Alan Greenwood

Ignorance is often spawned by arrogance. For fresh evidence, look to the standoff between Major League owners and the Major League Baseball Players Association.

The owners put forth a proposal that calls for an 82-game regular season on or about the Fourth of July. How much more poetic could that be? Baseball, hot dogs and fireworks, wrapped up in a flag a million times bigger than the one with which the Red Sox occasionally drape The Wall.

From that Norman Rockwell vision the two sides abruptly split.

The MLB proposes implementing the designated hitter in the National League, 47 years after the American League adopted it. The playoffs would be expanded to 14 teams. Rosters would expand, each club could maintain another 20 spots as taxi-squad players.

All of the above should be agreeable to the union rank-and-file.

The war, as always, is all about the money. The owners are talking about an even split on whatever revenue can be recovered in a half-season. The players say that amounts to a salary cap, something the MLBPA will never, ever accept.

The union has won every showdown with the owners in negotiating collective bargaining agreements. The Harlem Globetrotters’ dominance of the Washington Generals can’t touch the MLPBA’s dominance.

But those labor battles took place without a pandemic gripping the country.

Earth to ballplayers: Virtually every person in the country who does not enjoy your wealth or lifestyle is being slapped silly right now. For ballplayers to whine about salary caps at this moment in United States is astounding in its cluelessness.

Beyond coming in the worst of times, the players (and some owners) refuse to accept the reality that baseball’s long-term future is, at best, tenuous. Four-hour games and ticket prices have not taken down the game. That is a testament to the game’s artful simplicity, not its players or leadership.

If the owners and players fail to find a common ground for one-half season, they may well accomplish what nothing else has.

Contact Alan Greenwood at 594-1248 or agreenwood@nashuatelegraph.com.

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