Should Fans Blame Owners or Players If MLB Season Is Cancelled

By Tony Mangia

While MLB owners and the player’s union present their proposals for the 2020 season to commence after the COVID-19 virus pandemic flattens out, a complicated financial and health concern battle is taking place between the two sides. But to fans looking in, the real question is whether the owners or the players will be held responsible for sealing or breaking a deal which ushers in a new season of baseball.

And most fans don’t care if they throw spitballs at each other, the only curve they care about isn’t a pandemic, it’s a pitch.

Photo illustration by Tony Mangia

It’s been over two  months since MLB locked its gates. The normal pent-up anticipation of a new baseball season compounded with the onset of the pandemic lockdown has left home-confined fans with a huge sports void many have never experienced in their lives. 

There were some intriguing major league storylines which were on the hot stove before the COVID-19 hit. They included would Gerrit Cole’s presence help get the Yankees over their World Series slump? Could Mike Trout win his fourth MVP — and two in a row — or are the Mets rotation and the Dodgers lineup as good as advertised. 

So without a 2020 season, fans will never get to see how many times an Astros player gets hit by a pitch either.  Come to think about it, if the season does resume with no fans in the stands, the villainous Astros might be the only team happy to welcome the stadium void because it means not getting booed incessantly at each away game. 

If the season does get a reboot, a host of intriguing developments might include how that newly instituted universal DH rule will affect the National League game strategy or how many times players get thrown out of a game for spitting. And how that forehead thermometer in the dugout becoming more important than the radar gun behind home plate?

It’ll also be interesting to see if any high-profile celebrity fans get use of the private viewing suites for a price. My money is on Jay-Z, Jerry Seinfeld or Charlie Sheen.  After all, Sheen did buy a whole seating section of an Angels game just so he could catch a foul ball.

All moot points if the season is cancelled.

Like most American’s lives, almost every aspect of MLB has been impacted by COVID-19. Besides the complete shutdown of the season, the Hall of Fame has since announced its annual induction weekend will not be held as planned this July. Instead, the Hall of Fame hopes to hold a tandem induction weekend in 2021. The draft, meanwhile, has been shortened to five rounds, with draftees receiving significantly less money over the next two years.

So, with plenty of time to contemplate — or stew — in solitude, who will the fans side with or blame if the 2020 MLB season is cancelled?

It’s logical to think that the typical sports fan can sort of relate to the players — more than owners — because most fans are usually salaried workers too. But those same fans might draw a line at that bromance with the professional athletes whom they often perceive as pampered prima donnas making in a single game what the average working stiff earns in a year … playing a game at that!

But their perception of fat cat team owners with stacks of old money isn't exactly relatable either.

So on those points, let's call it a push between blaming the owners and players.

Owners-1 Players-1.

Last week, the owners and MLB commissioner Rob Manfred sent a proposal to MLBPA and the two sides began negotiations to salvage the season and, in some cases, some franchises. 

The league’s proposal includes an early July target date for Opening Day. Other plans include the afore mentioned universal DH, an expanded postseason field, precautionary health measures and a revenue-sharing plan that would lead to players taking pro-rated pay reductions. Besides the minuscule health concerns, that pay cut  — for the lighter workload —  is already a major sticking point with the player’s union. 

And, if only getting paid for games they actually play chafes the players' rosin bags, well, that  is one negotiating issue where the average sports fan will most likely side with the owners and not the players. 

Owners-2 Players-1.

Several players have already spoken out since MLB's proposal was approved by the owners and submitted to the MLBPA —  and it includes a couple of big names. But, if it comes down to these highly-paid players refusing to take a pay cut causing the season to be cancelled, this might be the last straw for the fans when they take sides.

Can you say boycott?

Adam Jones, who played 14 seasons in the big leagues and is currently with the Orix Buffaloes in Japan, called on the game's star players to speak out against the proposal. Some have, including the Tampa Bay Rays Cy Young-winning pitcher Blake Snell.

