Gone Without a Trace

Blogging, business, humor, sports 2 Minutes

Major League Baseball (MLB) has just entered into a lockout as a result of the expiration of the collective bargaining agreement between the franchise owners and players’ union on Wednesday, December 1, at 11:59 p.m. ET.

At the core of the dispute between management and the players is the economic system that drives the game. The players want significant changes to increase competitiveness among teams, allow young players to be paid more in line with their performance and minimize what they view as constraints that disincentivize spending on talent. The owners argue these proposals would hurt small-market franchises and have been unwilling to increase the players’ share of overall revenues.

It is early in the lockout, and there is hope that it does not affect the start of Spring training in February, or even worse, the start of the season on March 31.

The strangest part of the lockout is that the league is making an effort not to use players’ names, images, or likenesses to comply with federal labor law.

The image at the top of the post is a picture of a banner hanging outside Citizens Bank Park in Philadelphia, honoring the 20121 MVP, the Phillies Bryce Harper. The banner was just put up 12 days ago.

Here is what it looks like today:

It’s as if it never happened.

And here is what the official team roster web page looks like:

and here is what the coaches web page looks like:

The players have simply vanished.

But if there are no players, why are there coaches?

When asked about such actions by MLB, Bruce Meyer, the union’s lead negotiator, said, “They did it on their own, and you’ll have to ask them.” Later on, an MLB spokesperson said, “Every action we are taking is at the advice of legal counsel per the National Labor Relations Act.”

Fingers crossed that this ends fairly quickly.

In the meantime, I was going to try and show my support by taking down the facial image that I use with WordPress. But then I remembered I use the letter Q (for Quincy).

I had decided a while ago that I didn’t want to scare away any potential readers with my headshot.

I think the content of the posts already does a good job at that…

source: WSJ

*MVP images: NBC Sports

*Phillies roster images: Official web site

 

Published by Jim Borden

A 60-something guy trying to figure out the world, and his place in it. Happily married for 40-plus years, three wonderful sons. Accounting teacher, fitness enthusiast, blogger, reader.

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62 thoughts on “Gone Without a Trace”

  4. Millionaires arguing with billionaires. I enjoy watching baseball but wouldn’t cry in my beer if the season is delayed or canceled. One thing the rest of us can count on is forking over more dough for everything. I wonder if the lockout affects the minor leagues.

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  5. I wonder if this means a $10 ballpark beer will now be $11 when the dust settles. By the way, I noticed that each of the six players could have his own coach, but I think the players listed may all be pitchers.

    Liked by 1 person

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  6. I love baseball but it’s not like the owners and players are curing cancer, cleaning up pollution, teaching our kids, fighting fires, or feeding the hungry. And they certainly know nothing about world peace.

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  10. I was a huge baseball fan in the 90s; went to tons of games in the Astrodome. And then they did a walkout and cancelled the end of a season. I remember being disgusted with all the rich people whining about more money and began wondering why I was even such a fan.

    The next season I was still a fan, but I had lost a lot of my zeal for the game. The Astros got a new stadium and I went a time or two.

    Then all the performance enhancing drugs and all got big and almost completely lost interest. I had kids and got busy with other stuff. My kids don’t care about baseball because I don’t care much about it anymore and they haven’t grown up with me interested in it. I haven’t been to a game in years and I probably won’t pick that up again.

    Baseball is going to do the same thing to the current dwindling crop of fans if they aren’t careful.

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    2. they have lost lots of fans over the years to football and basketball. and this lockout is not going to help. plus the price to take your family to a game is getting out of reach of many people…

      it is my favorite pro sport, perhaps because I just associate with my childhood summers…

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      1. It was my favorite sport as well for similar reasons. I was also quite the football fan until they moved the Oilers out of Houston. I haven’t cared about the NFL since then and I have always found college football to be a bit detestable.

        Oh well, I don’t sit around watching sports much anymore anyway.

        Liked by 1 person

  13. Surprised my husband didnt mention this! He did mention how overpaid he thinks the players in the league are and then we got into a convo about the pay disparity between male and female players then comparing the games and actual players lol that was long winded on his end 🤣 yet fascinating!

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  18. This is terrible! As we get ready to decorate our tree, we still hang the Philly Fanatic (Phanatic?) to remember our time there, and of course the Phillies. I still love ‘Charlie Hustle’.

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  19. Sorry to direct you to another new/pending blog but…

    I will be starting a series on my new blog sometime this month. Among the posts is one about my daughter who is now the archivist for Kellogg’s. You may or may not know that they are on strike now so I was wondering if you or any of your Villanova Biz School colleagues have an opinion the strategy being employed by their union. Their issues are probably apples compared to oranges re pro sports strikes like this one but I always find the strategies pursued by the involved parties to be good fodder for the best bloggers, like you (and maybe someday me, too).

    Here’s the link to my new blog if you’d care to check it out sometime.

    https://hbsuefred.com/

    Liked by 1 person

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    1. I haven’t read too much about the strike, except that I think I saw a headline to the effect that the union was winning the battle on social media – a powerful ally to have today…

      good luck with the new blog – I think I opted to follow it and left a comment…

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      1. You did and thank you. I found out the strike had been settled before my daughter did from watching whatever the scroll at the bottom of the screen on MSNBC or CNN is called and told her about it!

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