Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast - Effectively Wild Episode 1542: The Players’ PR Handicap

Episode Date: May 16, 2020

Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley banter about the announcement of a second Astros sign-stealing documentary and what they would want out of a sign-stealing docuseries, the ongoing negotiations between MLB and the MLBPA about starting the season, the public perception problems the players face, the way the media has covered the financial component of the […]

Oh my rocket, oh, oh my soul And when you come down You know how to use it You never come down We're not gonna go Oh When I didn't go Oh, and time has a use To me, me, me, me Hello and welcome to episode 1542 of Effectively Wild, a Fangraphs baseball podcast brought to you by our Patreon supporters.

I'm Meg Rowley of Fangraphs and I'm joined as always by Ben Lindberg of The Ringer. Ben, how are you? I am doing okay. How are you? Doing okay. I got an email today, a press release, about a second Houston Astros sign-stealing documentary that is in the works. Yeah, so there was already one coming from Leon Nafak's production company hosted by Astro Ball's Ben Reiter. And that's supposed to be an audio documentary, a podcast, and I think also a video documentary of some sort of series. And this new one is also, I think, a video documentary,

and it's co-produced by LeBron James's company, Uninterrupted, and also Quibi. So we will see if Quibi even exists long enough to make an Astros documentary, but they're trying. So we've now got warring Astros sign stealing documentaries. It's going to be like the new hulu versus netflix fire festival documentaries what would you want out of an astros science-doing documentary do you want one it seems like so long ago that we even were thinking about the astros just because of how much has happened since but like what would you want this to look like do you expect new revelations will you be interested in revisiting this or just like all right let's move on i guess i would be interested in and i don't say this to disparage the work that's already been done in this regard but like i guess i'd be interested

in more video and audio analysis more audio analysis there's been so much banging analysis already. I know. I just want an excuse to talk about the banging scheme. Remember when I, remember the joy, like real in my soul, Ben. I felt it in my heart. Yeah. We need more of that. Yeah. So maybe that, but I don't know.

I might be good on this. Yeah. I don't know I I might be good on this yeah I don't know yeah I think that the likelihood that they are going to be able to unearth something that is you know truly revelatory is probably pretty small you know if they if they did a doc and we finally had real evidence of, I don't know, of the buzzer thing, honestly, I think they should do an entire podcast series on the Altuve tattoo excuse. I think the stuff that is the most interesting to me about the scandal now

is either not something that is going to be able to be sort of publicly verified or is such ridiculous minutiae that uh other people will not care they will just not care about it so so no i don't know that i need any uh much less two what is it with what is it with this stuff you know there's like the the docks on the Fyre Festival. You know, one year there were two Truman Capote movies. There were two. Did we need two? I don't know that we did. I think one was probably enough.

Philip Seymour Hoffman, very good. And the one, I didn't see the other because there were two. Why were there two? Yeah. Yeah. Sometimes these things happen in bunches because there's interest. And I don't know if they're aware that there are multiple companies working on it and it just happens this way but i kind of wonder because like you can't imagine that many players or people who were involved in these things directly will be

lining up to be talking heads in these documentaries like if you were one of the players on the team presumably you want to move on from this like you know i think the astros players have said as much like they were saying let's play baseball and stop talking about this before you know it became impossible to play baseball temporarily but you know why would you want to be on camera if you're a 2017 2018 astro talking about this you know maybe someone like mike fires oh maybe i don't know maybe he wants to move on and put this behind him too it's it's tough like you could certainly get reporters who covered this you could get opposing players who are mad about this and feel like they were

personally affected by it right fans there are plenty of people you could get on there, but are you going to learn anything new from that? I don't know. And maybe these aren't really for us. Maybe these are for the general public. These are for non-baseball fans, people who were not following this blow by blow like we were, and people who listened to Slow Burn or something and are used to listening to politics. And now they're going to have a baseball thing in their feed and maybe some of it will be new to them so i don't know if there will be new revelations for us but you'd like to think that there would be some new reporting of some sort to justify rehashing these things that we've already talked about to such a great extent right i think that's part of why i'm sort of iffy on it also because i think the work that that, you know, that Ken and Evan did was so good.

Right. You know, they like changed the course of a multi-billion dollar business entity with their reporting. We don't talk enough about that. Why didn't they get a Pulitzer, Ben? Why weren't they nominated? Yeah. What's up with that? But so I think that's part of it. But also, you know, I think that some of the people that I would be the most keen to hear from, it's not like there's a, I don't think I'm speaking out of school here, like there's no shortage of former Astros employees who for one reason or another, kind of came to loggerheads with the organization or in the case of scouts were forced out but a lot of those folks are still working in baseball and so i don't imagine that they're going to be particularly keen to

go on the record and you know crap on the astros even even though they make their sentiments known to folks in the industry pretty vocally so i just i don't know i don't know that i need that i'm sure there are other baseball scandals we don't know about yet go report on one of those do some investigative work what's the next sign stealing thing you know there's gonna be you know ben that we will be back here in a year talking about some other doofy thing and we're gonna be annoyed at it and then we're gonna think back to our terrible pandemic time we're gonna be like oh caring about something so yes i look forward to that time yeah something so profoundly divorced from you know questions of life or death is gonna feel great

we're gonna have to look back and be grateful for that but there's gonna be some other doofy thing go go go do the other doofy thing yeah anyway brace yourselves we're going to get another second wave of astros documentary content i don't know when exactly it will hit but at some point we will all be talking about the astros again and maybe that will be a welcome change from what we are talking about currently which is what we're devoting most of this episode to. So we wanted to talk a little bit about the ongoing negotiations between MLB and the Players Association, and nothing concrete has happened yet. As far as we know publicly, MLB presented a proposal to the players early this week about coming back to play and what that would look

like financially and what it would look like safety-wise. And it seems like the players are still digesting that and requesting documents and formulating their response. And so as far as we know, nothing has been formally rejected. There hasn't really been a back and forth, but this is a negotiation and it's one that I think both sides hope will be resolved pretty quickly because MLB would like to come back in early July, which would mean starting second spring training maybe mid-June. And so there's not a ton of time to resolve this in a way that would make that possible. But I think we're interested in the public perception aspect of it and the messaging of it all because you have this backdrop of the trying to hash out an agreement to resume play.

And often that doesn't play particularly well in the court of public opinion because we're all dealing with tough things. And many people are dealing with unemployment and very serious issues and aren't really in the mood to hear players or owners squabble about money. And so I think we wanted to talk a little bit about the difficulty the Players Association faces, particularly in that dispute. And later in this episode, we will be talking to someone who knows about that intimately, Greg Boris, who was the spokesman for the MLB Players Association for almost 20 years. So from 1999 to early 2018, Greg Borse was the voice of the MLBPA, and he was the one talking to the media about these things. And so he has been in these battles himself.

But I guess we wanted to talk it over a little bit before we bring Greg on. And you've been editing some great pieces at Fangraphs about this dispute by Craig Edwards and others. So I don't know if you could lay out just the broad strokes of the dispute here and why this is coming up again after that agreement that was done in March, why that did not settle things, why it's all come to the surface again, and what this is about, and the things that we have heard and the way that we've seen it covered this week. Sure. So I think fundamentally at issue is a disagreement between the Players Association

and the owners over just how settled the question of player compensation was in light of what is seemingly the reality of fanless games. So the players are under the impression that the agreement that they reached with owners in March, which, as we recall, settled questions around service time and free agency, which were incredibly important to the union to the point of them kind of willingly putting some amateur players at a disadvantage when it comes to the draft, they, in the course of that negotiation, agreed to receive sort of a lump sum payment in

the event of no season and a prorated salary for games played in the event of a shortened season. And their understanding was that that agreement was final, that it was in effect, regardless of whether or not there are fans in attendance. The owners are now saying that because there will not be gate receipts, which will continue to affect revenue this season, that the agreement they reach actually allows them to renegotiate and good faith the salary that players will receive should play resume without fans in the stands. And I think that there are a couple of there are a couple of cross-cutting issues here the first of which is that you know the pay question is taking place within the backdrop of a larger question on player safety right so the league is trying to mitigate the risk to players their families game day staff of resuming play without fans.

But even they, you know, with their reportedly 80-page safety guide on testing and, you know, what they do in the event that a player tests positive and the, you know, the cleaning standards that will be in place for the charter flights, they have acknowledged that they cannot eliminate the risk that a player or someone affiliated with baseball that sort of exists in that ecosystem of getting a game played even without fans will contract the virus. And many players are noting that they are not just assuming risk themselves. Some of them are in a position where they are more vulnerable to the effects of

the coronavirus. So even though we think of baseball players as all being sort of strapping healthy young men, there are a number of them who have underlying health conditions that have comorbidity with coronavirus. So, you know, there are cancer survivors who are major league players. There are players who are dealing with autoimmune diseases. There are players who have, you know, there are cancer survivors who are major league players. There are players who are dealing with autoimmune that they might assume that they could recover, we don't know very much about the long-term effects of the coronavirus. We don't know what it does to people's lungs. You know, pretty important to have lungs that function well if you're going to be a professional athlete. So there's the question of what happens to players.

