I guess I'm an optimist. I never really expected either side to get serious about negotiating until regular season games were in jeopardy. So to me this just looks like opening negotiation offers. Pretty unreasonable.
Is that optimism?
Players should be working towards getting Congress to drop the MLB anti-trust exemption. Or at least they should threaten to do that.
Love to work David - Looking back, we were all too assuming that the owners didn’t want to miss out on revenue after the COVID stuff. I thought a deal would get done as well for more for the optics of it. But man, the owners clearly know they will recoup and don’t care about a full season this year. The question is now, we lose a month?
I cancelled my first ever Spring Training trip and hope that the owners lose more than the players, and like you I feel sorry for all the local business people that will suffer for the owners' greed. To me, it is hard to understand and anything other than selfish sinful greed. And pride. It seems true that you cannot serve God and money, that you cannot be nice and fair and reasonable, but can only lie and try to deceive that you are, that it is sadly true that the love of money is the root of much evil.
It seems so nasty that the wealthiest people are the most selfish and greedy. That the billionaires do not want to give the millionaires their fair share. Just like I guess that the top 1% do not want to pay their fair share of taxes. So sad. So bad.
I hope that John Sherman is not one of them. He seems to genuinely care about KC and about the Royals. I hope that he is outnumbered and unable to be fair.
I made my living representing my employer in resolving employee disputes through the use of negotiation, using mediation only to help try get the other side to be more reasonable when needed. I used local attorneys willing to look for the quick, fair result, instead of running their meters to fight over everything to jack up big fees.
I did have a few negotiations where the other side thought that acting like the deceptive tough guy greedy owners, fighting over everything, would get them the best result. But I did everything I could to make sure they did not. Start out negotiations low or high, that is the game, but then display friendship and empathy, move towards the reasonable middle ground, be fair and give the other side what they reasonably deserve, and move on it success and peace that receives the admiration of the fans.
Like the recent deal between owners and players of the women's soccer league. With their KC owner. The win-win. Instead of the selfish "we win you lose." Stand tall, players. Stand up and hold out for what is fair. Maybe even a new league without these owners, if they are going to continue to be this bad.
As an old fart who has lived through all of work stoppages over the years, I was afraid we were headed for this. The attitudes and language being used from both sides is as bad as I have heard since the last stoppage in the 90's. Like you, I believe the owners are the biggest reason why. They have been talking at and not too the players and their representatives for quite some time. I hoped and believed a deal would be made with only a short stoppage but now I'm not so sure!
I fired out greedy local attorneys who wanted to put up a huge fight, and delay, and use bad faith. Yes, that maximized their personal attorney's fees and profits. But it was not good for my employer or our employees. It was the most expensive, and most relationship shattering, process to use. So I fired them. Even though I represented a major corporation. And we got much better results, and much better relationships. Our employees got what they should, instead of it going into the attorneys pockets. Our employes got more. And it cost us less. Hopefully the owners will wake up and realize this. For all our sakes. Including theirs.
This is going to be a real negative post. Thanks for great writing, David. I am just very angry. I really don't care who wins in this deal. I am 70 years old and in poor health. I have watched and listened to baseball all my life. I am not able to get out of my house much and rely on watching the Royals for entertainment. I am just mad and very mad with the whole mess. I'm getting to the point where I don't care if they ever get this settled. Enjoy your time with family and your time in Arizona David.
At some level, it's hard to understand why we need the owners at all. The Royals could change their name to Monarchs and move into the park at the racetrack. Every team in every city has a similar option. The bumps will have to be smoothed for a couple of years, but in 3 to 5 years time we'll have ball clubs owned by the players that are responsive to the communities they serve.
This is all about rich people getting richer. How about the minor league players who are the future of baseball? In spite of the MLBPA saying they care about all the players, it seems to me that they are willing to let the minor leagues die on the vine. There are plenty of examples about how other sports handle some of these issues, like real salary caps. And the idea of sending a player to the minors to save money is ridiculous--either play them or trade them.
My mind is noisy right now. Thanks for writing it. I'll probably need to write something about this disaster myself so I don't explode.
