Mother of Mercy, Is This the End of Baseball?

Duque, our Peerless Leader, got me thinking with his last post, as he so often does.

I think he's right that this SHOULD be a great time for the Yankees to make hay while the sun shines—to use a very urban metaphor—and mold the next Yankees dynasty.

If the rest of baseball wants to melt down its minor leagues, pick up the best prospects they cut loose.  If the other owners want to fight it out on a new agreement, quietly let the old one die, and kill them with our monetary advantage.

But that's what team owners truly concerned about their brand and its long-term sustainability—not to mention their team's fans and communities—would do.  That's not how American capitalism operates these days, and it's not how that awful, soulless entity known as "MLB" has ever operated.

I have to agree with Carl Weitz about what WILL happen:  What we can actually expect is that Hal and the Family Greed will fall in line with the usual, standard short-term thinking and cartel-licking that has so reliably reduced American capitalism from world domination, to an institution unable to turn out toilet paper on demand during a national emergency.

But another question arises:  Is this the end of baseball as we know it?

I don't mean baseball baseball.  Some kids, somewhere, will always be playing that, if only on their X-boxes.

I mean organized, professional baseball.

As discussed here, any kind of 2020 season is still a longshot, and probably should be a nonstarter.  But who's to say this virus will go away anytime soon?  We could be looking at a silent ballpark in 2021, as well.

IF that happens—and I very much hope it DOESN'T—what do we have?

I get the feeling that the longer this goes on, the more everything will change in America.  Old habits, old allegiances, old ties (no, not those 1970s ties that were way too thick!), will be dropped.

Will we even recognize what the Yankees are in 2022?  Will Giancarlo Stanton still have a calf strain?  (I think we can count on the answer to the second question being "yes."  Some things never change.)

If two years go by with no baseball, will the owners and players ever be able to reach a new agreement?  And what then?

The players tried forming their own league before, back in 1890.  It almost worked.  They mortally wounded one of the two major leagues at the time—the old American Association—and nearly finished off the National League, as well.

What if, starting in 2022, major-league players get their own backers, and form their own league?

Sure, it would be hard getting hold of stadiums at first.  But hey, among other charming things little noted by our sporting press, the Yankees are planning to abandon the pretty little Staten Island ballpark they got us chumps to spend $30 million on.

Suppose a bunch of players decided to form new teams made up of their friends, joined them into a league, and played where they could?  Suppose we suddenly had the New York Gothams, or the Staten Island Isotopes, playing ball?

Maybe that wouldn't be such a bad thing.  Maybe it would be time for something new.

Hey, put this all down to a fever dream.  Chances are, the players and owners will reach an agreement.  Chances are, there's just too much money involved for them not to.

Chances are, we'll be right back where we were, later this year, or in 2021.

But I don't know.  If there's no baseball until 2022?  If that agreement somehow falls through?

I say, Go Goths!  Go Topes!