And then there are many players who have pointed out that just because they're healthy doesn't mean that their families are. And MLB's current plan, while it acknowledges that it will probably have to, for some teams, allow flexibility to play at their spring training facilities, they're going to play in their home parks to the extent that they can. That's important for players who don't want to isolate from their families for the duration of a season, but that also means that they're coming into contact with their families. And so if they get sick, they could get their families sick. And within the context of that risk, I think that a lot of them are taking umbrage at the suggestion that they should take a further reduction in pay

from the one that they have already agreed to in order to play. And I think the piece that Craig wrote for us at Fanagraphs, I think, is a really good one. All of the Craigs wrote good pieces about this question, I should point out. Craig Calcaterra and Craig Goldstein also wrote good pieces about this. But I think they all share sort of a general thrust, which is that owners have, over the last several years, enjoyed record profits, and they have also enjoyed revenue streams that have not been shared with players. So whether it's some of the money that has been

generated from local TV deals, from the sale of MLB Advanced Media, they have enjoyed profits that have far exceeded what they were expecting. And at no point during that sort of window, did they go back to players and say, hey, we got more money than we expected. So we're going to renegotiate your contract up, right? They have not shared increased profits, and they are now asking players to help to mitigate losses that are unanticipated. And I think that, you know, there are a lot of conversations we can have about this. I think that assuming that every team is equally positioned to weather a season like this is probably naive. But just because there are teams that are going to experience potentially very serious financial repercussions from not having gate

receipts doesn't necessarily put the onus on players to help them mitigate those losses. So within the context of all of that, players are kind of feeling their way through how best to talk about this. And I think that there's been, you know, people have been successful to varying degrees. You know, Sean Doolittle had a very thoughtful Twitter talk about this but he characterized the risks and his sort of personal requirements for resuming play because well we should talk about them but i think that he was pretty blunt about what his expectations were and what would need to happen in order for him to feel comfortable you know being a pitcher for the race this year yeah and some of the language that he used i think bothered people who i think you're right are you know experiencing their own difficulties but i think it raises some really important questions about how we want players to talk about this stuff is there ever a good approach for them to talk about this stuff. Is there ever a good approach for them to talk about economic questions like this?

Is it a game that they can even win for the section of fans who are perhaps more inclined to root for laundry? Because I think there are plenty of fans that are very sympathetic to the economic questions that players are engaged with and the risks that they will be assuming if they play baseball this year so i don't mean to say that every fan thinks about this the same way

but is there an argument that is persuasive for fans who are inclined to say i'm a yankees fan just to pick one just to pick one fan base at random just fanbase. Don't mean to pick on you, Yankees fans. Doolittle has been a player rep, and so he's been involved in these conversations, and he framed his concerns in terms of safety and risk and said, you know, we want to play, but we want to make sure that we're doing it safely for us and for everyone. And I think that was fairly well received. I mean, I'm sure it was poorly received by many people too. Just don't look at the replies on any tweet about this because you will see the same consistent reaction, which is basically

shut up and go play baseball, which is people who in many cases are making far less money. Maybe they're not making any money right now. Maybe they're doing jobs that are just as dangerous, if not more dangerous. And so they're not inclined to be all that sympathetic. They see this as, well, these guys are playing a game and they're making much more money than I am and they have better access to health care and all of that. And I get it. am and they have better access to healthcare and all of that. And I get it. I get not losing sleep over the plight of Sean Doolittle, let's say. There's so much else to worry about right now. There are so many industries that are suffering horribly, so many people who are having difficulty

making ends meet right now that, yeah, I get it. You're not going to be crying over whether MLB players are going to be making this many million or that many million. Minor leaguers are one thing. Experienced major leaguers are another. I understand that, but it's also a debate with two sides. There are two sides involved here. There are owners. There are teams. These people are very well off. And, you know, we don't necessarily always know the details of their finances the way that we do with players, which tends to make players targets like they're just more visible. We know how much they're making. It's really tough, I think, for them to make the case on a purely pay basis. And that's kind of what Snell did. He certainly talked about the risk and the health and the safety, but he also talked about the money. And I don't think there's

anything wrong in what he said, but the way he said it maybe was not calculated to appeal to the broadest section of the public, perhaps. And, you know, I don't know if Snell is the best spokesperson. He's also someone who a couple months ago, you know, I don't know if Snell is the best spokesperson. He's also someone who a couple months ago, I think, was downplaying the severity of the coronavirus. And, you know, granted, we've all learned a lot in the last couple months, and we've changed our minds about certain things. But that wasn't a great start. And now on this stream, he said, among other things, y'all got to understand, man, for me to go, for me to take a pay cut is not happening because the risk is through the roof. It's a shorter season, less pay.

I got to get my money. I'm not playing unless I get mine. OK, and that's just the way it is for me. Like, I'm sorry you guys think differently, but the risk is way the hell higher and the amount of money I'm making is way lower. Why would I think about doing that? Like, you know, I'm just, I'm sorry. And again, not wrong. And, you know, other players like Bryce Harper have supported what he said.

But the average person who's reading this is, you know, thinking, well, Blake Snell has already made almost $300,000, I think, this season for not playing thus far. And so even if there is not a single game played he's going to be making way more money than most people make and and it's just a really hard case i think for a player so it may be better to just steer clear of that entirely if you can which is difficult because it is a financial issue and it does come down to that, and the revenue has to go somewhere, and you have to decide where it should go, and so I'm not saying that they should not care about these things.

And that's another mistake that many fans make, is thinking that if players make less, somehow those savings will be passed along to the fans, like owners will just run out and lower ticket prices, and that is just not what happens's the demand that sets those prices not the need to pay the players you know i don't really consider myself a partisan or i try to evaluate the case of each side and you know the players are sometimes wrong about things and certainly it's their negotiating strategies and priorities that have given the owners an advantage recently. And if you're looking to point fingers for the shortened draft and for amateur players getting jobbed, that's just as much the player's responsibility as the owner's. MLB players just sort of sell out

international players and amateur players to get what they want. And then the owners are often wrong about things. It's just that if you look back at the history of labor relations in baseball, about things. It's just that if you look back at the history of labor relations in baseball, I think you can say that the owner's side and MLB's side has tended to be less than truthful as a rule. And there's just a lot of precedent there. And so you really do have to take what they say with a grain of salt. And you can criticize the players' stances on certain things or their strategies too. But if you have that historical awareness of how these things have gone, there's some natural skepticism, I think, about the owner position when they say, we're going to be destitute here. And you look at all the many times that they have said something similar in the past, and it has not really been true. It's tough to just sort of swallow it at face value now. Well, and I don't think that, you know, I don't think that you need to be particularly well-versed in the ins and outs of the finances of the owners to sort of evaluate

the statement that they're making and wonder how much they were really negotiating in good faith, if their expectation was that they were going to play baseball games with fans in attendance this year, at least for the regular season, and that that was the sort of tipping point on a negotiation for a further reduction in salary, I can't say that I think that that was a particularly realistic expectation. And I don't think that, you know, if that had been more explicitly stated, I doubt that that March deal looks the way that it does, right? So I don't have a tremendous amount of sympathy for that. I think that the players, you know, some of the, you know, I need to get mine might not have, you know, resonated with people or might have made people bristle. But

I think that when we look at Snell's comments, they, in conjunction with Doolittle's, I think really do show the way forward to the extent that there is one for players in terms of how to message this, which is, yes, they are being paid significantly more than a grocery store worker. And I don't mean to equate either the risk or the vulnerability of those populations, but I do think that there is something that is very familiar and can sort of garner some solidarity when players talk about, I'm worried about risking my health and safety and the health and safety of my family. And in much the same way that, you know, grocery store workers at Kroger were getting hero pay

and now are not going to in the beginning of the pandemic versus now, I think that it's fine for baseball players to say, look, you know, we're in a position where we are being sort of goofed around by our employers and we are assuming greater risk. We are not asking for additional compensation to assume that risk. We're simply asking to be compensated at the level that we had previously agreed to. And the principle of it is that our employers, in much the same way that it's important for every employer to do this, needs to hold up their end of the bargain. There is risk here. And I think there's probably a segment of the

population that's never going to be sympathetic to that just because of the number of zeros that come at the end of the check. And I think that in our conversation with Greg later, we'll be illuminating on this. I think the union probably has a good sense of how much that really matters in terms of the actual negotiation. But this is about all of us being in a moment of sort of unprecedented risk to do the most basic things. And people need to go to the grocery store.

We don't need baseball. I mean, we do. Like I run fan graphs. I want there to be baseball this year. Pretty important for the continued existence of my employer and a site we all care about for there to be baseball this year. But at the end of the day, if it can't be done safely, it is not an essential service. I think that players and the league are right that it can be very comforting to people. And I think that you can reach that conclusion without entirely having sort of a cynical money motivation to get there. But, you know, I want Jake Diekman to get through the 2020 season as a human being, not just as a player.

