We have people in the United States who can barely afford to feed and clothe their families.
We have people in the United States who can barely afford to put gasoline in their vehicles just to get to work.
We have people in the United States whose lives have been in turmoil for two years and counting because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
And, once again, we have professional athletes, many of whom will make more money in one season of tossing a ball around than most of us will make in our entire lives — and really, that figure isn’t even close — who honestly think they’re getting screwed and aren’t bringing home enough cash.
Imagine this juxtaposition: While Ukrainian athletes, including tennis star Sergiy Stakhovsky, who registered a historic victory over Roger Federer at Wimbledon in 2013, are returning to their war-ravaged country to put their lives on the line and fight the invading Russian forces, Major League Baseball players are whining about wanting more money.
Get a clue.
Yes, technically it’s a lockout by MLB owners following the expiration of the collective bargaining agreement on Dec. 2, 2021. As a result, MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred has canceled the first two series of the 2022 regular season — and just when you thought America’s cancel culture was about to be canceled.
But considering the laundry list of items the owners and players are still far apart on — including the Competitive Balance Tax, playoff expansion while shortening the regular season to 154 games, and, of course, player salary increases — MLB will be fortunate to start play by May 1, if at all this season. After all, the owners have said they would gladly miss a month of the season to get what they want. And if they don’t mind missing one month, they probably don’t mind missing a lot of months.
So if you’re holding tickets to the home-opening series of 2022 when the San Francisco Giants are scheduled to come to Cleveland starting April 15 — which also happens to be Jackie Robinson Day across MLB — you may want to start considering Plan B on your social calendar. The ensuing four-game series against the White Sox isn’t looking good, either.
It’s the age-old battle of who controls baseball, the owners or the players. Up until the mid-1970s, the owners had been in complete control of the game since it began in the 1800s. That changed when the shrewd Marvin Miller, executive director of the Major League Baseball Players Association from 1966-82, turned the players’ union into one of the strongest in the United States. Miller’s negotiating method of tough finesse in bargaining with the owners helped to eradicate the hated “reserve clause,” which had been imposed by owners since 1879 and had bound players to one team throughout their entire career. Miller’s instrumental role in abolishing the reserve clause in 1975 brought baseball into the free-agent age, skyrocketing player salaries and owner profits in the process. Everybody won — except the fans.
Miller even admitted it, saying free-agency was great for the players, but not for fans — or even the game itself, for that matter.
Miller, whom legendary baseball broadcaster Red Barber said was one of the three most important men in baseball history along with Babe Ruth and Jackie Robinson, is in all reality 100 percent responsible for the current economics of Major League Baseball. Every strike and lockout in baseball history — the first strike was in 1972, the first lockout the following year — goes back to Miller, because it was his dogged determination to level the playing field for the people who were playing on the field that has since caused a titanic struggle for control of baseball.
In that sense, Miller should be commended. Baseball has often mirrored American society, and thus has come to represent the struggle between the workers who make the money for the company, and the owner of the company who hires those workers. Far too often, business owners, regardless of industry, hoard as much of the profits as they can get away with, then toss what crumbs are left to the employees. It’s blatant exploitation. This was the situation in Major League Baseball for a hundred years, and it took someone of Miller’s intellect to change it.
The problem is, like so many other things in our society, the money-grabbing took on a life of its own. The way the players see it, fans don’t go to ballparks to watch owners lounging in their luxury suites, they go to watch the players. So if it weren’t for the players, there wouldn’t be fans. And if there weren’t fans, there wouldn’t be teams. And if there weren’t teams, Major League Baseball wouldn’t exist.
The owners don’t quite see it that way. From their viewpoint, that domino effect starts with their wallets. If they didn’t pony up the money to buy and operate franchises, there wouldn’t be players. Then the dominoes fall from there.
And in that sense, Miller should have the finger of blame pointed squarely at him. During Miller’s 16-year tenure as head of the MLBPA, the players went on strike three times and the owners locked the players out twice. In other words, baseball had work stoppages nearly a third of the time that Miller headed the players’ association.
Which leads us to today. Regardless of which side you come down on, it’s the timing of this latest lockout that gives it especially bad optics. In a time when inflation is at its highest in generations and the average person can barely make ends meet — if they’re even meeting at all — on top of a new war in Europe that could potentially engulf the planet in World War III, now might not be a great time for rich people to accuse other rich people of trying to keep them from getting richer.
Amongst other demands from the two sides, it’s the players’ push for a minimum salary of $725,000 with an annual increase of $20,000 as part of a new collective bargaining agreement that’s especially galling. The average MLB player salary in 2021 was a cool $4.17 million, and any effort to increase that at this particular moment in history is morally bereft. There should be no reason why the two sides can’t agree to a one-year status-quo CBA for 2022, then start negotiations on a new CBA after the World Series.
If Ukrainian athletes are willing to give up their lives in the nightmare that has become their country, the least the athletes in Major League Baseball can do is learn to live on a salary that most of us can only dream about.
Tom Hardesty is a Portager sports columnist. He was formerly assistant sports editor at the Record-Courier and author of the book Glimpses of Heaven.