When you really don’t want to sell something, you simply can overvalue it. For example, put your house on the market for $100,000 more than its value. If someone meets your request, you sign off and pocket a much larger profit than you ever dreamed of.

A similar dilemma is seriously jeopardizing the future of baseball. While fans are starved for live sporting events, the Major League Players Association and MLB Baseball owners continue to bicker over money.

With the Coronavirus postponing the first three months of the season, the players want a 114 game schedule while the owners are pushing a 50 game season. The player’s proposal would represent 70 percent of a regular schedule. The owners only want 30 percent of the schedule to be played. This is a massive chasm that appears to be beyond repair. Both sides’ proposals want players to be paid prorated salaries.

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With no fans allowed in the stands, the bulk of the revenue created from a return of baseball would come from television/cable rights fees.

If you live in New England and have cable, you are still paying for the sports package which includes NESN. Since the Red Sox own 80 percent of NESN, they are raking in millions of dollars per month, filling up programming with replays of games from 1986, 2004, or any arbitrary year.

If there are no games being played, the Red Sox bottom line will still survive since they would save $200 million in payroll. They would lose $180 million in ticket sales. In the real world that’s called a $20 million gross profit when factoring in revenue -minus – costs.

In essence, some owners feel it may be a better business decision to cancel the season.

Talk about people willing to cut off their noses to spite their faces.

Baseball has been in decline since the strike of 1994 which led to the cancelling of the World Series. Wiping out this season could destroy the future of the sport.

With no live major sporting events the past three months and none on the schedule for another 6-8 weeks, baseball has the opportunity to be the first to return and have the stage to itself. More than basketball and hockey, baseball has built-in social distancing within the game.

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AL Batting Average Leaders – 2019

 
Rk Name Age Tm G PA AB R HR RBI BB BA
â–¼
1 Tim Anderson 26 CHW 123 518 498 81 18 56 15 .335
2 DJ LeMahieu 30 NYY 145 655 602 109 26 102 46 .327
3 Yoan Moncada# 24 CHW 132 559 511 83 25 79 40 .315
4 Michael Brantley* 32 HOU 148 637 575 88 22 90 51 .311
5 Nelson Cruz 38 MIN 120 521 454 81 41 108 56 .311
6 Rafael Devers* 22 BOS 156 702 647 129 32 115 48 .311
7 Xander Bogaerts 26 BOS 155 698 614 110 33 117 76 .309
8 Hanser Alberto 26 BAL 139 550 524 62 12 51 16 .305
9 J.D. Martinez 31 BOS 146 657 575 98 36 105 72 .304
10 Whit Merrifield 30 KCR 162 735 681 105 16 74 45 .302
11 Jose Altuve 29 HOU 124 548 500 89 31 74 41 .298
12 Yuli Gurriel 35 HOU 144 612 564 85 31 104 37 .298
13 Alex Bregman 25 HOU 156 690 554 122 41 112 119 .296
14 Mookie Betts 26 BOS 150 706 597 135 29 80 97 .295
15 Jorge Polanco# 25 MIN 153 704 631 107 22 79 60 .295
16 George Springer 29 HOU 122 556 479 96 39 96 67 .292
17 Trey Mancini 27 BAL 154 679 602 106 35 97 63 .291
18 Austin Meadows* 24 TBR 138 591 530 83 33 89 54 .291
19 Mike Trout 27 LAA 134 600 470 110 45 104 110 .291
20 David Fletcher 25 LAA 154 653 596 83 6 49 55 .290

At a time where a global pandemic and racial injustices are dominating the news cycle, what used to be our national past time is eating itself alive due to greed and indifference.

A sport that has an impressive spreadsheet and creates its product on the field more like a spreadsheet than a game, has clearly dropped the ball.

John Sapochetti is Co-Host
The “SAP & KAT SHOW”
Heard On FullPressCoverage

Follow Him On Twitter @JohnSap25

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