The New York Times - USA (2020-06-29)

THE NEW YORK TIMES, MONDAY, JUNE 29, 2020 N D3

BASEBALL

That dynamic has increasingly loomed

over the major leagues for the last few sea-

sons. It explains why the union was wary of

giving any ground — even amid a pandemic

— and why many observers fear the end of

the current C.B.A. could bring the first work

stoppage since the strike that canceled the

1994 World Series and devastated the

sport’s momentum for years.

Months of Futile Negotiations

Manfred and his deputy, Dan Halem,

have struggled to forge a productive rela-

tionship with Tony Clark, the executive di-

rector of the players’ union, and Bruce Mey-

er, his top negotiator, who was hired in 2018.

Manfred, whose reputation suffered over

his handling of the Houston Astros’ cheat-

ing scandal this winter, further strained his

credibility this month with contradictory

tactics — guaranteeing a season on June 10

and threatening cancellation five days later.

Clark fired back in a statement, saying the

players were “disgusted.”

The root of the disagreement was a

March deal, formed soon after the virus hit

North America, in which the players agreed

to take prorated salaries this season as long

as they got service time for canceled games.

Had they authorized further pay cuts, the

owners would have agreed to a longer

schedule.

When Manfred flew to Arizona last week

to meet with Clark, a former All-Star first

baseman, it produced yet another disagree-

ment: Manfred announced that he and

Clark had jointly developed the framework

for a deal, but union officials insisted it was

merely a proposal.

The players, who had initially wanted 114

games, responded with an offer of 70, which

the league refused to consider. The players,

in turn, roundly rejected Manfred’s final of-

fer, a move that forced him to impose his

schedule and sunk baseball’s hope for a lu-

crative expanded playoff format — which

the union still holds as a bargaining chip.

The rejection also means that the union

retains its right to file a grievance accusing

M.L.B. of negotiating in bad faith.

The union’s hard-line stance irritated

some current players, like the Cincinnati

Reds’ Trevor Bauer, and some retirees, like

the former pitcher Mike Stanton, the Yan-

kees’ union representative during C.B.A.

negotiations in 2002, when the sides nar-

rowly avoided a strike.

“When I was in the room and I was a play-

er, man, I was all in: ‘We’ve got to fight for

everything, we’ve got to do what’s right not

just for us, but for the players in the past and

the future,’ ” Stanton said. “But I look at it

differently now. I never really thought all

that much about the other people — the sta-

dium workers, the parking attendants, the

concession-stand people. It was all about

what was going on between the two sides

and slugging it out.

“But this was a different situation, you

know? This shouldn’t have been a C.B.A.

negotiation. It turned into it, but it shouldn’t

have been. And all the fans that I’ve talked

with, that’s what ticked everybody off.”

How Much to Change?

The effect of those emotions will be hard-

er to quantify than usual this season, be-

cause nearly every team will be prohibited

from selling tickets, at least initially.

M.L.B.’s average per-game attendance

dropped for the fourth year in a row in 2019,

to to 28,198.

But that figure is still higher than any sea-

son before 1993, and with so many more

games to sell, M.L.B. — at 68.4 million fans

last season — still dwarfs the N.F.L., N.B.A.

and N.H.L. in overall attendance. The fans

are clearly out there: Regional sports net-

works that broadcast local games ranked

No. 1 in prime time cable ratings in nearly

every market last season.

This quickie season may appeal as a nov-

elty — with each game counting 2.7 times

more than normal — but it will hardly re-

semble the way fans usually consume the

game.

“Baseball takes a lot of time, and I say

that in a positive sense,” said Andy Dolich, a

sports consultant who has worked in the

front offices of teams in M.L.B., the N.F.L.

and the N.B.A. “The season, the number of

games, the games itself — it’s a soap opera:

‘We’re in it, we’re out of it, we just won 10, we

just lost three.’ It is what has attracted peo-

ple for such a long time.”

But fans’ tastes are changing, Dolich

warned, and baseball has work to do to sta-

bilize its popularity in the future. While

M.L.B. said that its AtBat app increased in

use by 18 percent from 2018 to 2019, base-

ball’s audience is notorious for skewing old-

er than the other major U.S. team sports.

The Sports Business Journal reported in

2017 that the average age of an M.L.B.

viewer was 57 — 15 years older than the av-

erage N.B.A. viewer. And the popularity of

e-sports, especially among younger fans,

has grown substantially since then.

“With the absolute tidal wave of gaming

and digital devices and instantaneous deci-

sion-making, baseball has not stayed cur-

rent,” Dolich said.

The league added a wild-card play-in

game in 2012, and expanded instant replay

two years later, and has continually

tweaked the format of the Home Run Derby,

the appetizer for its marquee summer

event, the All-Star Game.

But there is only so much baseball can do

to change, because of the sport’s built-in

structural quirks. The best hitters still come

to bat only four or five times a game. Top

starting pitchers appear in fewer than 35

games a season. There is no game clock.

Many think that straying from the game’s

essence would not only be inauthentic, but

impractical.

