SATURDAY,FEBRUARY22,2020 | THE GLOBE AND MAIL O SPORTS | Sß
NFL player representatives decid-
ed on Friday to not vote on a new
labour deal approved by team
owners.
Instead, the NFL Players Asso-
ciation is seeking more negotia-
tions with the league next week.
“Today, the NFLPA Board of
Players Representatives did not
take a vote on the principal terms
of a proposed new collective bar-
gaining agreement,” the union
said in a statement. “Our player
leadership looks forward to meet-
ing with NFL management again
next week before the board take a
vote shortly after.”
The union’s executive commit-
tee voted 6-5 early on Friday to
recommend rejecting the terms
of the new CBA that NFL owners
approved on Thursday.
Eventually, the entire NFL Play-
ers Association membership
must vote on an agreement.
The owners’ proposal features
a 17-game season, shorter presea-
son, larger rosters and limits on
the number of international
games. Objections to an expand-
ed regular season are considered
the main stumbling block for
player approval.
The union’s executive commit-
tee includes NFLPA president Eric
Winston, former Giants lineback-
er Mark Herzlich and former Bills
linebacker Lorenzo Alexander, all
retired; Giants long snapper Zak
DeOssie; 49ers cornerback Ri-
chard Sherman; Patriots tight
end Benjamin Watson; Colts kick-
er Adam Vinatieri; Chargers tack-
le Russell Okung; Saints punter
Thomas Morstead; Buccaneers li-
nebacker Sam Acho; and Giants
safety Mike Thomas.
Several people familiar with
the terms say they feature in-
creases in minimum salaries,
changes in practice squad make-
up and eligibility, and reduced
off-season and preseason re-
quirements as pivotal parts of the
deal.
Those people spoke to the As-
sociated Press on condition of
anonymity because specific de-
tails of the provisions in the
agreement that would run
through 2030 are not being made
public.
An expansion of the playoffs to
seven teams in each conference,with only the top seed in the AFC
and NFC getting a wild-card bye,
can be instituted by the league
without any negotiations – as
long as the postseason remains in
a four-week format. Several own-
ers are strongly in favour of doing
so regardless of the CBA status.
One of the wild-card weekend
games might wind up as a Mon-
day night game.
The 17-game schedule actually
is a compromise offer for some
owners who wanted 18 games.
Adding the one regular-season
match would seem to indicate
each of those games would be at a
neutral site.
But the league has promised
the union to cap the number of
international games and that
there would not be a full week of
such contests. More likely is acontinued mix of games in En-
gland (and other European sites)
and Mexico. Most team schedules
will have nine home games and
eight road games in alternating
years.
The preseason would be re-
duced from four games to three,
not counting the Hall of Fame
game that starts the exhibition
schedule.
Training camp padded practic-
es would be reduced from a total
of 28 to 16. A five-day acclimation
period would precede summer
practices. There would be more
days off during camp – eight in-
stead of five – and a limit on joint
practices.
There would be no extra bye
week in the regular season, some-
thing that had been discussed.
However, teams would basicallyhave two weeks to prepare for the
season opener with the elimina-
tion of the fourth preseason
game.
Rosters would expand from 53
to 55, with 48 players able to dress
for games rather than the current- Practice squads would go
from 10 players to 12 and eventu-
ally to 14, probably by 2022. There
would be more flexibility for pro-
tecting practice squaders from
becoming free agents.
Suspensions for a positive test
for marijuana likely would end,
except for cases of tampering
with a test. But doctors appointed
by the league and union would
have the ability to recommend
players sit if they are not under
treatment or are at risk if they suit
up.
A major point of contention
when the current agreement was
reached in 2011 following a 4 1/2
month lockout was commission-
er Roger Goodell’s role in disci-
pline. Should these terms be ac-
cepted by the players, a neutral,
jointly appointed hearing officer
would make findings on off-field
issues and whether the actions vi-
olated the league’s personal con-
duct policy. Those findings would
be binding, but a player could ap-
peal – with Goodell making the fi-
nal decision.
The terms contain substantial
changes in a variety of fines for vi-
olating club rules to provide a
scaled pricing discipline system.
A maximum fine could not be
rendered until a third violation.
Significant boosts in pension
for retired players and active ones
also are provided in the contract.
There are provisions for bringing
in players who are not getting
pensions, too.
