A14| Saturday/Sunday, March 28 - 29, 2020 **** THE WALL STREET JOURNAL.
So they compromised. The
league will float a nonrefund-
able advance of $170 million
to be divided among the play-
ers. If games are played this
year, that sum will count
against players’ salaries,
which will be prorated to re-
flect the shortened season. In
return, the MLBPA waived
their right to sue the league
for full compensation if the
season is canceled altogether.
Most important for the
MLBPA, the agreement stipu-
lates that all players will re-
ceive the same amount of ser-
vice time they accrued in
2019 in the event that there is
no season in 2020.
In baseball, players are
bound to their teams until
they accrue six years of ser-
vice time, at which point they
become a free agent. Under
normal circumstances, 172
calendar days on a major-
league active roster or injured
list constitutes one year ofservice. Now, players will get
service time no matter what
happens, meaning stars like
Mookie Betts, Marcus Stro-
man and J.T. Realmuto will
become free agents next win-
ter as scheduled.
Next, MLB and the union
will turn their attention to
figuring out how to hold a
season, even if with no fans
in attendance at the stadiums.
Among the possibilities to be
considered are:
Adding double-headers
and cutting some off days to
play more games.
Expanding rosters to
compensate for a potentially
more rigorous schedule.
Extending the regular
season into October and
pushing the postseason into
November, with games held
at neutral sites with warm
weather or a roofed ballpark.
Changing the postseason
format in 2020 to include
more teams.A Shot at Olympic Glory Is on Hold
Kareem Maddox quit his podcasting job to play 3x3 basketball in the Olympics this summer. What does he do now?
SPORTS
People sit on a hill overlooking an empty Dodger Stadium.MARIO TAMA/GETTY IMAGESPublic Radio stations in California
and Colorado, and he became the
host of “All Things Considered” in
Greeley, Colo. But he spent most of
his free time working on his game
and tweaking his shot. He made
himself so much better that he real-
ized that he wanted to be doing
something different—which is how
he found himself playing for
a team in Poland.
Then it was time to
do something differ-
ent again. Maddox
had years of experi-
ence playing 3x
with Princeton
alumni when the IOC
approved the sport
for Tokyo right around
the same time Gimlet
posted a job opening for a
producer on a show called “The
Pitch.” Maddox decided to do both.
“I would say that Kareem is the
first prospective Olympian that I
worked with—that I know of,” said
Blythe Terrell, the show’s former
editor.
The podcast, which is a bit like
the radio equivalent of “Shark
Tank,” was a full-time job. 3x3 bas-
ketball was his second-full time job.
He pushed the idea of remote work
to its extreme as he edited tape onNOBODY KNOWS AT THIS
point what the 2020 Major
League Baseball season will
look like, assuming the coro-
navirus pandemic allows for
one to happen at all. When it
will begin, how many games
will be played and the timing
and structure of the playoffs
all need to be figured out be-
fore a single pitch is thrown.
But after weeks of intense
negotiations, MLB and its
players’ union now have a
plan in place for dealing with
perhaps the most complicated
aspect of this unprecedented
hiatus: how they handle the
economic ramifications of
temporarily shutting down a
$10 billion industry.
The two sides officially
ratified an agreement Friday
that addresses issues of sala-
ries and service time, paving
the way for upcoming discus-
sions about when and how to
restart baseball. Both parties
made concessions, recogniz-
ing that a national crisis is
not the time for billionaires
and millionaires to be seen
arguing over money.
