MLB Owners Are Using The Pandemic As A Way To Shorten Regular Season, Expand Playoffs And It's All A Load Of Bullshit
(SOURCE)
Major League Baseball executives and owners, wanting players to be vaccinated before arriving to spring training, would like the 2021 season to be delayed until May, even if it means shortening the season to 140 or fewer games.
The Major League Baseball Players Association, believing it proved a year ago that teams can safely adapt to protocols, wants the season to start on time, playing all 162 games with full pay.
And here we are, with just two months before pitchers and catchers are scheduled to report for spring training, and no one has any idea what will happen.
COVID-19 cases are raging across the country this winter, but the vaccine is starting to be distributed, giving hope that by mid-summer, most everyone will have access to the immunization.
Yet, the issue that could further erode the trust between the two groups is whether owners take the stance that the season should be delayed until every player and staff member gets the vaccine.
Before we start, say it with me: MLB owners are the absolute fucking WORST!!!!
If MLB owners and players proved anything in 2020, it wasn't that they lost "billions" of dollars, it was that they can safely play a season simultaneously with Corona doing its thing. That's the only thing that should matter. The league has empirical evidence of being able to safely play games and can draw from the ideas and strategies of other leagues as well.
That, and all signs point to teams making some profits. I've already referenced this article like 5x in blogs, but FanGraphs basically proved that the Atlanta Braves - the one team that has to be transparent about their finances due to being a publicly owned entity - made money in 2020. There were no "biblical" losses. That's a load of unadulterated bull shit.
Now, obviously they didn't have gate, concessions, parking, etc. but no team "lost" any money. They just didn't make what they projected to in a non-100 year pandemic season. Everyone took a beating financially in 2020; owners aren't necessarily any different. But they didn't "lose" money. There is NO WAY IN FUCKING HELL they would have had a season in 2020 if they lost a goddamn cent. That's an objective statement of fact that I can't prove, but we all know to be the actual case, so they're using the pandemic and the vaccine as a guise to say "we want more of the pie" again, and it's sickening.
And here we go again with more nickel and dime bullshit. I will say this so everyone and their mother in the back row hears it: the owners do not give a single flying FUCK about the safety and health of their players with respect to the pandemic. Actually, I'll rephrase it - they care more about their bottom lines than the safety and health of their players with respect to the pandemic. That's fine to me and that's capitalism, but don't piss on my head and tell me it's raining. Just come out and say "we want to make money hand over fist and can't do that until the vaccine is mass distributed." That would oddly enough sit better with me and a lot of other people. At least they'd be giving it to us straight.
Teams won't be able to collect gate, concession or parking revenues until closer to the start of summer at the earliest though, so the owners are using the pandemic and "player safety" as an excuse to cut the season short and add expanded playoffs to the end of it.
But why would they do this?
It's as clear as day to me. They're trying to cut 10, 15, 20, however many April games off the schedule when a lot of Northern states are playing in shit weather and in empty stadiums anyways, then trying to tack on more playoff games with TV revenues pouring in and more than likely packed stadiums in October. If anyone can't see this is what's happening, they're taking crazy pills. It's all about the bottom line and nothing else. Don't buy the "player safety" bullshit, because that's exactly what it is… bullshit.
It's all more of the same. Owners being dickheads with players not wanting to submit to the greedy dickheads. I mean it's not even 2021 yet and we're already getting a hard "fuck no" from the players on a shortened season:
Good. Fuck the owners. FUCK'M!!!
And all of this is coming to a head with the current CBA expiring on December 1st, 2021 aka after this coming season. It's going to get REALLY ugly folks. MLB owners are the most obtuse, egotistical dickheads on earth and I don't think it's too farfetched to say they'd rather cancel MLB completely than cave to the players demands. What I'm saying is this: enjoy every single baseball game you get this coming summer, because it's going to a total gutter war between players and owners in the coming year or so, and I blame Jerry Reinsdorf and his cronies for it all.