“Bro, I’m risking my life. … If I’m going to play, I should be getting the money I signed to be getting paid.,” Snell opined. “I should not be getting half of what I’m getting paid because the season’s cut in half, on top of a 33 percent cut of the half that’s already there — so I’m really getting, like, 25 percent. On top of that, it’s getting taxed. So imagine how much I’m actually making to play, you know what I’m saying?

“I’m just saying, it doesn’t make sense for me to lose all of that money and then go play. And then be on lockdown, not around my family, not around the people I love …”

A lot of people trashed Snell for sounding motivated by money and not the game, but one one of the league’s biggest and most recognizable stars backed him.

“He ain’t lying, he’s speaking the truth bro. I ain’t mad at him.” said Phillies star, Bryce Harper, about Snell’s statement. “Somebody’s gotta say it, at least he manned up and said it. Good for him.”

Snell, as well as other players on his side, might see this as righteous, but many fans see him as greedy, self-serving and ungrateful to have a job. A lot of fans remember the baseball strike of 1981 and see this 2020 showdown as another hard-headed owners vs. over-paid players battle which leaves the fans out.

Think about all of the people out of work these days, struggling to pay their rents and mortgages and actually protesting to get back to their jobs. This might be the majority of the MLB fan base. It’s definitely not the main stream media talking heads and do-nothing politicians who preach to the masses about staying home while all that time they are still collecting a paycheck.

Score another run for the league. Owners-3 Players-1.

Granted, that with fans watching games on TV in the safety of their own homes and owners doing it from sanitized suites and mansions, it is the players who are taking all of the real health risks. But how much of a threat could it be for players to play in empty stadiums, with limited and distanced staff and personnel, special transportation, sanitized housing and the best preventive measures and professionals to keep them safe? You come in more contact with people scouring the aisles for toilet paper at Walmart.

And why wouldn’t games played in front of empty stands work? Fan-less baseball games seem to be okay in South Korea.

The KBO started regular season games in early May and could be a good template for how MLB can handle playing in front of empty stadiums. The world’s third largest professional baseball league has instituted new COVID-19 rules which include: players having their temperatures checked twice a day; everyone not in a baseball uniform, including umpires and athletic trainers, wearing face masks and gloves; if a player shows symptoms, he'll be immediately quarantined and they'll close the stadium where he played his most recent game; if he tests positive for the virus, contact tracing will figure out others who need to be quarantined for two weeks. 

And while nothing will ever replace the aromas and energy of a packed crowd, maybe teams could fill the stadium with piped in crowd noise and music to distract the players from boredom?

Not exactly peanuts and crackerjacks, but it’s glimmer of hope that someday you will be able to go back.

MLB’s proposed early July starting date would be enough time to see a leveling out of the pandemic curve and allow for at least an 82-game schedule. The owners have also proposed a 50/50 split of revenues with the players and that’s where it gets fiscally complicated. 

Without paying customers, concessions, souvenir or parking receipts, most of the income will be from broadcast rights (and there should be abnormally large audiences). MLB owners have already announced that they will lose $640K per game without fans totaling $4 billion in final losses by the end of the season. A lot of specifics of the bottom line have to be plainly laid out regarding this untested and hastily-conceived revenue-sharing system between the union and owners and all of the accounting angles that comes with it. Essentially, the players will still be get a paycheck — with a pro-rated paycut —while the owners take all of the financial risks with a shortened and ticketless season. It remains to be seen if the odd coupling of owners and players can share millions in profits without driving each other crazy. 

Outside of baseball tradition and continuity, there are many reasons to cheer for the reinstatement of baseball. First of which is that it’s a return to business as usual — or at least as much a return to normalcy in our lives we could hope for right now.

It sounds like the owners have laid out some reasonable compromises where they'll be looking at a probable financial loss, while the players risk a minimal health concern and at least get a paycheck. Money is really where it all seems to boil down to so I'd give the owners a slight edge over the greedy players for taking a hit on their bottom line. 

Owners win, 4-1. So you can hold the players responsible if the 2020 season is cancelled.