And, you know, he's spoken very publicly about his health issues. And if this jeopardizes his life, I don't think that that is necessarily worth it. And if and if he you know, if the players can get to a point where they feel that the risk they're assuming, coupled with the plans that the league has to mitigate that risk, is properly priced, well, that's for them to decide. And I'm not going to sit here and say, well, that's dumb of you. You should just stay home. But I don't think that it's at all unreasonable for them to say the dynamics of our workplace are dramatically different than they used to be. And for us to go into that workplace at an even further reduction of pay doesn't account for the new circumstances that we're finding ourselves in. So it's very

frustrating to, you know, as an observer of the league who wants to feel good about baseball, to look at the number of places and it's not just in player compensation and the revenue sharing that they have sort of proposed as a way of of addressing player compensation but the number of places where they are trying to extract sometimes tiny amounts of money that i just refuse to believe matter i refuse to believe that the million dollars a team that is now being saved by not having five more rounds of the draft matter and if it does i don't know why that necessarily needs to be the player's problem yeah and i hope that if the season doesn't come to fruition i hope it's not because of oh my god mean, you know, there's a lot of money at stake in these things. I understand why it all has to be decided. But just can you imagine just what a blow it would be to baseball, I think, and its public perception if it really was perceived to not have happened because people just couldn't agree on millions of dollars or thousands of dollars or whatever it ends up being.

I mean, if it's a safety issue, that's one thing. But if it's purely a financial issue at a time when everyone's hurting financially, that really will not look great. And I'm not saying what Mark Teixeira said, which is I would rather make pennies on the dollar and give hope to people and play baseball than not make anything and lose an entire year off their career. Just easy for Mark to share to say as someone who made more than 200 million dollars playing baseball. Not helpful to your player brethren, Mark. But it really is in baseball's best interest for these two sides to get a deal done. You know, you mentioned like there are a lot of media organizations and people who cover the league who have a financial stake in games coming back.

media organizations and people who cover the league who have a financial stake in games coming back and you know you will see some people on twitter say like oh well these writers they don't even want the sport to come back or something and i think the opposite is usually the case i think we all want baseball to come back so that we will have baseball to talk about and write about and fangraphs has been very transparent about the impact that the lack of baseball has had on the bottom line. And so, you know, you have as much motivation as anyone to want baseball to come back, not just because you enjoy baseball, but because your job depends on it. And there are a lot of media entities out there that I think maybe, whether consciously or unconsciously, allow that to shape how they frame this issue. So, you know, you have to choose a headline,

right? You have to say something on the chyron, some way to frame these ongoing discussions between the players and the owners. And if you frame it as, you know, players refuse to take a pay cut or something, then people are going to receive that in a very different way from if you say, well, there already was an agreement and now the owners are trying to avoid that agreement and kind of, you know, go back on what was previously agreed to. And the whole history of these negotiations, it's very different. Again, have to take into account that there are companies that have broadcast deals that have content arrangements here that really want baseball to come back. And so whatever the obstacle is at this moment, they may have some incentive to downplay that side of the debate. Yeah, I think that how do I want to put this? Some of the coverage has definitely taken on a tone where the conflicting interests that

the outlet has might be kind of obvious. I think sometimes the coverage has also just been like, it reminds me of having been in grad school and sitting in a seminar and someone raises their hand. I'm like, oh, you didn't do the reading. You have not done the required reading for today. You have not done the required reading for today. And so I think that it's definitely important for all of us as analysts and writers to pay raise in the midst of all of this, which is absolutely not what has gone on. I don't know that they would totally be out of line asking for some version of hazard pay, but they haven't done that. They just want what was agreed to in March. So I do think everyone do your reading.

And if you didn't, you don't have to raise your hand. It's okay. We will not call on you. I promise. Yeah. And another thing that we're going to talk to Greg about is that there may be divisions within the Players Association. I saw a tweet from Ken Rosenthal who said that Andrew Miller, Daniel Murphy, Max Scherzer, and Corey Gearan represented the union along with Tony Clark and staffers when Commissioner Rob Manfred made his digital presentation regarding the 2020 season. And there were a couple owners there, too.

But Miller, Murphy, Scherzer, Gearan, all those guys are 34, 35 years old. And maybe that makes sense. Like, it tends to be the more senior players who take leadership positions inside the union. And maybe that is a good thing. But still, like, things may be very different for them. take leadership positions inside the union and maybe that is a good thing but still like things may be very different for them i mean granted there's a big financial gap between max scherzer and cory gearan let's say in terms of career earnings but still the more senior players are going to be more financially secure they're more likely to have families more likely to have kids

they may have different motivations than the rookie, the guy who's stolen his minimum salary years and is trying to just break into the league and may still be single or not a parent. So there are different incentives there too. And so we'll talk to Greg about that. But it's a difficult debate. I hope that it is resolved in some satisfactory way in terms of safety. And maybe when we do get concrete details about that, we could talk to an expert perhaps about how all of that sounds to them. It's still sort of nebulous at the moment, but these financial issues have to be hammered out too. Yeah, I think that Craig Goldstein's headline for this was a really good

one if you're trying to explain sort of the thrust of the negotiation, which is, you know, privatizing gains and socializing losses. And I think that it would be a real shame if, you know, I don't say this having special insight into their books, but just, you know, having read some of the exceptions that had to be made around the acquisition, I don't have trouble believing that the Marlins are in tough shape. You look at the way that they've furloughed employees. You think about some of the debt rules that had to be eased for the purchase that got made. That's not hard for me to believe,

but I don't think that that's the responsibility of the players to address because they're not the ones that voted them in as owners. So I think that I want baseball to resume because I miss it and because I want my website to do well. understanding that there is going to be risk no matter what if we play baseball this year. And I don't think that having the understanding of that risk that we do, that it's remotely reasonable for these guys to have to take a further reduction in pay. They've already done that. I don't think that we should look at 2020 and the situation as an excuse to, you know, finally sneak in that salary cap that they, that, you know, that ownership has wanted for a long time, which is, you know, what goes with revenue sharing, right? So I think that it's going to be hard for them to message it in a way that is satisfactory. But I think, you know, we should all think really carefully about how we present this stuff. We should try to be as clear eyed and sort of honest about it as we can be.

I think one of the things I really liked about the piece that our Craig, there's so many Craigs, Ben and so many Ben's. Yeah, a lot of Ben's too. And both of you Ben's are sort of our Ben. So there's a lot of fan graphs Ben's too. And both of you Ben's are sort of our Ben. So there's, you know, a lot of fan graphs Ben's anyhow. I think that one of the things I really appreciated about Craig Edwards piece was that, you know, it was appropriately forceful. This is a really serious problem and it's one that should be, you know, confronted in

that way, but was also, I think, very clear eyed and sort of measured in its approach. And I don't think that Blake Snell should have to take a pay cut because he was inelegant in his presentation of his argument, but it probably does show that the way we talk about this stuff matters. And I think that there are going to be times when we can persuade and have a conversation that results in the person we're talking to having a different understanding of the labor situation at the end of it than they did at the beginning, there are going to be people who are not persuadable. And so we can kind of be done there. I wouldn't look at Blake Snell's Twitter mentions and then dive on in. It's not a great use of your

time. You'll feel terrible at the end of it but you know just think carefully about the coverage that you're reading think critically about how you talk about this stuff among your fellow fans because we're all trying to feel our way through a very difficult financial time and while the the zeros at the end of it might be really different for a baseball player than they are for us the dynamic is pretty similar to one that a lot of workers across the country are experiencing and one that feels yucky and unfair and opportunistic. So that's my editorial for the day, Ben. I do wonder just how much of a lasting impact there will be on baseball from this when it does eventually come back, because I'm sure you've seen and I've seen so many people opining on how this pandemic and how social distancing and everything will change society forever. And some people very confidently pronounce that nothing will ever be the same again, and no one will ever work in offices and will never shake hands again, and no one will live in cities, and you know, it'll just be a completely different society. And I'm skeptical

of that. I think that for the most part, maybe if we get a vaccine, if we do return to some semblance of normality at some point, you might fast forward a few years and daily life might not look all that different from what it looked like a year ago. I don't know. I think I'm more skeptical the more confident the person is in how adept they are at predicting the future because, you know, none of us knows what will happen. But some of that may happen. I'm sure that some of those things will have effects and maybe we will see more remote workers, let's say. But in baseball, you know, it sounds like we're going to have a universal DH if there is a season. And maybe they'll say it's temporary, but when you take

away the tradition argument and you can't say, well, there's always been pitchers hitting in the National League because there weren't in 2020, then that seems like it might be the final nail in that coffin that has been built for a while. So you've got the DH, you've got, you know, and these are not all negative or positive things, but you've got the DH. You've got, you know, and these are not all negative or positive things, but you've got the DH. You've got maybe expanded playoffs, maybe shortened season, which was something that was already being discussed. And now by necessity, we would have to have a shortened season. Maybe that makes people more receptive to just instituting that in the future. You've got greater interest in international leagues.

