Poll: 2022 MLB season
 

What do you think will happen with the 2022 MLB season?

I heard a couple of months ago that there has never been a game missed in MLB when it was the owners rather than the players behind it but I guess there is always a first time.

It won't have any effect on me since I don't pay much attention to the game these days but I know that a lot of people's livelihoods are tied to the games being played. And I don't mean the players. For the sake of those folks I hope they get it settled very soon.

Pretty much the same way I feel about it.

I put a shortened season; I think the players will fold when they start missing paychecks. Not a lot of them have substantial off the field income and the owners are better positioned to weather a protracted strike.

I don’t really start following baseball until after the all-star break. Hopefully they both come to their senses before then.

Looks like the clock is really ticking down now:

https://www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/...reached-monday

I hope the players stay unified. They are seeking fixes to problems I care about, like tanking. Both the Reds and Mariners tried it and neither succeeded. I'd rather they stay mediocre forever than suck so bad they are obscure in May.

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So much for starting on time. Glad I don't watch LOL
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As usual I voted for the losing candidate.

I'm disappointed to find that I guessed right on this...

I read a funny and apt comment somewhere that was along the lines of,

"I'm convinced that Rob Manfred, determined to get revenge for having always been picked last at sports as a kid, made it his life's mission to destroy the national pastime."

Here's hoping they figure something out. I'm not sure how I will handle a summer without any MLB.

The poll is closed. I'd say they don't play this season. I think the NHL skipped a season a few years back, and no one cared. I root for the front of the jersey. Bring up the new guys, and have the lawyers jettison the current guys. I have no tears for Max Scherzer, or whatever.

What likely really needs to be done is to have the MLB exemption from the Sherman Anti-Trust Act of 1890 finally removed. It is actually the 100th anniversary this year of the SCOTUS decision that gave them the exemption, as an indirect result of the original federal lawsuit filed by the Federal League back in 1915. The then defunct Baltimore Terrapins team from that Federal League filed a subsequent suit against MLB that eventually resulted in the Supreme Court's 1922 decision to exempt MLB from the provisions of the Sherman Anti-Trust Act, granting them the ability to act as an unrestricted monopoly to the detriment of potential competitors and employees (players) for the past 100 years.

There is actually a suit pending right now against MLB attacking the anti-trust exemption, and specifically against Manfred I believe as the defendant, brought by four minor league clubs that lost their ML team affiliations back in 2020 when MLB did an overall contraction of their minor league teams and system, to the detriment of many minor league teams and owners. And this isn't the first and only challenge to the exemption, the most recent being in 2012, in a case that ended up being settled out of court apparently. Also, MLB is the only one of the four major US sports to enjoy such an exemption, which makes absolutely no sense as to why at all. The fact that Landis was the presiding federal judge in the initial case brought against MLB by the Federal League back in 1915, that ended up going nowhere under Landis' control, obviously had nothing to do with his payoff......errrrrr, subsequent totally independent hiring as MLB's first ever Commissioner a few years later, at an extreme increase in salary over what he made as a federal judge, and what I believe may have even been higher than the salary of any MLB player at that time. And of course, his having been a federal judge and likely being well acquainted and friends with other federal judges, including maybe some on the SCOTUS, would have just been another coincidence of this hiring, right? :rolleyes:

Without such exemption/immunity, MLB might have been forced to act a bit differently over the years, and maybe we aren't in this current situation? Who really knows.

Thanks for this, Bob. I didn't know all of this background.

You're welcome!

It is intriguing how events and people from so long ago can still have a connection and impact on things happening today. It goes along with what I've been saying in other posts lately about how people should possibly do more research, look for and include more evidence, and then take a little more time to really think about something before possibly making an overly hasty, ill informed, and erroneous decision.

Bob,

Would divorce rates plummet?

LOL

That's a great question Frank. The problem is love/marriage is one of those human things that never seem to work off of logical and intelligent thought. It is more based, at least initially, on hormones and emotions, especially in the younger crowd. The human brain doesn't actually finish developing until around 25-26 years of age, so people can change their thoughts and thinking quite a bit. Throw in aging, changing hormones over time, kids, and other things like how no two people are ever going to think exactly alike and agree on everything, and you have a recipe for disaster. What's the old saying, "Familiarity breeds contempt!" It isn't an old and very well known saying because it is generally wrong.

