SI's Bri Amaranthus and Chris Halicke discuss if and how MLB can salvage the baseball season after the Players Association withdrew from negotiations on Saturday.
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00:00 The hottest topic right now for Major League Baseball is what is it going to take for Major League Baseball and the Major League Baseball
00:07 Player Association to agree? Chris, at this point, do you think that we're going to have baseball in 2020?
00:14 I've got three words. Baseball is broken.
00:19 Major League Baseball has squandered an amazing opportunity to be the first sport to come back during the COVID-19 pandemic
00:28 and they have just, they've taken this situation and have made it worse than the 1994-95 strike.
00:36 The big thing here is that that strike did not happen in the middle of a global pandemic.
00:42 There also won't be a long gone summer situation where Mark McGuire and Sammy Sosa possibly saved baseball
00:49 with their steroid infused spectacle as they both chased Roger Marris' 61 home runs.
00:56 That won't be there to bail out baseball this time.
00:59 Listen, the players eventually just got tired of seeing the same proposal just wrapped differently
01:07 and they said, "Enough. We're not negotiating anymore. Tell us when and where to play. Mandate your season."
01:14 as our March 26th agreement says.
01:16 Rod Manfred then goes, walks back to exactly what he says on Wednesday when he says,
01:22 "Unequivocally, there will be Major League Baseball this season. 100%.
01:27 Monday, he goes on the same platform on ESPN and he says that he's not so confident that there's going to be a season.
01:35 The players automatically viewed this as a stall tactic and they called his bluff.
01:40 This is terrible. Rod Manfred needs to fix things now.
01:45 It's his responsibility to shepherd the game and to grow the game.
01:51 It's also his responsibility to be the voice of the 30 owners.
01:54 And if this is the owner's stance that they are willing to cancel a season over a labor war in the middle of a global pandemic,
02:01 the sport of baseball will not survive this.
02:04 The NBA has already surpassed it in cultural relevance.
02:11 And then you look at the fact that NBA will eventually take over in terms of total revenue.
02:17 If baseball can't figure this out, they will continue to alienate fans.
02:22 They've already blown the opportunity to grow the game.
02:25 Now they've got to win back fans that they've already pissed off during this time.
02:30 This is just an absolute catastrophe.
02:32 Rod Manfred himself said it's tragic for the sport.
02:35 Well, you know what? It's your responsibility, Rod Manfred.
02:38 Fix the sport now. Get the players what they want.
02:42 Pay them a full prorated salary. Get the longest possible season you possibly can.
02:47 Fix things before they get worse.
02:50 That's just the bottom line. That's what it's come to now.
02:53 If it means that they have to chalk it up as a loss, then so be it.
02:56 It's a loss. Fix the game now because baseball will not survive this if you don't play a season in 2020.
03:04 [BLANK_AUDIO]