The Daily - The Battle for a Baseball Season

Episode Date: July 24, 2020

This episode contains strong language.Today, we go inside the fraught weeks that led up to the opening game of the 2020 professional baseball season — from the perspective of the commissioner of Major League Baseball. Guest: Michael S. Schmidt, who covers national security for The New York Times, spoke with Rob Manfred, the commissioner of Major League Baseball. For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily Background reading: The schedule is short. The stadiums will be empty. This is what our baseball writer thinks the season might look like this year.

Scott, right now, the game is continuing. There was a conference amongst officials. It's March 11th, and Major League Baseball's commissioner, Rob Manfred, is sitting at his home in Jupiter, Florida. It's 15 days before what will likely be the most challenging season of his entire time as the sports commissioner. season of his entire time as the sports commissioner. He's just been crushed in the press for how he's handled a cheating scandal by the Houston Astros. Interest in the sport is waning and attendance is down. But that night at home in his living room, he can see that the coronavirus is starting to engulf the country. From the beginning of time, nations and people have faced unforeseen challenges, including large scale and very dangerous health threats. On his television, Donald Trump is addressing the country from the Oval Office. And then Manfred stares down at his iPad.

Completely uncharted territories. And we are going to get a little more information now from Adrian Wojnarowski, which is he is with. And he can see that ESPN has just moved a breaking news alert. Right now, the NBA has made the decision. They have just announced that they are suspending play. That the NBA has suspended its season. And Manfred realizes, oh shit. And then the league is going to use that hiatus to decide their next steps, how they'll go forward.

They used that hiatus to decide their next steps, how they'll go forward. My sport is supposed to begin its season and the entire country is shutting down around me. And I have to figure out how to get my sport back on the field amid all this mess. And now as a player has tested positive for it, the ripple effects that has on his own team, on other teams. all this mess. From the New York Times, I'm Michael Barbaro. This is The Daily. Today, my colleague Mike Schmidt on the fraught weeks that led up to last night's opening game of the 2020 baseball season from the perspective of the commissioner of Major League Baseball. It's Friday, July 24th. Everybody thinks I've like never been to a baseball game. No, I was actually told that before we started. That's not true.

I grew up in the United States of America. There's like a pre-briefing now for you. And they're like, yeah, he's never been to a baseball game. So let me get this straight. Somebody stands in the middle and throws a ball. Yes. That's good. That's good.

Okay. Okay. We're going's good. That's good. Okay. Okay. We're going to start. All right. Mike, for the past three years, we have talked to you about the president, Russia, the FBI, national security. We have not talked to you about baseball. But here we are in this hangout for you to tell us a story about baseball. So just explain that.

During the three years covering the Russia investigation, Mueller, whether the president obstructed justice, to understand the story, I focused on the characters who I thought drove it. The former FBI director, Jim Comey, the former White House counsel Counsel Don McGahn. But earlier in my career, in my first beat when I covered baseball, the Comey and McGahn of that story from my reporting was a little-known labor lawyer named Rob Manfred.

Awaiting the start of the first of two days of hearings on the use of steroids, performance-enhancing drugs, in baseball. He was the official in the commissioner's office who had to deal with the steroid scandal that was engulfing the sport. Robert Manfred, the executive vice president for labor and human resources at Major League Baseball. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, ranking member, committee members. I especially appreciate the opportunity to speak with you. Manfred and I had a pretty rough

start to our relationship. I was an over aggressive young reporter. And he was this pugnacious, in your face, takes no prisoners lawyer who had the sport's biggest problem on his desk. And we would just get on the phone. We get on speakerphone. He put me on speakerphone and he would scream at me and I would push back at him. And after a while, a few years of this, I think we both sort of looked down at our hands and realized that our hands were sort of bloodied, but we hadn't really got anything out of it. And we started to build a much more constructive relationship. Did you finally get off speakerphone?