You've got remote broadcasts. I just I wonder how much of this will last And of course that's something the players are thinking about In these discussions with the owners Because they don't want to set a precedent For something that smacks of a salary cap Which historically has just been a deal breaker for the players So they don't want to give owners a chance

To sort of sneak that in under these special circumstances. And then they'll say, yeah, it's just for this one year. But then next year rolls around and, well, maybe attendance isn't projected to bounce back all the way. And so we have to keep some of these measures or, you know, maybe we're still suffering the economic consequences. So we have to make some of these part of the new CBA and make them permanent. So that's something that I'm sure the players are thinking about too. Yeah. And on the back of this, you already have had at least one team say anonymously that

they will be reducing payroll next year, regardless of what happens this year. So I think the effects of this will be felt for a long time. Yeah. So I think the effects of this will be felt for a long time. And players are right to be skeptical about how temporary alterations have a way of making themselves permanent once you've seeded that ground in a relationship that is necessarily collaborative, but also inherently antagonistic. So yeah, I don't know. I don't know. I wonder when I'll feel good about going to a crowded place again. Yeah, I don't know. I just RSVP'd for a friend's wedding in October. I have weddings on back-to-back days in early October, and it's sort of like aspirational that there will be weddings and that everyone will be comfortable going and everything. I hope that's the case for my friend's sake. But, you know, it's just hard to say right now. So, yeah. I have a friend who's another baseball person who's supposed to get married in November. And he planned his wedding date. He's like, oh, I'll plan it at the end of November because I'll be, you know, then all the baseball people can come.

Because baseball will be done. Will it? Yeah, we'll see. Will it be done? Speaking of changes in broadcast, did you see the comments that Joe Buck made this week about what Fox broadcasts will look and sound like this season? I did. Yeah, I guess he was probably speaking more about NFL broadcasts. I'm not sure if he specified but i think so but he said that they are that it's pretty much a done deal that they will be pumping

fake crowd noise into those broadcasts and also that they're looking at ways to put virtual fans in the stands so that when you see a wide shot of the stadium it looks like the stadium is jam-packed and that sounds very strange to me like i mean it will be strange not to have fans too and to have no crowd noise so that will be weird and i don't know maybe if i heard this and saw this it would be normal but like just we're all aware that the fans aren't there right and so won't that just be kind of like a constant thing that's hammering at your suspension of disbelief when we know what's going on in the world at large and we know that the stadium is empty and yet we're seeing these jam-packed stands and fake crowd noise being pumped in? sitcoms with laugh tracks anymore, but when I do or when I did, I'm aware that there's not always a live studio audience there, and I guess I'm willing to live with that fiction. But in sports,

when so much of the conversation has revolved around the fact that there won't be fans there, if on the one hand, I'm totally aware that there are no fans, and on the other hand, I'm hearing and seeing fake fans, I don't know that that would actually make it more immersive for me. It seems like it might have the opposite effect. I have several thoughts on this, but the first is going to be one that, like, did you watch Sports Night, Ben? Yes. Okay, so you remember how Sports Night, this is for those of our listeners who have not, was anaron sorkin sitcom that ran for like two seasons and the first season is excellent and the second season is not very good but the first season is excellent

and people should watch it but in the first couple of episodes of sports night there is a laugh track and then it goes away and then it comes back and it is very strange and you know it's got the quippy sorkin dialogue and everybody's making their jokes and then there's a laugh track and it is um for a show that i like very much the worst thing that's ever been on television when the laugh track comes in so that's one thought i think it's it's we know we know that there are not fans i think that the set the crowd noise thing is them being very worried about how dirty the mouths of NFL players and coaches are. And I have to say, on the one hand, they are right to be concerned, I think, just based on some of the hot mic moments we've had over the years. We're like, wow, the way you guys talk to each other at work is wild.

Like, wow, the way you guys talk to each other at work is wild. So there's that. But also, that seems like a thing that you can mitigate without having, like, the fake sound. Yeah. Right? The fake crowd noise. Like, I think that, I don't know if it's in the ballpark or on the broadcast, but on opening, on KBO opening day, there was crowd sound somewhere. I don't know if they were picking up, the mic was picking up what was in the ballpark. Probably.

It probably wasn't ESPN that did it, right? Yeah, probably not. Probably not. But it was a game that was without even the fake cardboard fans, which are the worst possible thing that can be done because they are terrifying and scary. They look deeply haunted. But they weren't even there so it was it was very disconcerting most of the time but then also very funny when you remember that there were cheerleaders there because you're like wow those cheerleaders really really earning the paycheck today they are loud enough to hear all over the ballpark they're throwing their voices in a way that stage actors would envy.

It's fine. It's weird. Everything is weird right now. You don't need to try to mitigate the weird with other weird. It's already weird. Just let it be weird. It's fine. People are going to adapt and change,

and they're going to sit there and say, why did we ever go to NFL games? It's so loud. The beer is so expensive. This is much more pleasant than getting to sit there and say, why did we ever go to NFL games? It's so loud. The beer is so expensive. This is much more pleasant than getting to sit at home. So I think it's strange. People were very mad at Joe Buck, which I found funny.

I'm like, he's not the one making that decision. People mad at Joe Buck? The very first time, Ben. Yeah, wow. They like Joe Buck. I will defend Joe Buck as a broadcaster and personality. But that's probably a separate conversation. Yeah conversation yeah but I'm gonna briefly have it which is that I think that Joe does a fine job I think that Joe Buck suffers from being paired with some folks I enjoy less as a broadcaster yes and so that is true in baseball and that is true in football if they're calling

cowboys games otherwise it's fine but when they you know it's like troy shouldn't get to do the i say troy like we're friends joe like we're i don't know them miss yeah well mr acheman nfl commentary is not a subject that i can speak on in a very informed way, so I will take your word on that. Because, see, the thing is, Ben, he used to play for the Cowboys, and so he likes them, and you can tell when he calls Cowboys

games. That's the thing of it. All right, so we are about to hear from Greg Boris, but briefly before we hear from Greg Boris, we will hear from scott boris different spelling of boris but we all know this one so this is a clip that came from this week a conversation between scott boris and joe benningo and evan roberts on wfan's joe and evan show and they were mostly talking to boris about the prospect of baseball coming back

and the financial issues between the owners and the players. But because it's a New York radio station, they then asked about the Mets and the Wilpons. And here is about a one-minute-long clip of Scott Boris' response. Scott, I got to ask you this. I'm so curious. Are you as excited as I am and as Joe is, we're M Met fans, at the prospect of the Wilpons selling? Yeah, that would be great. You know, the Wilpons, Fred Wilpon, very bright guy, he built a foundation for that with owning the network

and having the franchise and built a beautiful ballpark. And I've always kind of teased in many ways. We've loved the teasing, by the way. They built a rocket ship. The white cloud of smoke is burling. It's ready to take off, and it's just really all about the astronauts. They need new astronauts. You're right. And it's just really all about the astronauts, you know.

They need new astronauts. You're right. If we can get the right astronauts on that platform, it could be a really, you know, a really successful franchise for a long, long time. Scott. Okay. So we got a Scott Boris analogy here. And I wanted to play this because usually we don't get to hear the Scott Boris analogy. Usually we read it and it sounds like a finished product and here we have it in progress and we can hear the gears turning in his head as he is coming up

with this analogy. And it does sound to me like this is off the cuff. It doesn't sound pre-planned. It sounds like he's mulling it over in the moment. So what are your thoughts on this particular analogy? This makes me think that he's never seen Apollo 13. Here's why. Okay. I get that once the spaceship, once the rocket is in space, the steering is being done by the astronauts. It's probably not steering. I'm also miming a steering wheel right now which you can't see and neither can our listeners i'm very confident that that's not how you drive a spaceship drive is that the word is that the verb even steer is probably right anyway it doesn't matter so the astronauts are like you know the main folks once it's in process. But I think that a better analogy for a team owner

would be like mission control. Right, yeah. Yeah, so I think he's never seen Apollo 13 because unfortunately, I think Ed Harris is the Wilpons, right? Gene, who's the human guy's last name, I don't remember. But Gene, he's got a sharp vest in Apollo 13. Gene Kranz. So that's the first thought I had.

The second thought I had was a spaceship is like a rocket ship. Sorry, not a spaceship. A rocket ship isn't the best analogy because it takes off and then it goes somewhere. It doesn't like the space shuttle leaves and comes back and leaves and comes back and leaves and comes back, which is more like a baseball team. This is ridiculous. Because like you don't reuse the rockets. Well, SpaceX does now these days. Yeah, okay.