And if beaning Astros and a Yankees’ World Series revenge weren’t incentive enough for baseball to get back on track, Bartolo Colon has declared that he wants to slip a uniform over his portly, 47-year-old body one last time. 

So owners and players, if not for any other reason to come an agreement, just do it for Big Sexy.. 

Imagining the "new normal" when MLB opens the gates after the pandemic lockdown

By Tony Mangia

In just a few short months the whole world has been tossed upside down by the coronavirus. An invisible scourge which has disrupted our lives in everything from work, travel to sports and leisure time. In the United States we are experiencing what seem like cataclysmic changes to our lives and not only adjustments to our lifestyles, but to our freedoms as well.

We know business closures and confinement are just temporary sacrifices everyone has to make and whether through ingenuity, humor or just plain stoicism, most of us have weathered the hard times with flying colors. 

But exactly how short-term will these precautions be? Nobody seems to know.

Just like post-9/11, our way of life changed dramatically coming out of the ashes, but slightly over the long run when you look back. Airport security had become stricter and bothersome, but a necessary task. Thanks to the shoe bomber, even removing our shoes in line has become routine (Thank you Velcro lacing) and, just like airports, stadium security at public events will see some major changes after Covid-19. 

We’ve been through cultural and personal changes due to recent hardships before and have a history of overcoming adversity through adaption and innovation which someway became the norm.

WW2 brought about rationing, blackouts and other inconvenient precautionary measures, but also begot great advances in medical and technological innovations. 

The terrorist attacks at the World Trade center was the catalyst for many security procedures and similar changes in our way of life.

On a relatively smaller danger scale, even the Tylenol scare of the 80s tamper-proof bottles and the elimination of most capsule-type over- the- counter medicines — something we are grateful and complacent about now.

We coped and we overcame.

But what will the pandemic bring once we are allowed to attend sporting events after we get the okay to gather en masse?

What new patterns of behavior will we have to endure to enjoy the stadium experience again? 

Since Major League Baseball seems about the most logical professional sport which might be reinstated this summer, we’ll start there — and with my hometown Yankees and Mets. 

This is all speculation on a lighter note and a prediction that there will be an opening day with fans this season — albeit with the new precautionary and social distancing guidelines.

Let’s imagine the anticipation of the first pitch as newly set-loose fans file out of crowded subway cars and make their way to Citi Field or Yankee Stadium — both which will have instituted unfamiliar and stricter rules to adhere — after maybe months of isolation. Never mind the logic, but will fans have to line up on little marked boxes six feet apart  ... after they stepped off those mobbed trains. I imagine that the event staff will all be wearing face masks — probably in home team colors — and all ticket punching will be electronic so there is no physical contact. Cash might become obsolete in stadium settings. 

As you pass through the turnstile an event staffer will stick a hand-held thermometer to your forehead — checking each person’s body temperature — before allowing you to pass. A cough will never be looked at the same way as before.  God forbid you clear your throat before spouting off how the Astros cheated the Yankees out of a World Series or the Mets have once again been duped out of real ownership and are whisked off to a tent with a big red cross on its side where you will  be further questioned by people in haz-mat suits inside about your physical history.  

The surreal apocalyptic environment will continue once inside inside the arena or stadium.  There will probably be those six-foot spacing boxes at every concession stand and in the souvenir shops where over-priced Purell and official licensed team face gaiters will be big sellers. No more communal condiment tables to pump your ketchup and mustard anymore. Can't have more hand contact spots or any mingling areas than you need. And in the men’s room, every other urinal will sealed so there is no close contact or chance of spraying your neighbor. Oh yeah, thefts of toilet paper will become rampant.

Every other seat or more will be closed off, so there will be plenty of elbow room in the stands. The empty seats will be filled with cutouts of Jerry Seinfeld at Citi Field and Chazz Palminteri at Yankee Stadium. Sorry Spike, your face will relegated to Knicks game — whether you are boycotting them or not.  And in The Bleachers, like those metal pigeon repellers, the aluminum planks will be proportionately spiked to keep fans at acceptable distances. It's not like barbed wire ever kept the Creatures from doing anything they wanted anyhow.

