In one word: nothing. Expect nothing. The players association and owners will get together today. Nothing will be accomplished and both sides will leave complaining about the lack of concessions from the other side. The lockout will continue, and they won’t meet again for a few weeks.
For fans, this is becoming maddening. We are tired of the long waiting periods, the short meetings, the lack of progress and the disregard for the fans and the teams. General Managers and teams want to get back to business. Players want to get back to business. Why can’t they sit down in a room and hash out a deal? Because they don’t want to. The owners group wants to try and get the most concessions it can out of the players. The players representation want to not give in to the owners demands. It is a mess, and it’s not helping the sport.
Since football had one if it’s most exciting weekends in recent memory, it is making the MLB look worse as each day passes. Fans have other options. Football, basketball, hockey, soccer, curling. There are other sports to watch, and other things to do with our time. If they drag this out into spring training, baseball is going to lose more fans. Something that it definitely can’t afford.
No other industry can waste time like this in a negotiation. It is disrespectful to the fans of the game, fans that just want to see this resolved. We do not expect either side to give up and accept what the other side wants, but to negotiate you have to talk. Today there will be a 20 minute meeting that will accomplish nothing. We are watching. We are waiting. But we won’t wait for ever.
So do the right thing and sit down and actually talk instead of using the media to talk about how disappointed you all are in each other. The fans get it. We all know you each won’t get what you want. Now work out a deal already and stop this foolishness. We really are tired of it.