You don't reuse the rockets. So in that respect, it seems like a strange one for our baseball team because they took off, presumably, the white smoke. They launched successfully when they went to the World Series like five years ago. Remember when the Mets were in the World Series like last decade? Yeah. Wild. So that seems, I'm confused about where in the flight path of the rocket ship are they going to the moon where are they where what is a world series what is a failed world series bid in the rocket ship flight path yeah a new rocket ship shouldn't the players

be the astronauts yeah that might be like i don't know like apollo 10 or something like it was they circled the moon they they planned what it would be like to land but they didn't actually do the landing maybe that's a comp but but most of that rocket ship didn't come back either well true just a little capsule where the astronauts who are like the players yeah not like the owner. There are stages that are being jettisoned there. So, yeah, I don't know. I think he is obviously reluctant to say anything negative about the Wilpons because, A, he probably has a personal relationship with them.

And, B, he may have to market players to them. And so he doesn't want to rule them out as a market. Not that they've been the biggest spenders in baseball, but you know, so I think that's probably part of it. And I guess the astronauts are the players, but the thing is that like the Mets rocket and mission control and everything else has been a big problem too. So they've got like gaskets falling off. They've got fuel lines leaking. You know, it's not a great rocket, I don't think. So there are issues with the rocket.

They would have let Ken Mattingly go because they wouldn't know that he might get the measles. Yeah, sure. They wouldn't know about that. They would be like, you can go. It's fine. And it would have been fine because he didn't actually get the measles. I watched Apollo 13 recently. Can you tell?

I can tell. Yeah. I would recommend it to our listenership because if you ever want to feel just for no reason at all, like human beings can face a problem, come together and solve it. That's a good one. Yes. Good one for that vibe. Absolutely. Yeah.

I like I shed tears whenever they show like the mission control reacting, like whenever there's like a radio blackout or something, and they're all there's the countdown until you reestablish radio contact and everyone's standing there with arms crossed and pursed lips and the whole room breaks out into cheers. I don't usually like shed tears while listening to music or watching movies or whatever, but that gets me every time. And like the real life equivalent too. Like there's nothing I'd rather watch than a live stream of a rocket launch as kind of like an astronomy nerd that just always makes me very proud of humanity in a way that many other things provoke the opposite reaction. But something about that just gets me every time. But I am very curious about Scott Boris's use of the word burling.

He says that the white cloud of smoke is burling. And I've been trying to figure out what he meant by that. So like burl is a word. It's a noun it's like a knot or a lump in wool or thread or it's also like a growth on a tree like a knotty outgrowth on a tree okay so i i guess you could say that smoke is doing that is like forming that shape but it's very strange and i don't know if he meant like swirling or billowing or something i assumed billowing yeah maybe maybe that's what it was i but it certainly

sounded like burling and was transcribed as burling and i don't know if that's just a word that he kind of coined here or just a very uncommon usage or whether he misspoke but that stood out to me too yeah i assumed he meant billowing and was just going to kind of give him the grace that I hope people give me when I use the wrong word on our podcast, which I'm sure happens. As an aside, your other co-co-host, Michael Bauman, is going to be furious

that I talked to you about Apollo 13. He's going to be so mad about it. He's going to be like, Meg, you know how he talks. Yes, exactly like that. Yeah, so this one didn't quite work for me. It did inspire me to try to draw a rocket ship, and it looks kind of like a squid, the rocket ship I drew. Because I think the burling threw me off.

We're going to blame it on that. It's pretty bad. Well, if you want to send me a picture of that doodle, I'd be happy to share it with our audience. Yes, I'm going to have to fold it down though because my first attempt to draw the rocket ship looks a bit it's a little profane on accident okay it looks like something else that's an occupational hazard when you're drawing rocket ships yeah famous problem for rocket ship artists they're like oh boy i drew a dirty pic on accident all right let's take a quick break and we will be back with greg boris former spokesman

for the mmbpa about the inside scoop about what it is like to be part of the messaging during debates like this one. You wouldn't read about it, read about it What a just ridiculous deal Ain't no doubt about it You wouldn't read about it, read about it Just another particular deal Ain't no doubt about it All right, we are joined now by Greg Forrest.

He is the president of PowerX Communications, a communications consulting company. He is also the director of the undergraduate sports management program and a full-time lecturer at Delphi University. But for many years before that, he was the director of communications for the Major League Baseball Players Association from 1999 to early 2018. And before that, even, he worked on the team side for various teams in other sports in publicity. So he has seen it all, said it all. Greg, welcome to the show. Well, thanks, Ben. Thanks for having me. Thanks, Meg. Happy to be here. I was asking you this before we started recording, but it struck me that maybe it would be a relief for you not to have the responsibility of waging this verbal battle at this particular time.

But then again, you were used to doing that for so long that maybe you miss it. So this is an opportunity for you to talk about it here. But how have you been kind of thinking about, A, either relief or disappointment that you're not on the front lines for this or sort of backseat driving, I guess, and thinking about what you would do in this situation? Yeah, that's a great question. I have been asked that a little bit if I miss kind of the action. And in a certain sense, I do, right? It's in my blood. It's what I've done for 40 years.

I like a good battle. I like a good crisis. But this is unprecedented. It's interesting to be on this side and have the perspective that I do, having worked for teams and the union, to have a unique look at this. But as far as the day-to-day goes, I see it and I envision my peers who are doing it day-to-day must be very frustrated because there's a lot you want to do and you can't do. And I think that would be bothering me. So the short answer is I'm glad I'm sitting where I am today. In negotiations between the league and the union, how much does public opinion really matter? I mean,

what ways does it impact the talks and how much effort does the union devote to tailoring its arguments to fans as well as ownership? Well, to many of your listeners here and who follow you regularly may not be surprised by the answer, but public opinion has no impact on negotiations. The union is a recognized labor organization. It has a fiduciary responsibility to its members to do its best to negotiate on their behalf. So public opinion is irrelevant. Unfortunately, the fans sometimes don't see it that way. But with that said, I would say through my experience, more often than not, where the players land on issues

regarding the game and involving the game, setting aside the economic piece. But for the most part, the players align very closely, if not perfectly, with what the fans think and feel about the game. So I think before you can go about persuading anyone else and the public to be sympathetic to the player's cause, there has to be some internal agreement about what that cause is, right? And what's right and what's wrong and what you're going to press for. And so at a time like this, are you focused or would you have been focused on educating the players about the specifics of this deal that has been proposed by MLB or persuading them to adopt a certain stance so that there can be a united front publicly? I mean, how do you balance that persuasion and education?

Well, unless things have changed in the time that's passed since I left the union, historically, the union's position has always been they don't impose any gag orders on the players. The players, as you can imagine, they have varying opinions on all these different issues. Nobody tries to tell them what to say from the union side. The only thing that the union stresses in its communications to the players that if you're going to offer up an opinion, make sure it's an informed opinion. If you're not sure of the topic or the issue at hand, reach out to your player rep, reach out to your special assistant, you know, former player on staff, or reach out to anybody at the union to get kind of where things are at the moment,

what the position is. But beyond that, the players are free to speak their mind. This generation of player hasn't really seen or been subject of fan venom that prior generations did back in the work stoppage era. So those players over time came to realize that you cannot win an economic debate in the public. The fans will never side or never see it your way. So when I started at the union in 99, you know, a few years after the big, the big strike, part of why I was hired was to start trying to help and shape messages through various forums, not just myself, but everybody. And one thing we stressed to the players, we went through some pretty intense bargaining in 2002, was that everything you do and everything you communicate, try to keep the focus on the

field. It's all about playing the game. What happens outside the lines, that's behind closed doors. And keep that out of the media. Don't negotiate through the press. But sometimes now, as we move to the era of social media and players have access and a lot of people have access to those players, players speak their mind and speak their piece without perhaps understanding at first that the backlash can be pretty intense. So at this stage, although you may not issue gag orders for the players, you at least have to let them know that when you offer your opinion, even if it's informed, offer it with your eyes wide open. offer your opinion, even if it's informed, offer it with your eyes wide open. Don't be surprised when you go down that path if you get hammered and slammed by everybody, including family members. So be careful. Tread lightly there. Just do it with your eyes wide open. Yeah, I was going to ask you about that because that whole evolution happened during your tenure and suddenly it wasn't necessarily the only way to get your message out through the media.

