Alan Greenwood

As always, there is an overload of stupidity in the room when the Major League Baseball owners and the Major League Baseball Players Association take their spots at the negotiating table.

For those who might balk at labeling it stupidity, feel free find a gentler label. Regardless, the two sides are slaves to an ignorance that is fueled by arrogance.

Admittedly, it is difficult to imagine the owners actually putting on their tough-guy faces to reach a consensus with the players. How many losses to the union do they need to grasp the reality that, especially now, they better engage in a real give-and-take if the 2020 season is to exist in some abbreviated form?

As for the MLBPA, is it really that difficult to understand that baseball fans are fed up, with them and with the game? If the dig in their heels and choose brinksmanship at a time when the rest of the country is begging for a unity of purpose, it could create a backlash the likes of which they have never felt.

Prior management-labor wars have annoyed fans but most have hung around, a testament to their love of the game if not the way it conducts its business. Those who wail over the cost of tickets and bloated player salaries likely hit the exits years ago. Some of us have successfully detached the business of baseball from the game, recognizing that there is no rationale for that insane gobs of money are being pocketed by everyone except the ballclubs’ backstage workers who earn relatively tiny salaries.

Those are the folks have been laid off, or sent on furloughs, or seen drastic paycuts, or endured a combination of such draconian cost-cutting measures.

At this point, there is not a soul working below the executive level for any big-league front office who can sleep comfortably. Ditto for the part-timers whose income drops to zero without ballparks’ gates open and welcoming all who are willing to shell out too-much dough for beers and hot dogs.

Owners and players should be paying attention to what happens with the NBA and NHL seasons. If either of those winter leagues are playing again before baseball can get out of its own way, the consequences could be shattering.

If the NFL season is rolling along in October that does not include baseball playoffs and World Series, look out below.

MLB and its players have effectively placed themselves in an alternate reality, blissfully believing that the fans, no matter how angry, will come back and restore business as usual.

There is a painful stun gun pointed directly at their hearts if they are foolish enough to bank on that this time.

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

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