So now with the fan attendance cut down more than half, the roar of a crowd will become a low murmur — sort of like every Tampa Bay Rays home game at The Trop.

Fan behavior will also be monitored. High-fives after a score or good play will banned. So will fist and chest bumps. Fan celebrations will be restricted to rapid blinking at each other.  There will be staff on hand — with six-foot rulers — to discipline drunk social-distance offenders and fans reviving The Wave, making sure they don’t make contact with anyone in the seats around them. And the time-honored ritual of fans passing down a hot dog or a beer from a vendor over to that poor soul seated in no-man's land will also be a big no-no.  

Baseball stadiums will be netted around the entire field to prevent fans from throwing an opponent's home run ball back onto the field. And, sadly for Mets fans, Mr. and Mrs. Met broke up during the quarantine period together. She got tired of listening to him excitedly talk about the possibility of J-Lo becoming a team owner and his joke about Miss A-Rod pole dancing to “Take Me Out To The Ballgame” thus giving the 7th inning stretch a whole new meaning.

There will still be fun. Mascots will fire rubber gloves — with official licensed MLB team logos — from t-shirt cannons over the nets and there will be Lysol Spray Giveaway Night. Although it's too bad the Kiss Cam will become the I’ll Just Look Endearingly At You From Six-Feet Away Cam. 

But god forbid some wiry teenager does manage to get onto the field. That will entail a complete shutdown of the game because MLB has to protect those players.

When this whole lockdown confinement is over and things get relatively back to normal, many of us will have profoundly changed forever — probably a little more introspective and lot more cautious. The idle time gave us more time to think about family, relationships, finances, politics and health. I see a kinder more grateful fan who won’t let little things bother them as much ... except maybe how the cheating Astros robbed the Yankees of a World Series.

And then we can all wait for the first NFL touchdown celebration where players act out pandemic social-distancing.

Working MLB Spring Training Security In Times Of Coronavirus

Story and photos by Tony Mangia

I have been working security detail during spring training for a Major League Baseball team in Florida —usually about five or six weeks every winter—over the past three years. It’s temporary position that allows a person like myself to have a part-time job, chat with people and earn a little extra income on the side — all while in a sunny, outdoor baseball setting. Along with about 50 other men and women — many retired with law enforcement, military and even some jail guard experience — we are the front line of protection at each minor league stadium at every game during the months of February and March before the regular season starts.

The security team incorporates three different steps at the ticket holder entrances to make sure the players and patrons are safe on the practice fields, locker rooms and while sitting in the stands or enjoying the concourses filled concession stands and facilities, respectively. 

Game day entrants must first pass through a physical inspection where our guests are asked to empty their pockets into a small bin while their bags are hand-checked for for banned items like alcohol, knives, mace, explosives and firearms (Well, it is Florida and many individuals have legal conceal and carry permits) along with have-to-be-checked in items like beach chairs and umbrellas. Next, patrons pass through a metal-detecting magnetometer — which we call The Mag — and if you set that baby off, you have the pleasure of being wanded by our third line of protection with an hand-held metal detector.

Pretty much standard procedure at any stadium or public gathering these days and the results prove that security details like ours are universally successful as both a result and a deterrent. 

Every year Floridians like to sneer that we have to withstand the influx of snowbirds who bring down their colds and flus from up north. But this year there is a new threat coming from wherever which could possibly appear at our gates and stealthily affect the well being of everyone inside. It is called COVID-19 —  otherwise going by the less scientific name of coronavirus.

While it’s easy to find an errant knife or bourbon-filled flask within our three-step physical and technological screenings at the stadium entrances, the invisible menace of this viral infection is impossible to detect at any gate without specialized medical testing kits.