You could do it yourself or players could do it themselves through their own platforms on Twitter or Instagram or Twitch or wherever. And that can be very powerful. That can be a very personal way to interact with fans and let them see a side of the players that they might not see in a quote that is presented by a reporter. But as you said, it can also be dangerous if you say the wrong thing. So was there some sort of seminar? Was there any training about how to put messages out through social media? And did you make much of an effort to monitor that and to keep tabs on what players were saying? Players receive a lot of media training. There's the Rookie Career Program that Baseball and the Union presents. lot of media training. There's the rookie career program that baseball and the union presents, and there's media training there. And they talk about the pitfalls. There are board meetings, there are spring training meetings that the union has with all the teams, and these come up in formally or informal discussions. was there. But I think for the most part, the players did buy into the fact that, you know, even with the power of social media, it's best left for promoting the positive aspects of the game, what the players are doing on the field, what the players are doing to support the causes they believe in off the field. But don't go, don't kind of cross that thin line between what the

players may believe is their right economically in the game and try to espouse it and communicate it to the public using your social platforms because we all know that you know a lot of people that are on these social platforms they're hunting for these things right the trolls you know looking for you to say something that they can jump all over so although it could be a powerful platform to communicate your position on the economics of the game, again, you have to go into it with your eyes wide open. You're just going to put a target on your back. I'm curious in a moment like this,

how, and obviously you spent a long time with the union, so I can't imagine this has changed too terribly much, but how it thinks about the different constituencies that it represents within its membership. Obviously a lot of the players want to play, but we've also heard from some of the game's most prominent or outspoken players, your Mike Trouts and Clayton Kershaw's and Sean Doolittle's, and they've expressed some reservations about starting the season that, you know, take on various concerns, but they've expressed some reservations. And the financial calculus for those

players is obviously really different than it is for a guy who's making the league minimum. So I'm curious how the union goes about sort of balancing what are at times, I imagine, divergent concerns among its membership. Well, there are, to your point, there are players who are going to come at it from different perspectives, right? You have the zero to three player, right? The young guy in the game who's just finding his way. And some of the biggest stars in the You have the zero to three player, right? The young guy in the game who's just finding his way. And some of the biggest stars in the game are those zero to three players. So then you have the arbitration guys and the free agent players, and then the kind of esteemed, experienced veterans. As you can tell, that runs the gamut, right? There's quite a divergent

interest at play there. And it's the union's job to make sure they're all informed how whatever happens down the road and what's at stake or what's being discussed, how it impacts each one of those class of players. And they have to try to find a consensus that's good for everybody. You don't want to alienate any one of those three groups. So the challenge that the union has is to find a common ground among all players and try to find a resolution, regardless of whatever the issue is, that's beneficial to all, that all players understand and that they all support that what they're doing is not only good for their class, it's good for the game. And a big part of what the union does in

all of its negotiations is also the precedent that it says for the future generation of players, those that aren't even in uniform yet. And when you were with the Players Association, how did you think about presenting the players' perspective to fans, to the public? Obviously, Tony Clark speaks to the media and previous heads of the Players Association have been well-known and have been oft quoted. have been well known and have been off quoted but do you feel like there's an imbalance between the two parties because on the MLB side you have the commissioner who is sort of this public figure but works

for the owners and typically presents the owners arguments so on Thursday for instance we saw Commissioner Manfred get 10 minutes on CNN with Anderson Cooper and Sanjay Gupta and he was able to sort of present the owners perspective but also extol the game's unifying and healing effects and say things like, if we don't play a season, the losses for the owners could approach $4 billion. And often you're

talking to non-sports reporters who maybe are unfamiliar with the game's economics and then aren't really that well equipped to follow up or push back. And then on the other side, as we've discussed, you have the players with their own outlets and their celebrities in their own right. So how did you think about getting the message out? Well, generally, what you try to do is leave that for union leadership, right? The executive director or his designee, you know, to pick and choose certain media outlets if it was necessary, but it goes back and ties back to an earlier point.

No matter what the union does, it will goes back and ties back to an earlier point. No matter what the union does, it will probably never have the resources to match the communication strength of Major League Baseball. It owns its own network. The clubs all have rights holders and media distribution that the players could never even amass. So the players' union first and foremost tries to keep those topics out of the public view because what the public does think at the end of the day doesn't matter. What really matters is what happens behind closed doors. And the union's biggest challenge is to keep the players unified.

Players sometimes do get frustrated when they see that they are being portrayed a certain way or things may not be accurate, but the union's job is to settle the players down and communicate to them that the muscle that the player has outweighs the public sentiment and that all these decisions will be made by the players staying together, being unified, and showing up to discuss these issues with their counterparts on the other side. So there is that tendency to think you want to play the PR game, jump in there and go tit for tat, but at the end of the day, because the public is more likely going to side with ownership because they expect owners to be like

owners, like all our bosses and all our industries, and they expect baseball players for whatever reason to be different, right, to be the guy next door. And I would play this game for nothing and you're lucky. So that's a heavy public sentiment that the players would have to go against in public relations. And it most often is a losing battle. So it's better off, you know, focus on the game and on this particular issue that we're looking at now, you know, focus on the fact that the players want to play, but they want to be safe. Nobody can argue with that. Try to keep the economics out of it and keep that behind closed doors. But the message the players

need to be portraying here is we love the game. We want to play. We want to play tomorrow if we could. But we also understand that there's a serious, unprecedented health crisis facing the world. And we need to make sure that no matter what we do, we're playing in a healthy environment, not only for ourselves, but for the dozens, if not more, of the support staff that you're going to need to even play a game. Yeah, that raises for me sort of a more fundamental question, which is that, you know, when labor disputes between the Players Association and the league are put to the public, they're often framed as

a fight between millionaires and billionaires. And there's truth to that framing, at least for the most part, but it doesn't seem to be broadly persuasive to fans as they're thinking about whether to root for players or for laundry. And I'm curious why you think that project has been so challenging, even under normal circumstances, and why especially right now some fans are struggling to sort of sympathize with players' concerns instead of those of the owners. Do you think that a reframing of that conversation in terms of workers versus owners would be more affecting for people? How do they sort of break through and change that messaging?

Because, I mean, I'm sure you spent a lot of time in your tenure with the Players Association thinking about this question, but it's always striking to me that fans really do seem to side with teams and by extension ownership. I'm curious if you think there's a different approach that the union or players could take to sort of break through. Yeah, I'm not sure there's a different approach because for some reason, and this goes back decades, baseball players are held to a different standard. Even the argument millionaires versus billionaires, the average fan is not a millionaire, right? So that argument is when you hear that said, you kind of do cringe because nobody would have any sympathy for either party if that's your argument, right? So I don't think it's about trying to get sympathy. I think it's just trying to, for the players, again, just keep communicating your love and passion for the game,

the fact that you want to play. The public is going to think what they're going to think. And when you enter into those economic discussions, that's when, you know, the public turns against you because they do think you're playing a game, you're getting paid a lot of money to play a game. But for some reason, they don't treat maybe football players and basketball players the same way. In certain respects, they do. But for some reason, historically, baseball players have been held to a different standard. Maybe it's they think football players play a rougher game and so they should get everything they can. And basketball players are, you know, born to be basketball players. If you're seven foot and, you know, it's something. But baseball players,

they're the average Joes, right? You could walk down the street and walk past them. You wouldn't look at them and think they are elite athletes, the best in the world at what they do. So I do think the players are held to a different standard, and the public just wants them to play baseball. That's all. Don't complain about money because you make more than the average American. So just show up and play baseball, and let us root for you. Don't display and expose your politics. Don't gripe about your money. Just show up and provide us with three hours of fun. And during your time at the union, we went through periods of recession and periods of

economic prosperity, but this still is sort of a unique situation. And given that so many Americans are out of work or dealing with other financial difficulties or just worried about their health and safety, is it in the interest of both sides here to avoid the public dispute about money? I mean, how should this national crisis affect the framing of the union's arguments? Well, it's clearly a bad look for both parties, right? If this is an economic decision, and ultimately maybe it will be an economic decision. But I think first and foremost, it's a health and safety issue. You know, from a public relations, if I take a step back and look at it from a public relations strategist perspective,

it's almost like there's so much self-inflicted injury being caused to the sport, the players and both sides right now, that it all may be moot if the science doesn't improve and the health situation doesn't improve and they won't even be able to play games. improve and the health situation doesn't improve and they won't even be able to play games. So all of this angst and anger and bitterness toward the sport and its athletes would have been for nothing. And it just harms the game. Baseball, they talk about the game, even the people inside the game, so negatively from time to time where other sports don't do that. They do a better job of protecting the brand.

They would never air the dirty laundry like this but baseball has a tendency to air its dirty laundry more often than the other sports and we hear about the game is slow the game is boring the game is this the game is that from people inside the game i don't think you would ever hear people in other sports or other industries talk how poorly about their brand or their products. So I think it would be refreshing if everybody would just communicate and use these channels that reach millions of people to be speaking nothing but positive, especially at this time. It shouldn't be about self-interest for either party right now. It should be about not selling, right? As they say, it should be about sharing. It should be about how can we help as opposed to how can we promote our product as much as, you know, the country's in a bad way

on many levels. There are some people in dire circumstances. We're losing thousands and thousands of people. These are humans. This is sad. This is bigger than baseball. And I think they have to show and project that perspective in all of their outreach moving forward would be my advice. How much of an obstacle is it that everyone knows what the players make, salaries are public, and yet the owner's books are closed and no one really knows the details of their finances, or at least it's not known publicly. And so I think that tends to focus some of the ire on the players, just because you can point to exactly how much they're making per season, per game, you know,

per pitch. And people love to do that and compare it to their own salaries, of course. And owners may very well be making far more than that, but we don't really know the specifics. And I'm curious about, A, just how much does that sort of set back the players in trying to present the more sympathetic argument? But also, what does the union know? What does the union have access to? Because it was reported that this week, Lawyers for the Players Association did request various financial documents from the owners. And I don't know if those requests have been complied with, but how much of that information is known to the union, if not to the public? Well, a couple of things there. I'll start with the last piece first. The union receives quite a

