On an alternate Earth, the novel coronavirus we know as COVID-19 was actually labeled COVID-18, because it originated in the spring of 2018 and didn’t announce its arrival in North America until late July. Remember, this is on an alternate Earth…Earth 2.0, we’ll call it.
So on Earth 2.0, while things were starting to get dicey in some other parts of the world, America had a normal “March Madness” tournament (Duke won it), the Masters (Tiger won again), Kentucky Derby and College World Series. Across the pond, Wimbledon and the British Open went off as scheduled. Oh, and Major League Baseball was having a typical season. In fact, right before the virus shut down play, the Colorado Rockies were in the thick of the pennant race in the National League West on Earth 2.0, as well (remember that?)
When the pandemic arrived in full force here – Houston Astros outfielder George Springer was the first player to test positive on Earth 2.0 – you know who got caught off guard (or off tackle, as it were) by the suddenness of it all? Football. Both college and pro. The NFL in the midst of training camp and the colleges just getting ready to start theirs. The first event to be called off was the annual Hall of Fame game.
NFL players and coaches went home. There were no more games or training camp practices. Facilities got shut down and locked up. Everyone went into quarantine after a handful of other MLB players tested positive.
For a lot of folks, their world came crashing down. Students weren’t be allowed on college campuses for the fall semester. The college football season was called off completely. Baseball’s ‘dog days’ came to a screeching halt. The players had been getting paid, but now the postseason was in doubt. NHL and NBA training camp plans were suspended, their seasons (and paychecks) left in limbo.
With no playbook to lean on for guidance, NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell did the best he could to manage this unprecedented situation. The NFL owners and Players Association agreed that the players would get full game checks for only the games that got played during what was going to be an abbreviated season under the best of circumstances.
Goodell’s counterpart with the NFL Players Association, Executive Director DeMaurice Smith, agreed that they would discuss the details of return to play protocols, safety guidelines, etc., when the country got closer to “flattening the curve.”
When that time arrived, it was determined that if and when the NFL season got started, it would happen with no fans in the stands. No gate receipts for the owners. No concessions, parking, or other revenue streams from fans in attendance. Just TV revenue. While they weren’t about to open their books and show their balance sheets, the owners claimed were actually going to lose money that season. Some of them pushed early on to not play at all under the circumstances.
When Goodell went back to Smith to try to renegotiate the players salary structure for the season, Smith was having none of it. “That matter has already been decided,” he told Earth 2.0’s ESPN. “We’re not going back over that.” The owner’s complaints about losing money fell on deaf ears. People wanted football back at any cost.
While no one disputed that the owners had been making gazillions of dollars over the course of the past 25 years (Earth 2.0’s NFL Salary Cap kicked in in 1996) they weren’t in the business of losing money either, even for a single season. Desperate to not get blamed for the mess the virus caused, the owners had Goodell begin to point fingers at the players union, saying they were not bargaining in good faith.
That caused everyone’s thoughts to slip back to the ugly NFL lockout in 2011. It had been eight years of labor peace since then, but some observers worried that since labor relations had always been touchy…and a new collective bargaining agreement was going to need to be negotiated after the 2020 season as well. This wasn’t going to help.
In the end, the two sides could not work out the differences, COVID 18 didn’t dissipate as quickly as many thought it would, so Earth 2.0 didn’t have a 2018 NFL season. There were just too many issues – including player safety and compensation – and not enough time to get them all worked out.
Irate fans called both sides greedy and self-serving. Most fans and media choose not to pay attention to all the underlying issues and just focused on the money. Few bothered to understand that the two sides were trying to divide huge losses that year, rather than huge profits – all while keeping everyone’s health and safety at the forefront. It just proved to be unworkable. Fair minded people saw this and realized this was nobody’s fault…except for maybe the guy who wanted some bat soup.
Pundits and media types opined on “the death of the NFL” and how the league had found a way to commit virtual suicide. “#RIPNFL” was trending on Earth 2.0’s Twitter. Goodell took most of the heat. “Roger Goodell doesn’t even like football,” they said.
It was a long winter and spring for football fans. However, when the summer of 2019 finally arrived on Earth 2.0, and some super smart scientists at Oxford University in England had found a way to control the spread and treat COVID-18, the NFL players returned to play under normal conditions and the 2019 season was a rousing success, on and off the field. The players and the owners worked out a new collective bargaining agreement and soon all was well in Gridiron Land.
The moral of this fantasy story? Timing is everything. Back here on Earth, it’s not Major League Baseball’s fault that COVID-19 struck in the middle of spring training – when plans for the season were already in place and moving ahead. While the NFL has had plenty of time to make alternative plans, baseball didn’t. While the NBA and NHL regular seasons were about over (eight games left) it’s not nearly as difficult to revamp a postseason – with four months of prep time – as it is to totally redo a regular season schedule on the fly.
Have Rob Manfred and MLB bungled much of their response to COVID-19? Yes. With no playbook or blueprint to go by, they’ve meandered about and ended up looking foolish. That’s fair. Was isn’t fair is to declare baseball “dead” because the industry – like many others – hasn’t had the perfect response to the pandemic. Who has?
Understand that when spring training 2021 arrives, everything will be business as usual (provided the Oxford guys here on Earth get control over this virus sooner rather than later) for Major League Baseball. What’s happened this year – and however it does play out on the field – was an anomaly. Everyone should understand that and be able to move on as the world tries to adjust to a new normal.
Now, after next season, when the owners and players are bickering again over how to share profits, not losses, all bets are off.
Listen to Mark Knudson on Monday’s at 12:30 with Brady Hull on AM 1310 KFKA and on Saturday mornings on “Klahr and Kompany” on AM 1600 ESPN Denver.
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Hey, I thought Kansas won the 2020 NCAA tournament, not Duke. How did I miss that? And Altuve got Covid first. Haha. Terrific analogy. Timing sometimes IS everything.