Number Of Games Should Have Been Easy For Baseball To Figure Out
Reggie Jackson's Mr. October Persona Would Only Count In The Regular Season in 2020
Calculating batting averages requires math, as does figuring out slugging percentages and the system for ranking the tools of every prospect. Heck, the sport has even devised a way to determine the result based on pitch velocity and strength of swing, and it even employs "mathematically eliminated" or "magic number" toward the end of the season.
So why then cannot Major League Baseball and its players apply basic math, especially since some simple division could save the 2020 season? Even a student in elementary school could solve for the quotient to satisfy the first issue in negotiations for the season, the number of games to be played.
Commissioner Rob Manfred and the owners, in their most recent proposal, specified an abbreviated season of 82 games. The players association asked for 114 games in a counteroffer, which was rejected by the owners.
Basic subtraction indicates a difference of 32 games, a sum easily divisible by two. Even without a calculator you come up with sixteen, so 98 games should be a fair compromise on the number of games.
Nothing about baseball is simple, however, a sport where even the act of bunting is seldom performed successfully. Instead of advancing the negotiations to the next base, the owners struck out with an offer to play just fifty games.
" If we schedule a full slate if games in late October, we will be plagued by cancellations, " said MLB deputy commissioner Dan Halem in management's rejection of the union's proposal, which called for the regular season schedule extend up until November.
It is ridiculous, or almost laughably embarrassing, on management's part to cite the weather as justification for the scant offering of games. October typically enjoys the same temperatures as April, and there is much less average rainfall. Besides, the two sides have already agreed that games could be scheduled in stadiums with roofs and warm weather cities.
Fewer games are likely to be cancelled in October than in April, and the union obviously knows that. If the players association has already scoffed at the idea of 82 games, there is no way it will even consider almost half of that sum.
Fans could hardly blame the players for doubting that management is bargaining in good faith, when the counterproposal offers only half of what was rejected in the first place. If the two sides are unable to settle and the season is cancelled, it will be more the fault of the owners than the players.