bit of financial information and financial data from Major League Baseball per the collective bargaining agreement. They receive that data, though, under the strictest of confidentiality agreements and provisions. So what the union sees, it can share with its members. So the players know. The players are fully aware of what those finances look like from club to club. The union has a board meeting with its executive board every year where they look at, as you could imagine, every aspect of the industry, including the fiscal health of the sport

and trends, especially relates to individual teams and what they may or may not be able to do in free agency and things of the such. So the public may not know, but from the public perspective, it's easy to kind of figure out, I would think, if you're paying attention, if a team goes up for sale, right, it never sells for less than it was purchased. think if you're paying attention, if a team goes up for sale, right, it never sells for less than it was purchased. You generally will sell for an awful lot more, right? We don't see a lot of teams being sold. We don't see teams filing for bankruptcy and all of this things that we would see with other industries and businesses if they were failing. So it's easy to presume based on that, that, you know, the industry, not just in baseball, but all professional

sports has enjoyed recently some great prosperity. And a lot of that has to do with the advent, they can really thank the advent of Netflix and Hulu and these streaming devices that have moved people off of television and cutting cable and has made live sports programming a premium item. And based on some of the research I've seen in preparing for some of my schoolwork at Adelphi, there's been a spike in franchise values and interest in owning those, largely because they were prior to the pandemic, obviously, but even more so because it might be accelerated. Everybody's looking at the future that streaming may inject a lot more revenue into the sport. And then other

things that come with streaming and the different elements and ways you can broadcast a game, the different uses of the technology in terms of microphoning players and putting cameras in different places, and then coinciding with the advent of legalized sports gambling. So there's the potential for a lot of revenue to be flowing into the industry once we get out of this pandemic. So I'm curious what role you see sports media playing in the labor discourse, because the way that baseball writers and sports writers generally have covered labor questions has evolved over time. But what questions or analysis do you think we should be asking or doing that we aren't right now? Do you actually think that it's improved much in your experience, or are we still

sort of figuring out the right way to report on and write about these questions? I think based on my sense and what I see and what I see written by the baseball media in particular, their level of knowledge of how the industry works now economically is far greater than it was when I started with the union in 1999. A lot of that might have to do with so much information being available via the internet. But I do think we have a more informed baseball media as it relates to the economics of the game. I think we have a more informed media as it relates to the process of the game. I think we have a more informed media as it relates to the process of collective bargaining

and the rights that players have and kind of the give and take and the back and forth and how everything is linked. So I do think there's that. I don't know whether younger people now, we're in a bit of a, the media industry itself is in a bit of a bind right because we are seeing you know a lot of that industry's been hit pretty hard and a lot of

established experienced writers are are being pushed aside and so now the the burden is going to be perhaps on a younger generation of sports reporters coming into the industry who may not have that level of knowledge so i think they you think some efforts might be made to try to ramp up what the next or the newer, younger generation of sports reporters knows about the economics or the collective bargaining process in sport might be helpful. But at the end of the day, again,

the union's approach is going to be, keep the focus on the game, report on the game. Let us deal with collective bargaining, the union's oversight, what we would be mindful of. If we saw something that was inaccurate, we would reach out to the reporter or the outlet and try to explain the inaccuracies and try to, over time, build a relationship with the media that if they had a question about a topic, we could have an off-the-record or on-background conversation. So we would keep the union out of the public fray, but use these opportunities to educate the media on the process and the terms and the definitions and how it works. It doesn't happen in a vacuum. One piece might affect another

piece. And somebody may cover all the sports and weigh in, but all the sports will use the same terminology, free agency, arbitration, revenue sharing, taxes, salary caps. But each one of these sports, their definitions are going to be drastically different. So I think from a union perspective, don't try to take these economic and these negotiating wars public. M, maintain as much behind the scenes dealings as you can, but work behind the scenes to educate the press in more of a one-on-one, small group environment. We did a lot of that with the union, a lot of off the record meet and greets, bring people in, just chat about the process to kind of educate them on the situation.

So Blake Snell's comments on Twitch garnered some criticism this week, and mostly I think about the presentation and tone rather than the substance of what he said. But, you know, he said essentially, I got to get my money, which is not inaccurate. It's not unfair for him to think that way. But as you said, it does deviate from the message that might just be about love of the game, which he also said. But I think that kind of got buried amid everything else he said that maybe would not resonate with your average fan. So if you were advising the Players Association now on how to talk about this current situation, what would you tell them to emphasize? I mean, you mentioned just wanting

to get back to play, but if it does become a financial sticking point, if that's the thing that is preventing them from playing, is there a way for them to address that that would resonate more than what Blake Snell said? That's a great question because ultimately, at the end of the day, if they couldn't reach an agreement, I'm not sure that they would, wouldn't, you know, let economics perhaps interfere here, but it's possible, right? So I think at the end of the day, what you just have to do is while this is going on, again, you want to keep the focus safety first, first and foremost safety. We want to play. Rest assured, we want to be out there playing, but we have to make sure it's safe. And if for some reason that the economic negotiations fail, well, they will fail for a reason. And to blame one party or the next might not necessarily be responsible because both sides have important interests, beyond just what may transpire this year, right? There's long

term economic implications here for both sides. And at the end of the day, they may just not be able to reach a deal under the present economic environment. It just may not make sense for them to play. And, you know, if so, players just have to know going in, they just have to do their best to communicate their reasoning as to why they wouldn't accept a deal to take less than probably what they believe they should get. And they'll just have to deal with that. Again, it's not about public relations. When it's your livelihood, it's not about public relations. You have to do what's in your best interest at the end of the day. And if people agree with you, so be it. But if they don't, so be it too. As you mentioned, you've also done work advising professional sports teams on their

communications. So I'm wondering, is there anything from that side of the table that you think would be useful for the Players Association to adopt in its approach to PR and communications? Well, the teams are usually, they'll usually leave it to the commissioner's office to be the bad guys. If it means, quote unquote, kind of beating up the players in the public arena because teams are usually they'll usually leave it to the commissioner's office to be the bad guys if it means quote-unquote kind of beating up the players in the public arena because at the end of the day the players are going to go back to those cities and play so you don't want to do anything that's

going to stress and strain those relationships so the teams will follow the lead of the commissioner's office they'll try to remain and do what they can to maintain their positive relationships. But that's not to say that the teams won't try to explain under these circumstances exactly what their economic outlook might look like, right, in terms of having no local revenue from gate receipts and gate-related revenue to the players to maybe try to convince them to take a different stance or a softer approach, you know, but that gets a little slippery. So, you know, I think the teams will, when these things happen, usually the bit of a separation, they won't really look to the players to do much and the teams will just usually follow the lead of the commissioner's office. So they,

the part of what both sides are going to strive for here is unity. So speaking with one voice is always a powerful thing. So I think from the team perspective, you likely may not see a lot from the teams unless the commissioner starts to appoint certain people from clubs to get out there and speak publicly. So it's just not from him. It's coming from the teams themselves. So we might see that piece of it from the teams where they go out in their markets to plead their case from a local perspective, how the impact would perhaps hurt their organization. And again, at the end of the day, there's not much the players can do to combat that.

And as you noted, this specific negotiation is just one part of a bigger picture and there is a CBA that will be expiring pretty soon and those negotiations will be happening or even were happening before this situation arose so I wonder over the course of your time with the Union that was a period of relative labor peace and that there was no work stoppage although there were some close calls and intense time certainly but toward the end of your tenure things were starting to turn and that there was no work stoppage, although there were some close calls and tense times, certainly. But toward the end of your tenure, things were starting to turn a little bit where, I guess, as you left the union, there were talks about maybe free agents, unsigned free agents would be playing at a camp because that was the winter when free agency really took a turn for the worse from the players' perspective. And I wonder how you started

to see and have seen since the players' mood change or their level of agitation or involvement in these things. Are we at a different point than the union was at any point during your tenure when it came to collective solidarity or ire against the owners? I think we're at a bit of a different point for all those things that you talked about. Free agency was always the golden ring or the brass ring that the players wanted to strive for. It's not easy to play even one year of Major League Baseball, let alone get to arbitration. And then, gosh, if you can make it to six years and become a free agent, then you've earned the right to hit the open market and get paid fair market value in the shape of what traditionally was

a long-term guaranteed contract. You could take care of your family. All your life's work was proving to be very beneficial and fruitful. And you may have taken sacrifices in the first you know, playing for a minimum salary or a little bit above that, and then biding your time through arbitration. And then it kind of was flipped upside down where the older player who reached six years, and whether it's data analytics or that's just being used, that's not for me to debate or question, but clearly the economic model changed. And early, the entry-level guys, the first, the one to three players

became the most valuable to franchises because of their low cost. And the talent coming in at that early age, those young players with no service time or little service time, was great. And it was, in essence, what it did, it kind of split the pool of players. It made the young players more appealing to the teams where they could go out and sign a player for $550,000 and not have to chase a free agent with a multi-year deal and guaranteed money. And that dynamic changed. So the new agreement, I'm sure they're going to talk about that. They're going to say, okay, what happened? And can we come up with an agreement that now reflects a change of roster building approaches? What does that mean? Do we change

the minimum? Do we raise the minimum? Do we bring arbitration in quicker? Do we eliminate arbitration? Do we go right from a year or two into free agency? Whatever the case may be. But I do think it was a wake-up call that first set back in free agency to the players that this was serious. But usually they have to look at it and not look at one year and need a bigger sampling size. But as it's progressed for two or three years now, and now there's a monkey wrench thrown in it with the pandemic because revenues will definitely be off so that will in theory have an impact on free agency moving forward which doesn't bode well for the timing because now coming out of this pandemic truncated season at best and then going into next year which would also in all likelihood feel a tremendous impact uh in terms of mass gatherings and attendance and gate.

