Sports Take

The MLB Waiting Game is Getting Old

No one likes to wait. We hate waiting in the grocery line. We hate waiting at the doctor. We hate waiting for our pizza to come out of the oven. We hated waiting so much for commercials to end that the DVR was created. We hate waiting on pretty much anything.

And, right now, baseball fans are so tired of waiting for Rob Manfred and his clown parade and the owners and the MLB players to get their heads out of the sand and play ball. Spring Training. Regular season. Postseason. Are we getting anything? It’s the typical stare down of many millions vs. many billions and getting nowhere while... waiting.

Baseball already recently had an embarrassing 2020 campaign, where it could have been the premier sport playing while we all waited for other sports to come back during the beginning of COVID. They eventually settled on a delayed 60- game season and implemented idiotic things to the game, like a runner on 2nd base in extra innings and 7 inning doubleheaders. We all accepted it, including this author, because, well, we had to get the games in. After that?

After that, MLB kept the gimmicks! And now here we are, after more launch angle and spin rate and nonsense around the game like Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens not getting into the Hall of Fame but David Ortiz being allowed in on the first ballot, baseball’s clown train keeps chugging with a continued strike that likely prevents play in 2022 on top of everything else! How can this sport be taken seriously?

There are a lot of questions in this piece. Well, here are a few more. How many times can we do this, seriously? 1981? 1994? 2020’s clown show? Now? Is this it? Is this the final straw? Will the majority of fans finally walk away because they are tired of getting screwed over?

The game isn’t even good enough to keep our attention in normal circumstances. Now this? More arguments over money? More simple decisions to

be made across the game that no one can agree to? More disagreeing over player compensation and player control? Now a federal mediator is being brought in? Insanity. This sport is a running joke day in and day out. All of these problems could be solved

in about five minutes by Bob Costas. It has taken Rob Manfred years to do nothing. Want another “baseball is so bad right now” thought? We just had the Super Bowl.

It finished at a decent hour. Baseball’s World Series is in the third or fourth inning at the same time the biggest game of the year in sports is over! Different

worlds for sure. Different sports for sure. One sport never waits. The other is in a waiting game.

Wasn’t Rob Manfred brought in to be a difference maker at the table during times of trouble? He does nothing. He hasn’t done anything relevant sincebeing commissioner. He doesn’t even seem like he likes baseball. The commissioner should LOVE baseball. He doesn’t. How does someone who grew up about an hour away from Cooperstown not love baseball? Who is this clown? And now he is the main problem for the sport striking and tanking and fans waiting.

So many of the problems should have been solved by now. A new CBA should have been hashed out long ago. Players and owners should have learned a lesson in 2020 by not arguing over dimes and nickels and other topics and played all the games. All of these problems and arguments just keep going and going and going while the two sides cannot figure anything out. There is a very good chance that we get a shortened season or no season at all. Baseball fans, those who have stuck around, certainly hope for a return, but things don’t look good. And now we keep waiting, which is the worst. Mike Lindsley has been in sports media for 20 years. Download and subscribe to his podcast, the ML Sports Platter, on Apple, Google and Spotify. Follow him on Twitter @MikeLSports.

by Mike Lindsley