A Baseball Season Could be the Worst Thing for Baseball in 2020

If you have been a regular reader to “Cleveland Baseball Insider” since our launch in December, you know that first and foremost, our writers at heart are all baseball fans.

Which is why on this Father’s Day 2020 it pains me to say that the farce that has become the back and forth between players and owners has rightfully not only turned off so many die-hard fans, it’s also made the thought of seeing baseball in empty stadiums in 2020 just plain ugly.

The two sides have taken the sport that I and many people love and turned it into a war over the very last buck.

We all knew it would eventually come to that, most of us could have called that weeks ago, but we were all hoping that there would be a maturity factor shown by the two sides and they would surprise us all with a quick deal to get players back on the field.

Now it just seems like roadblock after roadblock, with the latest coming on Saturday with the league news that if things move forward and spring training 2.0 does take place for teams across the league, they will happen in home stadiums and not in the normal states of Arizona and Florida.

The reason for that is simple, that being a sudden uptick in covid-19 cases, something that in the end might just be the final straw as to why a pitch isn’t thrown in 2020.

Commissioner Rob Manfred has become public enemy number one to many fans during this whole saga, but the reason baseball isn’t being played on this Father’s Day isn’t just his fault, but he is a part of the reason this disaster has lasted a lot longer than it should have.

Manfred likely on Monday is going to push forward and force a 60 to 66 game schedule, something that the players are going to balk at, but in the end they should have agreed to ratify the deal when the owners presented a 60-game slate with full pay last week.

Instead Tony Clark, head of the MLB Players Association, and his minions countered with a 70-game proposal, again drawing fire from the owners and again putting everything back to square one – which is where this petty back and forth had been way too many times.

It’s time to face reality. Now that cases of covid-19 are on the upswing again, a number of players are likely going to just sit at home the remainder of the summer even if there are games, and if some of these players are bigger name stars, it may entice some lesser known players to follow.

It is almost laughable how many times these two sides have gone back and forth trying to work this all out.

I, like many of you, want to see Indians baseball as badly as anyone else, but it’s just exhausting on almost a daily basis how things between the two sides keep changing.

Time, the pandemic, and the greed that both sides have shown is more than enough to keep baseball from being played in 2020.

That’s tough to say with how badly and how much die-hard fans want to see the game they love.

That’s the complete fault of the owners, Manfred, Clark and the players. If not having a season is the one thing that finally puts everyone on notice to get the game back to where it should be – sadly – it will be worth it.

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