THEASSOCIATEDPRESSNovoteonNFLlabourdeal
Playerrepswantmore
talkswiththeleagueon
theirproposals,which
includea17thgame
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very day, a new voice roasts the Hous-
ton Astros players for stealing signs
and blasts commissioner Rob
Manfred for letting them get away with it.
Players and officials are angry and ag-
grieved and eager to tell the world.
For an island of serenity, visit the manag-
er’s office at the Philadelphia Phillies
spring training complex. That is where Joe
Girardi works now, and where he says he
was meant to be. He won one champion-
ship in his decade with the New York Yan-
kees, and might have claimed another had
the Astros not cheated in 2017. But he will
not look back.
“How do I know – for sure – that any-
thing they did actually benefited them in a
game against us?” Girardi said Monday, af-
ter the Phillies’ first full-squad workout. “I
don’t know that. I don’t know what they
did. How do I know, had they not done it,
they wouldn’t have swept us – or we
wouldn’t have swept them? For me to as-
sume that I know, I think, is not healthy. To
me, it’s wasted energy. I’ve only got so
much in a day. I’m not a kid anymore.”
Girardi is 55, younger than 10 other big-
league managers. But he is old enough that
the Yankees’ general manager, Brian Cash-
man, cited communication issues with a
young roster in letting him go after the 2017
American League Championship Series.
The Astros prevailed in seven games,
taking all four at Minute Maid Park, where
they stole catchers’ signs off a television
monitor and banged a trash can to relay
pitches to their hitters. Had the Yankees
won that series, the decision to dump Gi-
rardi would have been harder to justify. He
never expected to lose his job, but would
not go back and change history.
“It was hard for me to be out of the
game,” Girardi said. “I truly missed it. But
I’ve always said that God puts you where he
wants you, so I never thought, ‘Well, if this
or that.’ I didn’t think that. It’s just the way
it’s meant to be.”
In the past two years, Girardi said, he
made up for lost time with his oldest
daughter, Serena, now a college student
near the family’s home in Florida. He
helped his youngest daughter, Lena, prac-
tise basketball before school nearly every
morning. He guesses that he watched his
son, Dante, play 140 games for his high-
school and summer-league baseball teams.
Girardi helped coach in the summers,
gaining a new appreciation for the next
generation of players and the sophisticated
teaching tools throughout the game.
“We didn’t use some of these things,” Gi-
rardi said. “Now the Yankees are very ana-
lytical, and I love that stuff – I was Binder
Joe, people made fun of it – but some of the
other technologies that are out there, I
learned. When you’re around 16- and 17-
year-old kids, you’re learning that they
communicate different than maybe a De-
rek Jeter or a Jorge Posada did. It’s a couple
different generations.”
The Phillies are a largely veteran team,
with high expectations. They struggled
down the stretch in each of the past two
seasons under Gabe Kapler, finishing 80-82
in 2018 after leading the National League
East as late as Aug. 12 and 81-81 in 2019. Gen-
eral manager Matt Klentak wanted to keep
Kapler, but the owner, John Middleton,
said he was concerned about the late-sea-
son collapses and wanted a more experi-
enced leader.
Kapler, who now manages the San Fran-
cisco Giants, was in his first major-league
managing job with the Phillies and relied
heavily on modern metrics. The Phillies
had been late to baseball’s data revolution,
then seemed to embrace it too tightly. In Gi-
rardi, Middleton sees a better balance.
“We talked very intelligently about how
analytics tells you what happens over a
thousand or 10,000 events, but it doesn’t
mean that on a Tuesday night in July in the
bottom of the seventh inning – this player
against this pitcher, with their thousands
of data points – something’s not going on
that should push you in another direction,”
Middleton said.
“Because that decision on a Tuesday
night in July, it’s about that particular mo-
ment, and what’s going on with that game
and that player. Has he been hitting well, or
is he scuffling? Has that pitcher been
throwing lights-out for the last two weeks?
That gets lost in the thousand data points
of analytics, and you have to be smart
enough to understand that.”
Middleton has authorized lucrative free-
agent deals in each of the past three offsea-
sons, with outfielder Bryce Harper and
starting pitchers Jake Arrieta and Zack
Wheeler all averaging more than US$23-
million a season. Former Yankees short-
stop Didi Gregorius signed for one year and
US$14-million this winter, and left fielder
Andrew McCutchen enters the second sea-
son of a three-year, US$50-million deal.
McCutchen hopes to be ready by open-
ing day after his debut season was cut short
by a torn knee ligament. His presence at the
top of the order, with Harper, catcher J.T.
