Recently I completed a series about the 1990 Yankees, which reminded me what a villain George Steinbrenner was in New York at that time.
To illustrate, when word circulated at Yankee Stadium, during a home game against the Tigers, that then-commissioner Fay Vincent had banned Steinbrenner for life, a spontaneous, 90-second standing ovation erupted. Ding-dong, the destroyer of the Yankee brand was gone. Dave LaPoint, who was pitching that evening, told me it was so loud and out of nowhere he initially thought the fans were charging the field, since he had no idea what was actually occurring.
That Steinbrenner — one dynasty later — would die a hero to most Yankee fans should hearten those with low public esteem that there is a way back. It is a point I have made numerous times to Jeff Wilpon. And I would make it now for Rob Manfred and Tony Clark. The head of baseball and the players union should understand that the game is not over until (sorry Yogi) it is over.
Perhaps the same could be said about baseball itself. Labor unrest led to the cancellation of the 1994 World Series and quite a few calls about the death of the game. By 2000 the sport had an attendance record and — before the COVID-19 pandemic — revenue had been on a steady rise up to $10.7 billion in 2019, according to Forbes. So maybe Manfred, Clark and their respective sides could fight all the way to a dissatisfying, joyless outcome of an imposed 48-game regular season, and some time in the near future, the sport will be whole again.
That would be unwise to try. Because MLB received one of the great breaks ever in 1995 when Cal Ripken broke the one kind of everyman record — show up daily to work — that could enthrall a nation. And because a lot of the fuel for the return in popularity was built on juiced homers. And because even with the rise of revenue, there has been an attendance decline in each of the past seven years, in part due to so many other options for entertainment dollars. Who knows what attendance will be in the near future if sizable numbers remain concerned about mass gatherings, and with so many fans enduring economic hardship.
Cal Ripken is not walking through that door. No one is going to raise their hands for a return to rampant PED use. And the spillover from COVID-19 is not stopping in 2020.
![Rob Manfred](https://vip.nypost.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2020/06/rob-manfred-mlb.jpg?quality=90&strip=all&w=662)
That is what has been so disturbing about the negotiation between owners and players. First, it hasn’t been much of a negotiation. The sides give proposals occasionally but spend so little time actually talking with one another. You know what would be must-see TV: Dana White gets Manfred and his seconds behind one desk in the octagon and Clark and his assistants behind the other, and televises the bile. I bet that would produce enough money to bridge a lot of gaps.
But, really, the bigger problem is how locked in on 2020 both sides have been. They have negotiated as if there will not be 2021 or 2022 or 2023 season. It has been an insult to the word shortsighted.
The game, though, is not over.
Manfred on Wednesday promised a next proposal that will move MLB substantially toward the player position. I do think most of this falls on ownership, even if what MLB says is accurate — that the union understood that the March 26 agreement would entail players taking a cut to prorated salaries if games were played without paid attendance.
Buying a franchise should come with acknowledgment that you now become one of the 30 stewards of the game. Or else why buy into this arena? It would be like buying an art museum and not caring about the art, only the profits. Those Wilpons have done a lot of messing up as owners over the years and folks still want to buy their franchise … in a pandemic.
There is a long runway for owners to make their money back. Forget collusion, if you pay more in salary than you want to for the good of the game in 2020, just cut payrolls in future years to make it back. Players do not have the same runway.
Yet players are not without responsibility. The long-term good of the game also helps them and future players. Being able to schedule as many games safely as possible is not just a perk for the owners. The players have a moment to extract helpful devices for, say, higher minimum wages and/or better safeguards for coming free agent markets, plus a chance to jointly create pools of money to do social good.
MLB should motivate the players off of their full prorated salaries period stance by creating reasonable triggers that allow players to get more than 100 percent of their prorated salaries if certain revenue thresholds are hit this year or next — a mechanism that would force the sides to partner better. The way the players save face from backing off 100 percent prorated is to do public good with the difference in money over a sustained period.
Today Manfred and Clark score low in public esteem. As Steinbrenner’s history demonstrates, it is not a final vote. Time remains to have, say, a 76-game season in which the players are paid well for the effort and are protected well from the virus and both sides use the money they were fighting so myopically over for societal good. There are still ways to help the game now and in the near future. To recapture public appreciation by playing the game and putting money to good causes. There are wins available after all the losses.
Do Manfred and Clark understand that the game is not over?