Tim Benz: MLB owners are sneaky, but anti-cap paranoia makes players look worse

I’m not one who likes to compare big-time sports to everyday life.

Matters of salaries and collective bargaining agreements and billions of dollars of revenue crop up quite a bit in professional athletics.

When that happens, tune in to a sports talk radio show and invariably “Joe Working Class Hero” calls in with his “I’ve been a season ticket holder since 1967, and I lay brick while delivering mail on my postal route on my way to my side job as dump truck driver ” hot take on the topic.

That call is always punctuated with how he makes $XYZ per hour and what union card he carries.

That’s usually when I tune out and roll my eyes. Because there are no comps. It’s not the same. Pro sports are rarely the equivalent to real life since no one pays to watch “Joe Working Class Hero” perform his job.

Any of ‘em.

Sorry. But it’s true.

Strangely, though, the coronavirus has brought pro sports back into a more tangible realm for all of us, hasn’t it? For a rare moment in history, these millionaire players and billionaire owners are dealing with their businesses being on hold like the rest of us.

Because of that, for once, I feel comfortable saying to both sides, “Shut up and deal with it like people in real life.” That’s the backdrop as the baseball world debates how players should be paid to come back and play a truncated season in 2020.

Because covid-19 has morphed everyone’s definition of what “real life” is.

That message goes for the fans and media, too. We must understand “real life” has changed as well, and that MLB may not be able to provide our escape from it.

Sadly.

The issue Major League Baseball faces right now is that its owners have asked players for a 50-50 revenue split on the season. That revenue will be considerably reduced because the proposed schedule has been slashed to 82 games, and initially it appears that fans won’t be in the stands.

Meanwhile, back in late March, the owners agreed to a plan that allowed for a potential season restart, operating on the basis of paying the players a prorated portion of their salaries.

Now they are changing their tune after the players made other agreements in terms of what money was advanced for April and May ($170 million), forfeiture of a right to sue for their remaining contracts, reducing the draft and arbitration rules.

The players see the revenue-sharing proposal as a salary cap. Pure and simple. And, as is always the case in any Major League Baseball negotiation, the players won’t accept any type of cap, even under these circumstances.

As for the fans and media, we’re just yelling, “Shut up and play. We’re bored. ‘The Last Dance’ is almost over. We need something to watch on TV.”

All three camps need to be realists about this.

Scratch that. “Realists” is being too pragmatic. All three sides just need to be adults.

Particularly the players union.

First, MLBPA executive director Tony Clark needs to get over the faux salary cap nonsense. It’s not the same thing. It’s just for one year. It won’t stay on the books for 2021. And if owners try to push it through, shame on Clark if he allows such a thing to happen.

“A system that restricts player pay based on revenues is a salary cap, period,” Clark told The Athletic. “This is not the first salary cap proposal our union has received. It probably won’t be the last.

“That the league is trying to take advantage of a global health crisis to get what they’ve failed to achieve in the past.”

Please! That’s hyperbole. A folly to even consider. Clark sounds paranoid.

He’s like one of the folks who are storming various state capitals while holding AR-15s, as they conflate being forced to wear masks in public with “the government is coming for my second amendment rights!”

Eighty-two games of revenue sharing thanks to the biggest economic crisis since the Great Depression doesn’t equate to acquiescing. The players need to shelve the idea that they are finally giving the owners “their way” of shoehorning in a salary cap system.

Second, the players need to understand that things really haven’t gotten much better since March, especially in the big cities. At least not to the point that revenue can be gained from fans getting into parks anytime soon. Therefore, the agreement’s terms may have to change.

Even in places — such as Pittsburgh — where conditions have improved or never even got severe, state and local lawmakers are slow to differentiate from more dramatically hit regions and fear the accountability of opening up “too quickly.”

Plus, the players must realize it’s the owners who are writing the checks. If the owners eventually see scrapping the whole year as less economically damaging than paying prorated salaries, it’s their money. They don’t have to dish out.

If the players want to sue for it, good luck. Go for it. But it won’t make a season happen quickly for those who want to play.

That’s not to say the owners are without fault. This is dirty negotiating to go from an agreement to what appears to be a revamped take-it-or-leave-it offer. That leaves the players out in the wind to look like the only bad guys.

And the fans and media need to do better than stomping our feet while crying, “Just play already!” It’s a more complicated process than that. I mean, we haven’t even scratched the surface of the medical aspect to any of this yet.

I look at this whole topic from the view of my own neighborhood. Since, you know, I’m barely allowed to leave it.

I live on the North Side, just a short walk from PNC Park. Modern Cafe is open for takeout. So is the Deli on North. Peppi’s on Western, too.

Their owners decided staying open in a decreased capacity is worth it, with fewer hours and maybe a smaller staff and menu.

A bunch of my other favorite spots are closed until the pandemic lifts. The margins just aren’t worth it. What they’d sell for take out, they may lose more money paying to staff the place without dine-in options or selling booze.

Baseball is just the macro version of that. It’s up to the owners to determine how little they are willing to make or how much they are willing to lose.

Meanwhile, the players can either get paid or not. Hey, no one is forcing them. They can say no.

But if the MLBPA feels its services are being undervalued, stay home. Don’t play. But then don’t complain when you don’t get a check.

Unlike some of the cooks and waitstaff at those various restaurants near the park, though, at least the players have the choice to accept a few million dollars to work or blow it off.

And that’s a public relations battle the players are never going to win. The revenue-sharing battle? They’ll win that in 2021. I shouldn’t even call it a battle.

Looking like the bad guys in 2020? They will lose this kind of fight every time.