If there is no MLB season, it’ll be entirely the fault of greedy baseball players

As predicted, it sure looks like the eagerly-anticipated Major League Baseball season could end up being scrapped — at a time when Americans could most use a distraction — in an ugly fight over money.

According to ESPN reports, owners on Tuesday offered MLB players a deal to resume the baseball season that was substantially less than the players thought they were going to get when talks started in March when a halt to games was called during spring training. Back then the general agreement was that players would get a pro-rated portion of their salary based on the number of games played — and that the minimum income of the players would be at least half of what they were originally supposed to make for the season.

But in the new offer, owners prefer to pay players a sliding scale based on the salary they were supposed to make. A player who was supposed to make $35 million would actually go home with about $7.8 million. Meanwhile, a guy who is supposed to make $1 million in 2020 would instead get a little bit more than $400,000.

I didn’t have to read much more to know that the players were going to dig in their heels against that offer. I don’t see how this is going to end amicably. But the sides owe it to their fans to find a resolution and do their part to give something back to their country (if they’re American born) or at least the country that provides them with a great life no matter where they may take their pay during the offseason.

Sadly, it looks like now it won’t just be an ugly fight over money. It’s likely going to end up being an ugly fight over money that will be settled by high-paid lawyers. And, as usual, in every fight between the billionaire owners and the millionaire players, the real losers will be the fans who will lose something they love.

It’s sobering to think that this year the first time since 1880 that a major league baseball game wasn’t played on Memorial Day in the United States. The games went on during World War I. President Franklin D. Roosevelt ordered them to go on during World War II to provide people working harder than ever for the war effort with a distraction from the grim task at hand. When America was attacked on Sept. 11, 2001, the games were only paused for a few days before they resumed to help a shaken country feel more like America again.

A lot of people have been stuck in their homes for two-and-a-half months, staring at the same four walls. Wouldn’t it be nice to turn on the television and see a game for three hours an evening?

MLB players just need to accept less money

I’m sure that it’s tough to give up $20 million or more that players thought they were going to get. But I think if someone offered me $7 million to play baseball that I could swallow my pride and do it. They should think of it as an investment in their future. While baseball might seem too big to fail, spitting in the face of fans who ultimately pay their salaries could hurt the teams and their owners far beyond 2021. What if they decide not to play baseball this season because it’s not financially lucrative enough for the players? Fans will be embittered and they’ll find other things to do. If the audience shrinks by 20 percent, those mega contracts my permanently disappear.

As I have warned before, the players are in a really bad spot here because, first, the owners are going to take a financial bath no matter what happens. They’re going to lose the revenue from at least half a season worth of tickets sold — and they very likely might lose the revenue from the entire season. They’re going to lose all of the concessions from the games that are canceled — and owners are also going to lose all of the revenue from their local and national television contracts for the games that aren’t played. With three-quarters or more of their money gone, besides saving the reputation of their product, the owners don’t have much to gain from staging a season at all. Because of this, they also don’t have anything to lose by locking out the players for a permanent change to the way the MLB revenue pie is divided. Players could lose their checks all this year -- and maybe all of next year if labor peace can’t be restored.

So, players really need to be careful not to over-play their hand here. They’re the ones who are going to look greedy and shoulder the blame for scuttling the baseball season in 2020. It seems to me that they’d be better off taking their smaller paychecks — which are still more than most Americans will earn over the course of their entire careers — and playing the game to benefit everyone, especially themselves.

Scott Wuerz

Belleville News-Democrat

Scott Wuerz has written “Cheap Seats,” a St. Louis Cardinals fan blog for the Belleville News-Democrat, since 2007. He is a former BND reporter who covered breaking news and education.