One of the worst parts of this for me is the cognitive dissonance that stems from believing the Royals, Dayton and Mr. Sherman are privately in as much disbelief as the rest of us are. So here we have several owners and a commissioner who seem hell-bent on digging their own grave, but the Royals and probably a handful of other organizations that just want to make some major concessions toward the players so we can get this show on the road.
I don't know. I just feel defeated. Rob Manfred and Tony Clark should have to trade jobs for a few weeks. The owners would never let Dayton become commissioner, so maybe he should be the new leader of the union.
This is not the owners fault. They just went thru 2 of the worst revenue yrs in the history of baseball and yet the players want more money. Don't get me wrong. I love baseball but I can live without it. I'm tired of making these sports stars multi millionaires. They don't even play the game the right way anymore. Strikeouts, no walks, and just swing for the fences. The owners take all the financial risk for a bunch of overgrown little boys to play a game. The people they are leaving out are the fans. They say they game is in great shape because people still go to games. What you don't think about are the only people who can afford to go to a game are people with a lot of money. The lower middle class and families below that line can no longer go to a game. They can't afford it. You better take at least 500 dollars minimum for a family of 4 to go to a game. I dont have that kind of money to waste watching a bunch of guys play who no longer understand the fundamentals of the game. Owners are not completely without blame but they do own the teams and they deserve to make as much as possible. The smaller market teams are getting screwed. They can't pay these prices. I can say these things because I was a small business owner and I do understand how hard it is to pay people to work for you and still make a living for yourself. I did go out of business because everything around me went up except for the money I brought in. A lot of these players are people who have never done anything in their live but hit a ball with a big stick. The owners worked and earned what they have the hard way and many took decades to get where they are. The American people are hurting right now so excuse me if I don't feel sorry for the players
David, after I read the letter from Rob Manford regarding the negotiations, and then this blog from you, is it possible you might send us something that takes every bullet point Manford made and explain the players side against his arguments? Thank you!
I guess I'm an optimist. I never really expected either side to get serious about negotiating until regular season games were in jeopardy. So to me this just looks like opening negotiation offers. Pretty unreasonable.
Is that optimism?
Players should be working towards getting Congress to drop the MLB anti-trust exemption. Or at least they should threaten to do that.
Love to work David - Looking back, we were all too assuming that the owners didn’t want to miss out on revenue after the COVID stuff. I thought a deal would get done as well for more for the optics of it. But man, the owners clearly know they will recoup and don’t care about a full season this year. The question is now, we lose a month?
I cancelled my first ever Spring Training trip and hope that the owners lose more than the players, and like you I feel sorry for all the local business people that will suffer for the owners' greed. To me, it is hard to understand and anything other than selfish sinful greed. And pride. It seems true that you cannot serve God and money, that you cannot be nice and fair and reasonable, but can only lie and try to deceive that you are, that it is sadly true that the love of money is the root of much evil.
It seems so nasty that the wealthiest people are the most selfish and greedy. That the billionaires do not want to give the millionaires their fair share. Just like I guess that the top 1% do not want to pay their fair share of taxes. So sad. So bad.
I hope that John Sherman is not one of them. He seems to genuinely care about KC and about the Royals. I hope that he is outnumbered and unable to be fair.
I made my living representing my employer in resolving employee disputes through the use of negotiation, using mediation only to help try get the other side to be more reasonable when needed. I used local attorneys willing to look for the quick, fair result, instead of running their meters to fight over everything to jack up big fees.
I did have a few negotiations where the other side thought that acting like the deceptive tough guy greedy owners, fighting over everything, would get them the best result. But I did everything I could to make sure they did not. Start out negotiations low or high, that is the game, but then display friendship and empathy, move towards the reasonable middle ground, be fair and give the other side what they reasonably deserve, and move on it success and peace that receives the admiration of the fans.
Like the recent deal between owners and players of the women's soccer league. With their KC owner. The win-win. Instead of the selfish "we win you lose." Stand tall, players. Stand up and hold out for what is fair. Maybe even a new league without these owners, if they are going to continue to be this bad.
