Major League Baseball issued a 60-game schedule on Tuesday night that will start on 23 or 24 July in empty ballparks as the sport tries to push ahead amid the coronavirus following months of acrimony.
A dramatically altered season with games full of new rules was the final result of failed financial negotiations. But for fans eager to see any baseball this year, at least now they can look forward to opening day.
The announcement by MLB came while more players continue to test positive for the virus – at least seven on the Philadelphia Phillies alone. And a stark realization remained, that if health situations deteriorate, all games could still be wiped out.
“What happens when we all get it?” Milwaukee pitcher Brett Anderson tweeted Monday.
One day after the players’ association rejected an economic agreement and left open the possibility of a grievance seeking hundreds of millions of dollars in damages, the bickering sides agreed on an operations manual. MLB’s commissioner, Rob Manfred, then unilaterally imposed the schedule, his right under a March agreement with the union.
In a twist, the sides expanded the designated hitter to games between National League teams for the first time and instituted the radical innovation of starting extra innings with a runner on second base. Playoff teams remain at 10 for now there is still talk of a possible expansion. The rejected deal had called for 16 teams.
Players will start reporting for the resumption of training on 1 July. It remains to be seen which players will report back to work. High-risk individuals are allowed to opt out and still receive salary and service time, but others who sit out get neither money nor the service credit needed for eligibility for free agency and salary arbitration.
Each team will play 10 games against each of their four division rivals and 20 total games against the five clubs in the corresponding regional division in the other league. This will be MLB’s shortest season since 1878, a schedule of such brevity that some fans may question the legitimacy of stats and records.
No matter what, the season will be among the most unusual ever for a sport that takes pride in the race for titles being a marathon and not a sprint: Washington started 19-31 and 27-33 last year but finished 93-69 to earn a wild card and won a seven-game World Series for its first title.
Public opinion shredded both sides as they locked in a ferocious financial battle during a pandemic that has led to more than 120,000 deaths, and led to a 14.7% unemployment rate, the highest since the Great Depression.
MLB hoped to be the first US major league to return, at first with an 82-game schedule starting around the Fourth of July, but sniping broke out between management and players who distrust teams’ claims of economic losses following years of huge profits. MLB claimed that without gate-related revenue it would lose $640,000 for each additional regular-season game, a figure the union disputed.
Under terms of the deal the sides reached on 26 March, which was to have been opening day, players would receive prorated portions of their salaries if the 60-game schedule is not cut short by the virus. Salaries originally totaled $4 billion, and the prorated portion of about 37% reduces pay to $1.48 billion.
Salaries were to have ranged from $563,500 at the minimum to $36m for Mike Trout and Gerrit Cole at the top, but the spread would now be from $208,704 to $13,333,333.
MLB initially had sought last month in its initial economic plan to reduce pay to about $1bn, and players vowed not to give up full prorated pay and proposed a 114-game schedule that amounted to $2.8bn.
The relationship deteriorated back to the level of the acrimonious labor disputes that led to eight work stoppages from 1972-95, and the union has threatened a grievance claiming MLB didn’t fulfill the provision in the March deal requiring the longest season economically feasible, conditioned by several other provisions. MLB would claim the union bargained in bad faith, and the case would be argued before arbitrator Mark Irvings.
That would be a prelude to the expiration of the current labor contract on 1 December 2021, which likely will be followed by a lockout.