Now, with the heavy national media coverage of the coronavirus hitting close to home —  a couple of deaths in Florida attributed to the serious respiratory illness — MLB’s spring-training sports venues like where I work are taking steps to limit the possibility of contracting the virus.  While discussions about contamination have been a summarily hot topic while working at the security gates, there’s still way more friendly chatter because we try to make the extra wait in line as pleasant and innocuous as possible for the patrons as well as me and my fellow workers.

So when someone in line coughs and then tells you they just got off a cruise, you wince with concern before pulling that bottle of hand sanitizer from your pocket after they pass. And there are lots of cruise ships docking in Florida.

Florida is also filled with the most susceptible victims of the airborne Coronavirus  — which has killed over 4,000 people worldwide — namely senior citizens and retirees. Some of my co-workers might go by that label as well and a good portion of our game patrons are of advanced age with health concerns. Although, at least outwardly, most of them seem more concerned with the dip of the stock market than a rise in coronavirus. 

But our stadium team’s concerns and safety of the fans aren’t taken lightly.  At every game we screen through all-sized bags filled with crumpled tissues, hairbrushes, diapers, used sippy cups and other personal items which have touched who-knows-what before they got to the stadium. Even without the threat of coronavirus, the task of a security person can be slightly intrusive and let’s say a little yucky.

So with three entrance gates containing 10 security checks welcoming an average of about 4,000 people for each of 16 exhibition games, I figure I will physically come in contact with at least 6,400 unfamiliar individuals at the gate this month not to mention touching their personal nicknacks and the various face-to-face chit-chats and numerous hand-to-hand fist-bumps  — which have replaced the more exposed high-five — fans expect me to respond to. 

That’s a lot of person-to-person interaction.

Our management has taken exceptional steps to help prevent the contamination of public facilities by coronavirus including providing more hand sanitizer dispensers around the stadium. The cleaning crews spray down bathrooms, disinfect the doors, handles, railings and even the stadium seats are wiped down before each game. It also minimizes the spread of the common flu too. 

As for the gate watchers, we have rubber gloves, disinfectant wipes and use sticks to probe through bags while looking for contraband. We even joke that the magnetic rays of the Mags might help kill off the virus. They don’t.

The lighthearted puns help hide a subliminal concern among me and my co-workers and, although nobody has quit and I have yet to see a face mask on a patron or a worker, you don’t have to be germaphobe to use common sense and take simple precautions like washing your hands more often and avoid touching your face. And the occasional “thank you” from an attendee makes us feel appreciated for doing the dirty work so the Grapefruit League games can thrive here in Florida during this unpredictable coronavirus scare.

While the new, extended foul line netting at stadiums makes it more difficult for fans to make contact with the players, that longtime ritual of getting up close with them in a more relaxed, small town atmosphere at spring training has been curtailed. MLB recently sent a memo to all 30 teams (15 which train and play in southern Florida) telling players avoid taking balls and pens from from fans because of coronavirus. Most players will still sign a few things — albeit wearing their batting gloves — but some teams have barred them from direct signings and distribute pre-signed items instead. 

MLB and local stadium crews are taking the coronavirus seriously, but the games are still fun and exciting while we do our best to make it a safe place to come out and enjoy a beer and a hot dog in-between the strikes and home runs.

Just say thanks to the event staff while you’re there.

UPDATE

MLB is delaying the start of the 2020 regular season by at least two weeks in response to the coronavirus pandemic, the league announced Thursday.

The league also said in a statement that spring training games have been suspended, starting at 4 p.m. ET Thursday.

Commissioner Rob Manfred and the league's owners held a conference call Thursday afternoon to formalize the plan.

"MLB will announce the effects on the schedule at an appropriate time and will remain flexible as events warrant, with the hope of resuming normal operations as soon as possible," MLB said in its statement.

The announcement came while some spring training games in Florida were still in progress. MLB followed the NBA, NHL, MLS and college basketball tournaments in altering schedules because of the pandemic.

MLB had been scheduled to open its season March 26, with all 30 teams in action. Manfred left open whether each team still would play 162 games.