As an old fart who has lived through all of work stoppages over the years, I was afraid we were headed for this. The attitudes and language being used from both sides is as bad as I have heard since the last stoppage in the 90's. Like you, I believe the owners are the biggest reason why. They have been talking at and not too the players and their representatives for quite some time. I hoped and believed a deal would be made with only a short stoppage but now I'm not so sure!
I fired out greedy local attorneys who wanted to put up a huge fight, and delay, and use bad faith. Yes, that maximized their personal attorney's fees and profits. But it was not good for my employer or our employees. It was the most expensive, and most relationship shattering, process to use. So I fired them. Even though I represented a major corporation. And we got much better results, and much better relationships. Our employees got what they should, instead of it going into the attorneys pockets. Our employes got more. And it cost us less. Hopefully the owners will wake up and realize this. For all our sakes. Including theirs.
This is going to be a real negative post. Thanks for great writing, David. I am just very angry. I really don't care who wins in this deal. I am 70 years old and in poor health. I have watched and listened to baseball all my life. I am not able to get out of my house much and rely on watching the Royals for entertainment. I am just mad and very mad with the whole mess. I'm getting to the point where I don't care if they ever get this settled. Enjoy your time with family and your time in Arizona David.
At some level, it's hard to understand why we need the owners at all. The Royals could change their name to Monarchs and move into the park at the racetrack. Every team in every city has a similar option. The bumps will have to be smoothed for a couple of years, but in 3 to 5 years time we'll have ball clubs owned by the players that are responsive to the communities they serve.
This is all about rich people getting richer. How about the minor league players who are the future of baseball? In spite of the MLBPA saying they care about all the players, it seems to me that they are willing to let the minor leagues die on the vine. There are plenty of examples about how other sports handle some of these issues, like real salary caps. And the idea of sending a player to the minors to save money is ridiculous--either play them or trade them.
Is there a reason why the MLBPA doesn't represent the minor leagues? Unions are generally for people who can't command salaries way above the minimum.
My mind is noisy right now. Thanks for writing it. I'll probably need to write something about this disaster myself so I don't explode.
One of the worst parts of this for me is the cognitive dissonance that stems from believing the Royals, Dayton and Mr. Sherman are privately in as much disbelief as the rest of us are. So here we have several owners and a commissioner who seem hell-bent on digging their own grave, but the Royals and probably a handful of other organizations that just want to make some major concessions toward the players so we can get this show on the road.
I don't know. I just feel defeated. Rob Manfred and Tony Clark should have to trade jobs for a few weeks. The owners would never let Dayton become commissioner, so maybe he should be the new leader of the union.
What a damn shame this is.
This is not the owners fault. They just went thru 2 of the worst revenue yrs in the history of baseball and yet the players want more money. Don't get me wrong. I love baseball but I can live without it. I'm tired of making these sports stars multi millionaires. They don't even play the game the right way anymore. Strikeouts, no walks, and just swing for the fences. The owners take all the financial risk for a bunch of overgrown little boys to play a game. The people they are leaving out are the fans. They say they game is in great shape because people still go to games. What you don't think about are the only people who can afford to go to a game are people with a lot of money. The lower middle class and families below that line can no longer go to a game. They can't afford it. You better take at least 500 dollars minimum for a family of 4 to go to a game. I dont have that kind of money to waste watching a bunch of guys play who no longer understand the fundamentals of the game. Owners are not completely without blame but they do own the teams and they deserve to make as much as possible. The smaller market teams are getting screwed. They can't pay these prices. I can say these things because I was a small business owner and I do understand how hard it is to pay people to work for you and still make a living for yourself. I did go out of business because everything around me went up except for the money I brought in. A lot of these players are people who have never done anything in their live but hit a ball with a big stick. The owners worked and earned what they have the hard way and many took decades to get where they are. The American people are hurting right now so excuse me if I don't feel sorry for the players
David, after I read the letter from Rob Manford regarding the negotiations, and then this blog from you, is it possible you might send us something that takes every bullet point Manford made and explain the players side against his arguments? Thank you!