Baseball is out of the public eye these days because of the lockout enforced by the owners, and their seemingly unwillingness to sit down at the negotiating table to hammer out a new Collective Bargaining Agreement.
We have read reports the two sides will return to the bargaining table soon, but hey, it’s no rush guys, spring training doesn’t start until the middle of next month.
When they are in the news now, you can predict it is usually for the wrong reasons, such as when it was announced one of the best baseball writers in the business, Ken Rosenthal, was no longer going to be affiliated with MLB Network.
Apparently, Rosenthal was critical of commissioner Rob Manfred for how he handled the sport during the shortened pandemic season of 2020, and the czar holds a grudge.
Talk about pettiness. Can’t we all agree the commissioner of a major sport should be above something like that?
Rosenthal will be just fine. First, he loves the sports and is a great writer, and he still writes for The Athletic, and he is part of Fox Network’s baseball coverage.
To us, it just is another example of the poor leadership exemplified by Manfred, who we wonder if he even likes the sport.
The problem is the commissioner is hired by the owners, and they look at the sport as a way to fill their pockets with massive amounts of cash, without regard to the future of the grand ol’ game.
All pretenses that the commissioner is the puppet of ownership was put to rest when Bud Selig, the then owner of the Milwaukee Brewers, replaced Fay Vincent in the position, because the owners felt Vincent intervened during the 1990 lockout of the players.
The big question to us is why should the selection of the commissioner fall solely on the owners? This automatically means the leadership of the sport favors one side in any dispute, and that’s the side he works for.
How convenient, right?
We know it will never happen, but it would be nice if the commissioner of the sport held the well being of both parties in making decisions. Especially because the players are the game. Ballparks all over the country are not being filled to watch the owners count their money.
The sport needs a strong leader now more than ever, and we have serious questions whether Manfred even likes the sport he is in charge of.
What the game has going for it more than anything else is tradition. Essentially, the game being played today is the same sport that Babe Ruth played, that Jackie Robinson played. You can’t say that about football or basketball.
Baseball needs to change, and the problem is not the way Manfred and the owners want. Right now, we believe the players have more of the sports’ best interests at heart than the people running it.
That’s scary.
Has Manfred made any decisions since he took office that didn’t make you shake your head? And if the owners are putting him up to this, what does that say about them?
Heck, we have severe problems with the owners of our team.
This new CBA would be a good starting point in giving the players some say in picking the commissioner. Or perhaps having the owners keep that power but pick a former player for the job.
Something has to change for the good and for the future of the sport. And we hope the commissioner doesn’t ban us from buying tickets because we criticized him.
Cleveland Sports Perspective 