The Super Bowl is history; COVID has yet to be conquered. Mother Nature greeted us with an early February snowstorm. The furry Punxsutawney varmint has blessed us all with six more weeks of winter weather, and uncertainty reigns regarding baseball’s spring training and the start of the 2021 season. There couldn’t be a better time to think about warmer weather and the prospect of better days ahead.

For hardcore baseball fans and even some of the idealists among us, there is an alluring charm and optimistic fervor attached to those annual words “pitchers and catchers report for spring training.” After enduring winter’s bleakness, those seven little words provide a glimpse that spring is indeed coming, be it a lot closer in Florida and Arizona than it is in central Pennsylvania. But, as of this writing, that circled calendar date of February 17 has become yet another “battleground” between MLB and its players as it relates to the cancel culture, we have all been saddled with for the past eleven months.

Faced with the ongoing health-related difficulties of the COVID crises and the long-drawn-out distribution process of getting the vaccine into the arms of the general public, as February arrived, Major League Baseball presented a plan that would have slowed down the trained pitching arms of its players and move the start of spring training back to March 22.

As reported, that proposal was for a one-month delay in spring training that would have pushed backed MLB’s Opening Day until April 28. The plan would also cut the regular season from 162 games to 154, expand the playoffs from 10 teams to 14, extend the use of the designated hitter in the National League, keep the experimental rules for seven-inning doubleheaders and begin extra innings with a runner on second base. The regular season would have concluded on October 10, followed by the playoffs extending into November. Also included by MLB was a willingness to pay the players for a full 162-game season, should all of the suggested 154 games be played.

Financially, team owners would guarantee a postseason players’ pool of 60% of the gate of the first two first-round games plus $80 million for the remainder of the postseason, which would match the 2019 pool shared by the players.

The reasoning for the proposed delay was for time for more vaccinations to be given and a better assessment of the nation’s health situation. The Mayors of nine Arizona communities, where 15 of MLB’s teams conduct spring training, had asked MLB for a delay in spring training as the state is a hotbed in COVID-19 cases. Being a huge baseball fan and frequent visitor to the Arizona Cactus League, the proposal smacked of common sense under the circumstances we are facing and seemed like a NO-BRAINER.

Therein lays the rub. All our brains do not think alike.

The plan was presented to the MLB Players Union on February 1. One day later, February 2, the player’s union flatly rejected the proposal insisting on Spring Training’s start on February 17 and the regular 162-game season on March 28.

In their refusal to accept MLB’s plan, or even offer a counteroffer, the MLBPA issued the following statement:

“The MLBPA Executive Board and Player leadership reviewed and discussed the owners’ proposal throughout. The clear-cut result of these deliberations is that Players will not accept MLB’s proposal, will instead continue preparations for an on-time start to the 2021 season, and will accept MLB’s commitment to again direct its Clubs to prepare for an on-time start.”

However, the MLBPA’s statement (perhaps purposely) omitted the “real” reasons behind their non-acceptance: mistrust of the owners, monetary greed, and the biggest issue of them all; the fact that MLB’s contract with the Players Union expires at the end of the 2021 season, no one wants to “give away” bargaining chips they may want to use later.

As is all-too-often the case, management and unions can look at the same picture and come away with different interpretations. But to this writer, it is mind-boggling that any reasonably thinking human being with knowledge of the current health crises and the upcoming availability of millions of people being vaccinated in the next thirty days couldn’t agree to a one-month delay that seems so right for so many reasons.

While NBA and NHL teams completed their 2019/20 seasons tightly constrained in bubble-like locations, MLB somewhat miraculously completed a reduced 60-game season with expanded playoffs using all 30 of its stadiums. The NFL conducted its season at all its team locations, but playing once a week presented fewer issues than the every day games played by MLB in its 30 stadiums across the country and in Toronto.

As the pandemic now stretches out into its second year of havoc, not many would have anticipated that the upcoming baseball season would begin with once again no fans in the stands. That is the reality we are facing. Given everyone’s strong desire to get back to the pre-pandemic lives we all enjoyed, it seems unreasonable that grown men on both sides of the MLB question couldn’t come to an agreement that could allow a 2021 MLB season to be played more safely amidst such a nationwide health crisis.

In light of that failed accomplishment, I question their claim to be professionals.