The league had concerns
over cash flow, since reve-
nues are essentially at a
standstill with opening day—
originally scheduled for
Thursday—indefinitely de-
layed. The union worried
about service time, an inte-
gral part of the sport’s eco-
nomic structure that deter-
mines when players are
eligible for salary arbitration
and free agency.MLB, Players’ Union Reach Deal
Weather
Shown are today’s noon positions of weather systems and precipitation. Temperature bands are highs for the day.City Hi Lo W Hi Lo W City Hi LoW Hi LoWToday Tomorrow Today TomorrowCity Hi Lo W Hi Lo WAnchorage 32 14 sn 30 16 pc
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Austin 80 49 pc 79 62 pc
Baltimore 54 50 r 74 52 sh
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Boston 53 38 s 45 40 r
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Charlotte 85 67 pc 85 60 t
Chicago 59 45 r 51 38 pc
Cleveland 63 57 r 66 43 pc
Dallas 75 51 pc 77 57 s
Denver 4827pc 5230c
Detroit 54 53 r 59 41 c
Honolulu 80 69 pc 80 69 sh
Houston 82 58 t 82 65 pc
Indianapolis 73 50 t 59 40 s
Kansas City 70 44 c 64 40 s
Las Vegas 67 53 c 65 49 pc
Little Rock 76 49 t 73 49 pc
Los Angeles 66 51 pc 65 49 c
Miami 85 75 s 86 75 s
Milwaukee 51 45 r 50 39 sh
Minneapolis 48 39 r 47 34 r
Nashville 80 60 c 72 51 pc
New Orleans 90 74 pc 84 72 c
New York City 52 45 r 56 50 sh
Oklahoma City 71 42 s 72 46 sOmaha 60 40 r 59 37 pc
Orlando 94 67 s 93 69 s
Philadelphia 50 47 r 68 52 sh
Phoenix 71 54 c 76 54 pc
Pittsburgh 68 59 t 73 45 pc
Portland, Maine 53 36 pc 45 36 r
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St. Louis 76 48 t 65 42 s
Salt Lake City 49 34 sh 53 38 pc
San Francisco 58 50 c 60 49 sh
Santa Fe 51 26 s 58 33 pc
Seattle 51 45 r 53 43 r
Sioux Falls 46 36 r 53 31 pc
Wash., D.C. 57 54 r 77 55 cAmsterdam 53 39 pc 45 32 c
Athens 60 49 c 61 48 pc
Baghdad 77 57 t 76 54 pc
Bangkok 100 81 pc 100 82 pc
Beijing 58 35 s 65 40 pc
Berlin 57 36 pc 41 26 sh
Brussels 56 36 pc 46 26 c
Buenos Aires 80 69 pc 81 70 s
Dubai 90 76 c 91 72 pc
Dublin 48 33 pc 42 33 pc
Edinburgh 45 29 sh 45 34 cFrankfurt 63 36 pc 47 27 sh
Geneva 60 41 c 52 36 c
Havana 91 65 s 91 67 s
Hong Kong 77 70 sh 76 73 pc
Istanbul 51 46 r 51 47 r
Jakarta 89 77 t 89 76 t
Jerusalem 58 49 pc 59 47 s
Johannesburg 69 54 c 78 59 pc
London 55 36 pc 48 34 c
Madrid 60 38 pc 66 42 c
Manila 95 78 s 96 79 s
Melbourne 80 67 pc 78 60 r
Mexico City 84 55 pc 83 55 pc
Milan 65 40 c 65 46 sh
Moscow 60 39 c 56 27 c
Mumbai 93 80 pc 93 79 pc
Paris 63 39 pc 49 31 c
Rio de Janeiro 83 73 s 84 74 pc
Riyadh 98 67 pc 88 64 pc
Rome 59 44 pc 61 45 c
San Juan 84 74 sh 84 73 pc
Seoul 56 31 pc 57 33 pc
Shanghai 49 44 r 53 49 r
Singapore 91 76 pc 91 78 s
Sydney 7465pc 7566sh
Taipei City 72 60 r 73 65 pc
Tokyo 67 39 r 46 42 r
Toronto 45 41 r 62 40 sh
Vancouver 51 42 r 52 39 r
Warsaw 6135pc 5325c
Zurich 60 37 c 44 32 rToday TomorrowU.S. Forecasts
International
City Hi LoW Hi LoWs...sunny; pc... partly cloudy; c...cloudy; sh...showers;
t...t’storms; r...rain; sf...snow flurries; sn...snow; i...ice
Today TomorrowWarmColdStationaryShowersRainT-stormsSnowFlurriesIce<
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RaleighTucsonAlbanyTopekaColumbiaAugustaFt. WorthEugeneSpringfieldMobileTorontoOttawa MontrealWinnipegVancouver CalgaryEdmonton60s70s30s 40s20s10s0s -0s90s90s90s90s80s80s70s70s70s60s60s60s60s50s 50s50s50s40s40s40s30s30s30s20s 20sK
areem Maddox was in
Poland one day a few
years ago when he
made two decisions that
would change the
course of his life: He wanted to
work in podcasting, and he wanted
to play basketball in the Olympics.
One of these aspirations was
odder than the other. He already
had experience in public radio, and
he also had experience playing bas-
ketball at Princeton. But podcasting
is full of public radio producers.
There are not as many Princeton
basketball players walking around
the Olympics.
Maddox aspired to be an Olym-
pian from the moment he watched
Michael Johnson smash the 200-
meter world record in 1996. He was
so committed to representing his
country that he once had a brief
flirtation with racewalking. “I went
for a fast walk,” he said. He just as
quickly realized that racewalking
would not be his Olympic sport.
“There must besomeOlympic
sport I can do,” Maddox thought.
It turned out there was. And he
already played that sport.