“I don’t believe you make baseball fans

by fundamentally changing the game,” said

the Milwaukee Brewers broadcaster Brian

Anderson, who also calls N.B.A., N.C.A.A.

basketball and the PGA Tour for Turner

Sports. “The experience of the ballpark and

the community, the personality of the play-

ers, the team concept and strategy are all

things we should be mining from an enter-

tainment perspective.

“If they’re going to really change the

game, they’d have to blow it up: seven in-

nings, ties, three balls for a walk, two strikes

for a strikeout. I don’t want to see that.”

Indeed, if baseball does not tread care-

fully as it charts a new course, it risks alien-

ating its most loyal customers. This season

will include several rule changes: Every

pitcher must face at least three batters (or

finish an inning); the designated hitter will

be used in both leagues; and extra innings

will begin with a runner on second base, to

reduce the likelihood of marathon games.

The last two measures are intended to

protect players’ health for this season only,

but they could become fixtures that might

unsettle longtime followers.

“I’m certainly classified as a traditional-

ist, but when you start talking about a

pitcher needing to face three hitters or

starting an inning with a man on second, I

don’t know what game you’re talking about

— and I have no interest in that game,” said

Claire, 84. “What concerns me is that I don’t

want to see an overreaction to all of this.”

A more appealing innovation that players

had endorsed was also tabled: broadcast

enhancements that would have given fans a

closer look at players’ personalities. The

best baseball players do not resonate na-

tionally like their counterparts in the N.F.L.

and the N.B.A., and creating crossover stars

outside of local markets remains a chronic

problem.

“They need to continue to market the

high-profile players, and they need better

cooperation with those guys to take advan-

tage of their social media platform,” said

Duquette, now an analyst for SiriusXM and

SNY. “It’s underutilized on both sides.”

The Pitfalls of Innovation

Baseball did get extensive national pub-

licity in the months before the pandemic —

for the Astros’ cheating scandal, in which

they used an illegal sign-stealing scheme on

their way to winning the 2017 World Series.

Manfred was roundly criticized for disci-

plining no players, but he suspended Man-

ager A. J. Hinch and General Manager Jeff

Luhnow, who were then fired by the Astros’

owner, Jim Crane.

Luhnow did not orchestrate the cheating,

but some viewed his downfall as an indict-

ment of the team’s analytically driven cul-

ture that has spread throughout the game.

With so many teams relying heavily on data

and video for any marginal advantage, per-

haps it was inevitable that some would be

tacitly encouraged to cross ethical bound-

aries.

“I think that’s true,” the Minnesota Twins’

chief baseball officer, Derek Falvey, said

this spring when asked about that theory.

“We’re all competitive at heart and looking

for an edge, I guess. Maybe I’m naïve; I try

and be who I am with our group, and they’re

going to interpret it how they want.”

As teams have increasingly interpreted

the numbers to find bargains and avoid

costly mistakes, that has undercut the earn-

ing power of veterans; their production, in

theory, could be replaced by younger,

cheaper players.

That trend dismays many players,

though most have responded to the analyt-

ics wave by giving executives what they

want: power pitchers who hunt for strike-

outs and disciplined hitters who wait for

pitches to drive in the air.

It has had a clear effect on the game itself.

M.L.B. set a record for home runs last year

— but also for pitches per game. The aver-

age number of pitches per plate appearance

has risen in each of the last four seasons, to

3.93 last year, the most of the 21 seasons

tracked by baseball-reference.com.

Accordingly, games lasted an average of

3 hours 10 minutes in 2019, the longest ever.

“They have to do something on the pace

of the game,” Duquette said. “It’s absurd.

We’re going in the wrong direction, and all

of the data suggests that the new fan base

talks about how the game is too long.”

Manfred has talked for years about that

topic, but has mostly made only minor ad-

justments; the three-batter-minimum rule,

for example, is designed to reduce the many

pitching changes that slow down games.

Manfred also had the authority to impose a

pitch clock before last season, but he backed

off when players resisted.

This month, though, Manfred had a much

more critical decision that involved defying

the players. When they dared him to impose

a 60-game season over their objections, he

did. The potential for a legal fight, a de-

pressed free-agent market and another

contentious labor negotiation all loom large

in the distance.

But for now, almost in spite of itself, base-

ball is back. Enjoy it while it lasts.

On June 10, Commissioner Rob Manfred, top left, guaranteed a season. When he threatened cancellation five days later, Tony

Clark, the head of the union, said the players were “disgusted.” The collective bargaining agreement expires in December 2021.

HIROKO MASUIKE/THE NEW YORK TIMES

LM OTERO/ASSOCIATED PRESS

Uncertainty as Far

As the Eye Can See

From First Sports Page

James Wagner contributed reporting.

Pace of play is a major
issue. The average game
last season took 3 hours

10 minutes, a record high.
Game 3 of the 2018 World
Series, right, lasted 18

innings and took more
than seven hours to finish.

DAVID J. PHILLIP/ASSOCIATED PRESS