| Phew. That’s all I’ve really got. Baseball is back. Phew. It should be “phew” for the few directly involved in baseball and “phew” for the many whose existence has summer’s game close to their heart. It should be phew for everyone who likes sports in any way at all, for lockouts are just about the most depressing thing ever to touch athletics and the end of this one, 99 days in, is a fine reason for relieved celebration. It got close, didn’t it? Beyond close. The differences of opinion between Major League Baseball and its players association didn’t just go down to the wire, they broke through it and left the whole thing in tatters. Then, remarkably, with little common ground and two weeks of play destined to be scrapped, came the comeback. Bottom of the ninth, two outs, and suddenly a deal got struck, with still just enough flexibility in the calendar to allow for a full 162-game slate, beginning on April 7. It is time to take a breath, but not too long and deep, because there is a lot to do and a lot to catch up on. Spring training is suddenly going to be underway, jammed into a tightened window. Free agents are true free agents once more, with prospective moves having been put on pause when the lockout began. Carlos Correa will be at the heart of the money flurry, plus Clayton Kershaw and other big names. It is time to get happy, because there hasn’t been much of that through all the uncertainty. That part might be the easiest. As annoyed, frustrated and fearful as fans were over those months of inactivity, Thursday’s news overrides it. It is hard to stay mad at almost missing out on baseball when it turns out that you’re not going to have to. “I am genuinely thrilled to be able to say that Major League Baseball is back and we’re going to play 162 games,” MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred said. “I want to start by apologizing to our fans. Looking forward, I couldn’t be more excited about the future of our game.” During the tense talks, both sides got enough desired outcomes that they could live with other concessions. A lot of the points revolved, naturally, around financial matters; how the MLB pie is divvied up and how those funds relate to competitiveness. Things that will actively change how the game looks were involved, too. The implementation of a universal designated hitter means no more pitchers batting in the National League and therefore in the World Series. It is a shame, for such occurrences provided fuel for occasional wondrous drama. Traditionalists will hate this new development, but it was going to come sooner or later. There’s going to be a bigger postseason, now 12 teams, which will hopefully cause more clubs to feel they are still in it at midseason and reduce the temptation to throw in their hand. Ads on jerseys are coming. A pitch clock is likely just a year away. There will be a draft lottery. All good. No complaints here. Now let’s get on with it. There’s been enough waiting and wondering. Let’s get on with Opening Day, albeit one pushed back a week, with forfeited time to be made up in double-headers. Let’s get used to hearing the crack of the bat. Let’s get ready for expensive ballpark food. Let’s await the call of “play ball.” Let’s reacquaint with the biggest stars in the game and get ready to welcome new ones. Let’s start talking about favorites – the Los Angeles Dodgers are at +550 via FOX Bet, with the Houston Astros at +800 – and prepare to be confounded by some upstart team making magic on a shoestring budget. Let’s not think too hard about what summer would have looked like if this impasse had carried on longer, how empty the sporting calendar would have felt, what a drastic blow it would have been to baseball at a time when no game can afford to take itself willingly out of the public’s thought pattern. The level of interest in baseball looks different to how it used to, but the game still has a hold over life that runs deep. It is not always front and center, but it matters. It needs to find ways to matter in a more contemporary sense, and the way for that to happen isn’t with lockouts and lost games. People love and appreciate baseball for different reasons, but everyone knows that a large and significant one is nostalgia. People care about the sport because of all the memories it holds for them. Family ties, childhood thoughts, the sense that even if things aren’t exactly as they were in yesteryear, the modern game is at least a direct descendant. Baseball has been able to generate those kind of emotions because it has always been around, mostly uninterrupted, undeterred. Of all the small alterations made in the CBA, there was only one big change to be truly fearful of. That was that there would be no baseball at all, a chunk of a season lost and maybe worse. Instead baseball is back, which is a bit of a misnomer because it never truly went away, it just threatened to. It will be here again, America’s game of history and permanence, a crisis averted and a summer saved. |