The day he realized he could re-
turn to the U.S., continue his career
and start another one was the day
the International Olympic Commit-
tee approved that new Olympic
sport: 3x3 basketball.
He moved to New York, scored a
job at Gimlet Media and produced a
popular show as he traveled the
world playing 3x3 basketball. He
won the U.S. national championship.
He was named to the Olympic quali-
fying team. He subjected himself to
grueling sessions in saunas to accli-
mate himself to the conditions in
India—the host country of the qual-
ifying tournament that was sched-
uled for last week.
It never happened.
There are billions of people
around the world whose lives were
sprinting full speed ahead when the
coronavirus slammed the brakes.
Kareem Maddox is one of them. Not
even the young, the healthy and the
most physically fit people on the
planet are immune to the severe
disruptions caused by this pan-
demic. Their lives are on hold with
the rest of ours.
Maddox left his job in January to
spend this year preparing for the
Olympics in July. Then the Tokyo
Games were postponed until 2021.
Now he doesn’t have a job, and he’s
not sure about the Olympics.
“So much of my life has been
waking up,” he said last month,
“and realizing I need to be doing
something different.”
What makes this time different is
that he won’t be doing anything dif-
ferent. Maddox plans to be doing
the same thing—just for a year lon-
ger than he or anybody else could
have anticipated. His dreams have
been delayed with the Olympics.
“I guess I might go ahead,” Mad-dox said this week, “and start look-
ing for a job again.”
Like many people whose dreams
require training in obscurity for a
few seconds of potential glory every
four years, Maddox has a personal
connection to the Olympics. His fa-
ther has been to every Summer
Games since 1992, volunteering so
he can be around people for the
best moments of their lives. He
wouldn’t have expected one of
those people to be his son.
In the summer before his senior
year at Princeton, Maddox was an
intern at a mutual fund run by John
Rogers, a former Tigers basketball
player who applied the principles of
coach Pete Carril’s offense to 3x
long before it was an Olympic
sport. He was always looking for
talent. And he thought his 6-foot-
intern had potential.
“I had my eyes on him that sum-
mer,” Rogers said.
It wasn’t necessarily for a job at
his firm. It was also for a spot on
his 3x3 basketball team.
Maddox wasn’t ready yet. He
went to Europe to play five-on-five
basketball in the Netherlands and
England. And then he retired—or at
least that’s what he thought. After
coming back to work in public ra-
dio, he produced shows at Nationalinternational flights and hunted for
internet connections in foreign
countries. “I remember one stretch
when I didn’t know where I was for
a week,” Maddox said.
The first time he felt the Olym-
pics were really within reach was
when Maddox’s team won the last
two U.S. national championships
and beat teams with players
who had NBA experience.
On one team was a guy
who played briefly for
the Golden State
Warriors. On the
other team were
guys who worked in
podcasting and pri-
vate wealth manage-
ment. But there are
lots of little quirks in 3x
basketball, and this was a
wonderful experiment in what
happens when pure talent meets in-
stitutional knowledge. The experi-
ence won. “It was four guys who
were more talented than us, but we
just knew how to play,” Maddox
said. “And we’re not complete
bums.”
He was one of the four players
selected by a USA Basketball com-
mittee to represent his country at
this month’s Olympic qualifying
tournament, and the Americanswere a heavy favorite to snag one
of the three spots. Maddox left his
second full-time job at Gimlet to fo-
cus exclusively on basketball. He
wasn’t guaranteed a spot on Team
USA if they did qualify, but it was
highly probable that he would walk
in the Opening Ceremony. He even
let himself fantasize about it.
“I can visualize this conversation
with LeBron,” Maddox said.
It goes something like this.
“What are you doing here?”
James says.
“I’m here to play basketball,”
Maddox says. “What areyoudoing
here?”
But he’s not just a basketball
player. He’s also a producer. Mad-
dox has been trained to think in
stories: high stakes, rich tension, ir-
resistible characters. And his per-
sonal story has all the makings of a
narrative podcast. “I’ve been re-
cording everything,” he says.
He has tape of his first USA Bas-
ketball camp, tape of him telling his
mother that he was quitting his job
and tape of this week as an unpre-
dictable virus ravaged the world
and made his road to the Olympics
slightly more improbable.
He doesn’t know what he’ll do
with it. He still doesn’t know how
the show ends.BYBENCOHENMARTIN MEJIA/ASSOCIATED PRESS
Kareem Maddox of the U.S., center, in action against Puerto Rico during the men’s basketball 3x3 final match at the 2019 Pan American Games in Lima, Peru.BYJAREDDIAMOND13.
Scoring average for
Kareem Maddox during
his senior year at
Princeton in the
2010-11 season.