Ya know, this is kinda funny to me. Not ONCE yesterday did we hear about how MLB plans on keeping its players safe. Not ONCE did we hear about what would happen if a player, stadium staffer, umpire, coach or trainer got a positive corona diagnosis once this hypothetical new season is underway. Not ONCE did we hear about really anything actually related to testing and the pandemic. Now that all very well may have been outlined in the owner's proposal to the players yesterday, but we really didn't hear about it.
The only thing we heard about was money.
I would like to make this loud and clear: if we don't have baseball this summer because player's, owners, coaches, stadium staffers and anyone else fears for their or their family's safety, I get that. But if MONEY is the reason we don't, I will shit a fucking chicken.
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That would massacre the sport in the eyes of the public. People are working in gas stations and grocery stores for $10 an hour right now, so do NOT tell me there won't be baseball because billionaire owners don't want to lose what is ashtray money to them. FUCK that... and that doesn't even begin to go into how ugly the new CBA negotiations will get after the 2021 season because of shit like this:
Read the rest of Doolittle's thread if you'd like by clicking here if you can stomach him citing a bunch of liberal rags as sources of actual information. See what I just did there???
Anyways, this is what's going down right now: the owners are trying to win the PR battle in the media. Check out this article by NBC Sport's Craig Calcaterra. He crushes it. Here's a quote from Bob Nightengale's USA Today article yesterday:
"Major League Baseball owners, with an abundance of optimism that baseball will be played this year, are scheduled to vote on a plan Monday that will require teams to share at least 48% of their revenue with the Major League Baseball Players Association this season, two people with direct knowledge of the proposal told USA TODAY Sports.
The people, who spoke only on the condition of anonymity because they were unauthorized to discuss details, said the historic revenue-sharing plan is integral to diminish revenue losses with games potentially being played without fans beginning in July." - Bob Nightengale, USA Today
Followed by Calcaterra's response:
You lead with the “abundance of optimism” to make any resistance to the owners’ renegotiation efforts seem negative. To make the players seem like the impediment to the return of baseball. Then you couch the owners’ effort to get more concessions from the players as an “historic” opportunity. As if the players not agreeing to it — which would, without question, lower their compensation below the levels to which they already agreed — is an ungrateful abdication of their role in “history.” - Craig Calcaterra, NBC Sports
Bingo bango. Calcaterra hit a home run with this synopsis. The owners are trying to make it seem like the players are the ones who are fucking this whole thing up through carefully worded articles through mouthpieces Nightengale. It's a goddamn disgrace. Thank god for smart people like Calcaterra who can sniff that out and tell the people what is REALLY happening behind the scenes.
Seriously, read the article. It tells you everything you need to know about how the owners are attacking this mess. In my opinion, Tony Clark is in over his head with this thing and has gotten out lawyered by the owners and will continue to do so.
9 days left to reach an agreement and it's about to get UGLY. Check back soon I guess. This whole thing is fucked.