That will lead right into the next round of collective bargaining. So it's, you know, very tricky times ahead for the collective bargaining process in baseball, that's for sure. Yeah. And can you envision it possibly getting to the point where a work stoppage could be a realistic possibility? I mean, it's been long enough now since 94, 95 that these players don't personally remember what that was like and what the fallout from that was like. Even Tony Clark broke in in the big leagues just after the strike. And so I wonder whether that distance from that event, that pretty catastrophic event, might make it more likely. But on the other hand, it's been a time of prosperity for really both sides. We can talk about whether they've

enjoyed that equally and the players haven't partaken in some of the new revenue sources that have come about and maybe the revenue split has changed. And yet both sides have done fairly well for themselves over the last couple of decades. And so there's so much at stake when you're talking about a work stoppage that I wonder whether either side would risk that. But on the other hand, there are legitimate grievances and there are people very upset. So do you think it could get to that point? Well, the only way I can answer that question is the way, if you ask Tony Clark that question, or Michael Wiener, or Don Feer, or even Marvin Miller before them, the objective isn't to avoid a work stoppage, right? The objective is to reach an agreement that's fair for both parties, in the eyes of both parties, that's collectively bargained. So if a work stoppage happens, it wasn't the intent. It might be the outcome of an agreement that just can't be reached at the moment. So with that said, I can't predict what the outcome will be, but I know the players will be informed and educated and told that the idea isn't to come into the bargaining round to avoid a work stoppage. It's to get an agreement that's better than what we have. And hopefully we can do that without a work stoppage. But if it turns an agreement that's better than what we have. And hopefully we can do

that without a work stoppage. But if it turns into that, that's part of the process. And lastly, I guess, you know, I saw a tweet from the baseball writer Joe Sheehan, who said, if you've never read John Hellyer's Lords of the Realm, you should never speak in public or private about baseball, labor and economics. And I definitely recommend that everyone read that book, but not everyone will. It's a big book. But all of these conversations that are happening here are really just the latest skirmish in a battle that's been going on for 50 years, right? And the names change and the people change. There's some continuity and maybe there's more continuity on the league side, which I guess can be an advantage for them at times. But history repeats itself, you know, and a lot of the conversations

that are happening right now have happened before. And so knowing what happened in those previous instances can be pretty educational. It can color your thinking on these things. So if you were to help someone catch up or, you know, provide the cliff notes or say, here's how you kind of familiarize yourself with this whole conversation that's been going on for decades here, how would you recommend doing that? Because you just jump into it today and there may be a lot of context that you're not aware of. Well, maybe my answer is going to overly simplify what my answer should be, perhaps. But I think the best way and the simple way to explain it to anybody who is on the outside looking in is, whether it's John's book or otherwise, baseball is a business. It's not unlike any other business.

And the owners of the clubs want to maximize their profit and increase their return on their investment to the greatest ability that they can. Players are the product. They are the most important employees, but they are also the product, but also an expensive and the number one expense faced by the owners. And for the owners to increase their profit, there are a lot of opportunities, a lot of revenue streams that you can explore. But by doing that, you want to increase your revenue streams and you want to suppress player salaries. So that's the best way.

And historically for more than a hundred years, that's what owners have tried to do with baseball players. How do we lower player costs? The lower the player costs, the bigger our profit margins. So that in a nutshell is how it works. So you can't begrudge a player for asking the market to dictate his worth, but you also can't begrudge an owner for trying to get that talent at less than market value. And at the end of the day, that's kind of how it will unfold. It's maybe oversimplifying it, but at the end of the day, that's kind of how it will unfold. It's maybe oversimplifying it,

but at the end of the day, I think that's what it really comes down to. Players are the biggest expense. And if you want to increase your margin, you try to cut your largest expense. And that's why we will forever have these tough negotiations because they all bog down when it gets to the player compensation piece of the economic model. Right. Yeah. And did you see a big change even during your time when it came to where the revenue came from? I mean, not only just the online component and advanced media, but also I think a lot of the conversation right now is about, well, how much of the revenue actually comes from fans in the seats and concessions as opposed to TV deals and things that are baked in. That seems like it's part of the owner's argument here is that if they play games, they may make less money than they would otherwise, or they may lose more,

and who knows how accurate that is, but that's a claim you can make. That's something that people bring up now when it comes to tanking, let's say, and competitive balance, because there is so much revenue that comes in now from sources that previously weren't making up as big a part of the pie. Well, that's a good question, because there are teams still that rely heavily on what they generate from the gate, because they may not have a market value TV deal for whatever reason, either poorly negotiated or it was long-term and negotiated when there was a lower market for the teams or no competition for the local rights. And that has an impact. Clearly digital and the money coming in from digital and potentially more with streaming, the increase in streaming has been a welcomed

infusion of revenue into the sport. But when they talk to the players and approach the players about perhaps asking to take even less money than they agreed to do on the prorated portion of their salaries, the disadvantage that the players are in, they didn't have any influence on how those local situations were negotiated or developed. And I don't think it's necessarily fair to say that their earning potential should be impacted by maybe the inability of a team to maximize its local revenue. I think that's a bit of an unfair ask of the players. And you said the word, I didn't, the tanking, right? So those teams that tanked or used that as a building approach, you would then assume that their local revenue would be low.

So then should the players suffer for the team's desire not to compete and win, where we know the most important marketing tool in all of sports, regardless of all the bells and whistles we can include in the marketing mix, winning is the biggest seller. It's the biggest marketing driving force in sports. And when some teams try not to win, that is going to affect the money and the revenue they can bring in. But they know that, right? They're willing to take that maybe shortfall with the hope that they are building a winner. It will more than make up for it on the back end of their, their winning piece. But unfortunately, if everybody's tanking at the same time,

not everybody can win at the same time. All right. Well, we appreciate you coming on and sharing the benefits of your experience here. You can all find Greg on Twitter at Boris G, that is B-O-U-R-I-S. And you can find his company, PowerX Communications at powerxcommunications.net. Thank you very much, Greg. Yeah, thanks so much. Ben and Meg, thank you. And, you know, let's keep our fingers crossed that we'll find a safe resolution here, safe and healthy, and everybody can play ball. All right, that will do it for today and for this week. Thank you, as always, for listening. You can support Effectively Wild on Patreon by going to patreon.com slash effectively wild.

The following five listeners have already signed up to pledge some small monthly amount and help keep the podcast going while getting themselves access to some perks. Justin Majeaux, Ryan Brown, Timothy O'Toole, Ryan Corcoran, and Zach Sheffield. Thanks to all of you. You can join our Facebook group, approaching 10,000 members, at facebook.com slash group slash effectivelywild. You can rate, review, and subscribe to Effectively Wild on iTunes and other podcast platforms. Keep your questions and comments for me and Meg and Sam coming via email at podcast at fangrass.com or via the Patreon messaging system if you are a

supporter. Thanks to Dylan Higgins for his editing assistance. You can pick up a paperback copy of my book, The MVP Machine, How Baseball's New Nonconformists Are Using Data to Build Better Players. Both the paperback version and the Kindle edition include a new afterword, and don't take my word about reading it. Take Steve Kerr's. Here's Steve Kerr and Michael Lewis talking about the book on the latest episode of the Ringer podcast, Flying Coach. Kerr was talking about how ever since he read Moneyball, he's been looking out for the next thing, and somehow he came across the MVP machine. At the end of all that, I thought, okay, once everybody figures this out, what's next? And I just read a really interesting book called The MVP Machine. So this is a part of our podcast, too.

In fact, it's very funny you stumbled onto this. Yeah. Okay. So for me, it was the answer to my question. What comes after analytically finding players who are undervalued? Well, the answer is using analytics to help players develop and player development. And the whole book is about, and it's really fascinating. Thank you, Steve Kerr. I guess we're kind of co-workers now. We hope you have a wonderful weekend or as wonderful as it can be under the circumstances,

and we will be back to talk to you early next week. Talking about our reunion All about the things we've just gathered All about the plans we made All about our union All about the things we've just gathered All about the dreams we shared Thanks for watching!