Even though there are some ape/monkey species that are fairly monogamous, only about 3% of all mammal species on Earth are truly monogamous apparently. And there has been some speculation and theorizing based on studies of our nearest primate relatives that human monogamy may have been born and evolved in response to the threat of babies being killed by rival men/lovers. That would help to explain why a marital system of one man, one woman, developed and became the norm for rearing children in so many human societies.

My guess is that if people did start using their heads and really thinking more when it comes to things like relationships and marriage, divorce rates wouldn't plummet, marriage rates would! 😊

Good News!
 

I've got UCLA and Texas at Minute Made live on my local sports provider. This is good stuff. Give these guys some wood bats, add more games, and a tv package. We're ready to roll. Baylor and LSU are up next tonight. That one might be on mlb.tv Kind of ironic.

The monopoly is totally bogus. Owners should not have a monopoly, but it's not like a start-up league would want to pay fair to middling shortstops $400 million either.

Not so sure, if they can get a cable/TV contract, who knows. Look at football and basketball, there have been alternate leagues started over the years. Hockey not really, but it has always been more of an international sport than baseball, football, and basketball, which all started out as pretty much American only sports, at least in their beginnings. But no one has really tried forming a new league against MLB since the Federal League back in 1914-15. And that was before the anti-trust exemption was confirmed and in place. It seems that the exemption MLB has has played some role over the years in keeping competitors from trying to form rival leagues, just not sure exactly how . Maybe the knowledge MLB has no anti-trust restrictions is more than enough to keep potential rival leagues from even trying to form and compete.

And as for ball games on TV or cable, watch them start broadcasting live South Korean games again.

Bob, I'm watching the Baylor v LSU game right now on my local Astros network, 7-5 Baylor in the 7th. As the PGA used to say, "These guys are good." NCAA top 25 baseball is good baseball, much better than the KBL. I noticed the MLB channel originally had this game scheduled for broadcast, but it is blacked-out for old re-runs. I guess Sherzer is thinking what I'm thinking, and called the network to call it off, before anyone gets any ideas.

I think we agree that the monopoly is antiquated and should be removed by congress. I'd rather watch Correa play shortstop, but I can live with watching these NCAA guys who play for free plus a major college education for free. The 1915 guys were welders and carpenters, regular blue-collar guys, who truly deserved better.

Rob, I'm with you. And don't forget, guys playing in college today are often the pro athletes of tomorrow. LOL You could be watching the next Scherzer and Trout in that college game for all you know.

Actually, when it comes to pro sports of any kind, I've often wondered why we as the public and fans put up with private ownership of teams. Think about it, at no other level from when we're growing up and going to junior high, then high school, and finally college, nobody privately owns and profits from pee wee, little league, pony league, high school and college teams. But suddenly after college it all becomes privately owned. Yet people grow up with and develop huge allegiances to their teams, only to see them sometimes just taken and moved away by greedy owners and leagues. But teams aren't just known as the Yankees or Dodgers, they're known as the New York Yankees, or Los Angeles Dodgers, and are closely identified and tied to that city/region and their people/fans. Such moves can have a terrible economic effect and impact on cities and businesses when they do move on, along with emotional effect on the fan base. And most stadiums, arenas, and so on are built and/or subsidized with taxpayer dollars. So why shouldn't these pro teams be operated by the cities/regions and not by private owners? I'm waiting for when the next time some pro team tries to move, and in response the people and city file an eminent domain proceeding against that pro team, and take it over to keep it going for the economic benefit of the city/region, as well as for the feelings of the team's fans. Will likely never happen, but just think if pro teams did become municipally controlled and operated how much fun it might be if the people got to vote on who the next manager or head coach might be. If nothing else, I'll bet you'd see the biggest turn outs ever seen at the polls. LOL

Such a let down. Glad the local minor leagues are mostly unaffected.