Because I’m a Christian and a fool, a part of me actually feels sorry for Sideshow Rob Manfred every time he has to go in front of the camera and step on a rake for his bosses.
On their best days, Major League Baseball owners resemble The Bluth Family from “Arrested Development” — hilariously dysfunctional, greedy buggers who, with the exception of Michael Bluth, turned up to the party with more money than sense. As commissioner, Sideshow Rob is effectively their public mouthpiece. Which also makes him America’s wealthiest cat herder.
According to SNY.com’s Andy Martino on Tuesday, at least six MLB owners don’t want a 2020 season. Ken Rosenthal of Fox Sports and The Athletic thinks that number might be closer to eight.
On June 10, Manfred told ESPN: “I can tell you, unequivocally, we are going to play Major League Baseball this year.”
On June 15, same network: “I’m not confident (of a season). I think there’s real risk, and as long as there’s no dialogue, that real risk is going to continue.”
Instead of “Take Me Out to the Ballgame” during the seventh-inning stretch, MLB contests — hey, remember those? — should feature “Entry of the Gladiators,” played on one of those old circus calliopes. Because this whole thing is officially a clown show now, from the top down.
You lost, Sideshow Rob.
You lost this fight ages ago.
Either set a schedule, crank the engine to start up in late July, or just kill it already. Pull the plug. Be done with it.
Apologize for yanking everybody’s chain from here to Missoula. Even if you don’t mean it.
Say that safety comes first. Even if you don’t believe it.
Tell us that, after careful consideration, you’re cooking up something even better at Coors Field for 2021. Even if you can’t deliver it.
But for the love of Pete Incaviglia, stop teasing us.
“It’s just a disaster for our game, absolutely, no question about it,” Manfred continued. “It shouldn’t be happening. And it’s important that we find a way to get past it and get the game back on the field for the benefit of our fans.”
Says the man who’s about to put dozens of minor-league baseball teams — including the two left in Colorado — and hundreds of their employees on the chopping block. Says the man who covers his ears when the Houston Astros bang trash cans, and covers his mouth when the Oakland Athletics stop cutting checks to the kids on their farm clubs.
We get it. Everybody in baseball is losing money. Guess what? Everyone outside of baseball is losing it, too.
Sideshow Rob has all the altruism of a short-tailed shrew. MLB has become to sports what Turner Classic Movies is to mainstream entertainment: Nostalgia porn. The place your weird uncle — full disclosure, I’m that guy, too — runs to whenever he wants to pretend he’s 12 again. It’s James Earl Jones, corn fields, fathers and sons playing catch and everything you either love or hate about “Field of Dreams.”
Drop a baby grand on our toes, we come back. Pour scalding oil on our heads, we come back. After 1994, we came back. And after 1981. And 1972.
This time, though? This time feels … different.
With little to no live sports and a starving audience stuck at home, ESPN’s 30 for 30 offerings have been killing it on the ratings front. That is, until Sideshow Rob showed up. According to ShowbizBuzzDaily on Tuesday, “Long Gone Summer,” ESPN’s documentary on the 1998 home run chase between Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa, drew 775,000 viewers last weekend.
Context:
• “Be Water,” the 30 for 30 on Bruce Lee: 906,000 viewers.
• “Lance,” on Lance Armstrong: 826,500, on average, over two weekends.
• “The Last Dance:” 5.6 million, on average, over 10 installments.
Episode 7 of “The Last Dance,” the one that featured Michael Jordan’s time as a minor-league baseball player, riding the buses with the Birmingham Barons, drew 5.3 million viewers. Or about seven times as many eyeballs as Big Mac and Sammy.
I mean, isn’t that something?
Jordan wanted to play baseball.
“The industry isn’t very profitable, to be quite honest,” St. Louis Cardinals owner Bill DeWitt Jr. told 590 The Fan last week. “And I think (the players) understand that. But they think the owners are hiding profits, and this and that, and there’s been a little bit of a distrust there.”
With good reason. While the cats scratch and howl, according to the New York Post, the Bluths are about to pocket $1 billion from Turner Sports for MLB’s postseason broadcast rights. There’s always money in the banana stand, Michael. Always.
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