Realmuto and infielder Jean Segura, could
give Girardi a dynamic offence.
“Having a veteran leader who’s got some
experience, a guy who’s won a World Series,
it’s good to have that in this clubhouse,”
McCutchen said. “When we get hit in the
mouth, he knows what to do, he knows
what to say, he knows how to assist us in
getting us through it.”
A more reliable pitching staff could helpeven more, and for the Phillies to compete
in the NL East, Girardi must find better an-
swers among the 38 pitchers in camp. Ma-
naging the bullpen was a strong suit for Gi-
rardi in New York, where he generally stuck
to rules geared at keeping relievers healthy.
“It’s just nice to know that you’re not go-
ing to get exhausted throughout the sea-
son,” said Phillies reliever David Robert-
son, who played for Girardi in New York
and hopes to return by midseason from
Tommy John surgery. “You’re not going to
get worn down to the point where you can’t
pitch come October. That’s his thing: he
wants everybody ready in October.”
The Phillies have not reached the post-
season since 2011, their most recent year
with a winning record. They have a new
pitching coach (Bryan Price) and hitting
coach (Joe Dillon) to go with Girardi, and
Middleton’s directive is clear.
“If our players stay healthy and play up
to their abilities, I think we’re going to be
playing in October,” he said. “Last year we
weren’t healthy and we had players, partic-
ularly in the second half, who weren’t play-
ing up to their ability.”
Girardi won his World Series as a manag-
er against the Phillies in 2009, an experi-
ence that gives him instant credibility in a
demanding town. He is planning to live in
the city and said he had noticed the way its
pro teams support one another with an us-
against-the-world kind of brotherhood.
“There’s an edge in Philadelphia that I
like,” Girardi said. “I love when fans have an
edge, because I think it keeps players ac-
countable and it drives people.”
As for the edge the Astros used against
his Yankees in 2017, Girardi refuses to feel
like a victim. That would not help the Phil-
lies, and that is his only concern.
“It’s always ‘What’s next?’ as opposed to
‘What if?’ ” Girardi said. “How do I protect
the signs our players have so it doesn’t hap-
pen to us here? That’s kind of my thought
process: What’s next in life?”
What’s next for Girardi is a new opportu-
nity, in different pinstripes and a different
league, right where he should be.NEWYORKTIMESNEWSSERVICEForPhillies’manager,‘What’snext’beats,‘Whatif?’
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t will be champs vs. cheaters
in a World Series rematch
when the Washington Nation-
als and Houston Astros play
their exhibition opener on Sat-
urday night.
The most recent time these
teams met, the Nationals were
celebrating their first World Se-
ries title in Houston after win-
ning Game 7 at Minute Maid
Park. Since then, the Astros have
become the league’s villains,
with a sign-stealing scandal sul-
lying their reputation and cast-
ing a shadow on their 2017 title.
As the Astros prepare to take
the field for the first time since
their cheating scam was uncov-
ered there’s much speculation
about what kind of reception
they’ll receive, though the play-
ers say they’re focused on base-
ball.
“Honestly, I haven’t thought
about it,” shortstop Carlos Cor-
rea said. “But whatever it is, our
job is to go there and play base-
ball. So, I’m not too concerned
about that.”
There have been a handful of
hecklers at Astros camp this
week as the team assembled for
the first time since Major League
Baseball commissioner Rob
Manfred found they used elec-
tronics to steal signs during their
run to the 2017 World Series title
and again in the 2018 season. The
investigation, which led to the
suspensions and subsequent fir-
ings of manager AJ Hinch and
general manager Jeff Luhnow,
found the Astros used the video
feed from a centre field camera
to see and decode the opposing
catcher’s signs. Players banged
on a trash can to signal to batters
what was coming, believing it
would improve the batter’s odds
of getting a hit.
One man banged on a trash
can as Astros players took bat-
ting practice Monday and some-
one yelled: “cheater” at second
baseman Jose Altuve as he walk-
ed by fans the same day.
Correa, who was part of the
team that was found to have sto-
len signs, knows things are going
to be “tough” for the Astros on
the road this season but doesn’t
expect things to be bad in a
spring training game.
“But there’s always going to be
fans that are going to go to the
ballpark and have fun in their
own way, and that’s talking
trash,” Correa said. “And that’s
fine. You see that in every sport.
So that shouldn’t bother us.”THE ASSOCIATED PRESSThechamps
takeonthe
cheaters
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