Rob Manfred says there will be a 2020 MLB season
MLB commissioner Rob Manfred says there will be a season in 2020.
On Wednesday, MLB commissioner Rob Manfred declared there will be a baseball season in 2020. Now, if he could just get the owners and MLBPA to agree on a deal, that would be dandy.
Rob Manfred to @karlravechespn: "I'll tell you unequivocally: We will play Major League Baseball this year."
— Jeff Passan (@JeffPassan) June 10, 2020
Manfred has been a bumbling mess of a commissioner since being put into the role in 2015. Recently, he mishandled the Houston Astros’ cheating scandal over the winter by not suspending a single player in return for immunity. Then, he called the World Series trophy a “hunk of metal.”
Now, coming off the COVID-19 pandemic which forced the suspension of operations for major sports across the globe, baseball had its moment. The pastoral game could help America get back to normal. With the NBA and NHL not returning until late summer, baseball could step to the fore, fill the void and rekindle it’s love affair with the nation.
When is the 2020 MLB season going to start?
Then the owners and players squabbled about money and the length of a schedule. The sides complained about one another and leaked every detail publicly, making each look awful in the process. Now, on June 10, we still don’t have an agreement. Recently, some prominent reporters stated they don’t believe we will have a season.
If baseball doesn’t play, it will be the ugliest moment since the 1994 season stopped in late August due to a labor dispute, cancelling the World Series. For a few years after, the sport’s attendance and popularity lagged until Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa lifted it with some chemical help in the summer of ’98.
Should MLB and the MLBPA be greedy enough to cost fans the entire season — and in this global climate, no less — customers have every reason to walk away and this time, do it for good.