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You remember baseball, right? You know, the game that used to be considered our national pastime until football and other, more popular/exciting sports, zoomed past it and left the sport constantly trying to figure out its future?
Well, baseball was supposed to start yesterday, with pitchers and catchers of various teams checking in to spring training in Florida and Arizona and then doing those drills where they cover first base, in case they forgot how to do that in the winter.
All 30 teams were supposed to have players report to camp today.
But baseball didn’t start yesterday because MLB remains in a lockout, with the greedy, billionaire owners trying their best to make more money while making sure the players don’t get their way because god forbid the guys who play the game can get a little more pull in their sport.
What’s worse for baseball is that nobody really noticed it was supposed to start yesterday. The only thing worse than being ignored is being forgotten, which is something that keeps happening to baseball and will continue to do so as long as this work stoppage continues.
The person to blame for all of this is MLB commissioner Rob Manfred, who has proven many times over that he doesn’t love the game as much as the boss of baseball should. He’s allowing this stoppage to go on simply because he doesn’t have the mental fortitude to bring the two sides together and work out a deal that’s best for everyone involved.
The longer this goes – and it feels like it’s going to go on a lot longer – the more embarrassing and devastating it will be for the game of baseball. Casual fans of the sport will continue to forget about it as the days tick by and when it finally does come back only the diehards will notice, and there are a lot less diehards these days.
Baseball could have had a huge week this week – the end of the football season left a perfect transition to the baseball season. Fans in cold cities could have started getting excited for the season (and warmer temps) by watching videos of guys stretching out and doing drills on sunny fields surrounded by palm trees while also by making annual trips down south to enjoy it in person.
Instead, the sport is basically bleeding out once again and putting the start of the regular season at serious risk.
Baseball shouldn’t want that to happen and should do everything it can to stop that from happening. But that’s not how baseball works in the Manfred-era, which is bad for baseball and bad for baseball fans.
Get your you-know-what together, baseball. Before you’re completely forgotten about.
Quick hits: 11 NFL QBs who could be on the move… Netflix announces ‘Drive to Survive’ release date… Cool NFL Films video… And more.
– Chalres Curtis looks at 11 NFL QBs who could be on the move this offseason, including Aaron Rogers and Russell Wilson.
– Netflix’s hit F1 docuseries, Drive to Survive, is coming back with season 4 in a few weeks and I can’t wait.
– NFL Films captured the moment when Rams WR Van Jefferson found out after the Super Bowl that his wife was going into labor.
– Mary Clarke looks at 20 incredible Olympic hockey goaltender masks from the Beijing Games.
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