Major League Baseball and the MLB Players Association had a highly publicized dispute before a 60-game season was implemented, and apparently the tension between the two sides was not exaggerated in the media.
San Diego Padres chairman and co-owner Ron Fowler told Ben Higgins and Steven Woods on 97.3 The Fan in San Diego on Friday that the negotiations were “not good for baseball.” He said the two sides couldn’t agree on a single issue.
“We couldn’t find common ground, literally, on anything,” Padres chairman and co-owner Ron Fowler said. “And the perception was that billionaires and millionaires were, for lack of a better word, urinating on one another.
“It was ugly on the inside. It was even uglier on the outside. Nobody took anybody on face value when things were said, and it deteriorated into something that was not good for baseball.”
Both the NBA and NHL were able to come to agreements on health and safety protocols and compensation seemingly without much hassle. The NFL also appears to be making solid progress with training camp beginning next week.
Saying negotiations between MLB and the MLBPA were ugly would be an understatement. After weeks of finger-pointing and smear attempts through the media, commissioner Rob Manfred eventually had to implement a 60-game season without an agreement in place. Both sides felt the other was not negotiating in good faith, which gives you an idea of where the relationship between the league and the union stands. Fowler’s comments merely confirmed what we already knew.
