“To Be or Not To Be”: The Baseball Version

The question is not when baseball is going to start, but if – and whether I’m going to care whether it does or doesn’t.  I understand the players and the owners both think they are standing on principle.  The players think they agreed to a pro rata payment based on the number of games played, and the owners think they can’t pay the players full pro rata salary if there aren’t fans in the stands.  

Jeff Passan at ESPN.com goes into great detail on the two sides’ positions and the reasons and principles behind them.  And each side has lots of reasons for their positions, reasons that they think are legitimate.  But ultimately, you know what.  I don’t care.

The owners and the players can have their principles, but in the end, the fans matter more.  Because we’re the ones buying the tickets, watching on TV, and listening to the radio.  And if we’re not there and we don’t care, it doesn’t matter how they divide up the money – because there won’t be any money to divide up. 

Back in 1994, the strike didn’t bother me too much because the Cubs were in last place.¹  But the arguments all winter and into the spring got tiring.  And when the 1995 season finally started, almost a month late and only because of the effects of a judge’s order,² I didn’t go to a game until August 25, and I only went to three games all year.  Now it is happening again.

If the owners and players wind up not playing in 2020, or playing so little it’s not a real season, then maybe I’m not going to care.  The owners and players can stand on their principles, but they are forgetting the real principals of baseball are the fans.  And if the owners and players don’t care about us, then we won’t care about them.
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¹ And the White Sox were in first (In the AL Central).
² What current Supreme Court Justice did this?  See here.