No. Rob's the kind of guy that will put you on speakerphone and tell you what he's really thinking. Rob is not someone who waxes poetic about baseball. He's someone that ended up working at baseball and is going to do everything in his power to support and defend that sport. to support and defend that sport. So I went on to do other things and he became the head of the sport. But as the coronavirus was engulfing the country, I said to myself, there's a lot of weighty,

really important things going on right now. But the idea of Rob sitting at home by himself trying to figure out how to save his sports season, how to save the summer was pretty appealing to me. So I reached out to him and I said, look, you are going to be spending the rest of your career explaining how you dealt with this season. And you and your sport both face an existential threat. If you don't have a season, your sport's going to lose even more money. It's going to be your legacy. Let's get on the phone and talk about what that's like. Rob? Yeah, just give me one second. And he agreed.

All right. I got to do this call with Schmidt. I'll call you in one minute, OK? So the first time I call him is on May 20th. All right, Michael, what do you want to talk about this morning? He's still at home in Florida, like many people working from home. He's taking Zoom calls. Yeah, and I mean, literally what I'm doing is I got a regular series of calls to get. And it's clear that he's immersed and knee deep in the

question. How do you take a sport that's normally played in stadiums in front of thousands and thousands of people. Players are right up against each other on the field. And every few days, teams like a traveling roadshow go to another city to play another team that's coming from another part of the country. So how do you do that in the age of COVID? How do we get back to playing? One of the things that floated up from one of the experts is, gee whiz, a way that you can do this is to quarantine the players, right? He explains to me that there was initially an idea to quarantine all the players in a bubble. Essentially, the players would go to a location and be cut off from the rest of society as they played the season.

And then you're going to start a four and a half month season and your life is going to be hotel to ballpark, back to hotel, room service, not see your family. You can't see your families. You can't be with your families. Yeah. I mean, that's one of the I mean, look, one of the quarantine, you know. So then we realized, gee, that's pretty tough. So then we started talking about including families. And then you realize as you move into that phase that you get into quarantine numbers that are insane. So he says there was another plan, that baseball was essentially going to play in three hubs, Arizona, Texas, and Florida. Arizona for the West Coast teams, Texas for the Central teams,

somewhere in Florida for the East Coast teams. That makes sense because those states seem to be more receptive to letting us play. The three parts of the country that had not really been hit heavily by the virus. Not at that point. Right. But as they're weighing this plan, the country starts to open up. So baseball again shifts its plan and says, OK, the teams will play in their stadiums and we will have a game, but it will have many, many new restrictions that me as a fan and many fans never could have fathomed. What would a game look like now as things are in place based on what you have? What would, you know, the Yankees and the Red Sox are playing tomorrow. What would that look like? Look, it's 67 pages of stuff. I mean, it's really thorough in terms of, you know, what people can,

you know, no high fives, no spitting, hand sanitizing in between innings mandatory, no exchange of lineup cards at home plate. It's done via an app. Players who are not likely to play in the game are outside the dugout in the first couple of rows of the stands. So a pretty different version of baseball than we're used to. Totally. And there's an economic issue. The owners and the players know that if they return to the field, it will almost certainly be a shorter season and there will be less money to go around. And Manfred, as the representative of the owners, thinks that he has an understanding with the players about how that70 million of salary. But they agreed in return that they would only get paid their salaries based on a prorated number of games. So in other words, if we so it appears like the only thing standing in the way of baseball returning to the field is the virus.

And Manfred, as confident as an executive as I've ever had to deal with, sounds confident about this and says, we're going to make this work. Hey, Michael, I got a run for today. I'm happy to pick up the next time. That's fine. Let's do that. That's fine. All right. I appreciate it. OK. But by the next time we got on the phone on June 11th, everything had changed. Let's kick it off with Major League Baseball and what's going on. The players thought they had a deal for 100 percent prorated salaries and the owners are saying, nah, you misunderstood. I mean, we're not asking for our full salaries. We're just asking whatever games we play, we'd like to get our game check for that game. Wait a second.

You're telling me you're not going to go to work to play a game we would all kill to play? Bro, play for the love of the game, man. What's wrong with you, bro? Money should not be a thing. Bro, I'm risking my life. I don't believe that the players are going to look good when you've got 33 plus million people

had already filed for unemployment. The subject comes up when greedy players, they make millions, and it's pointed out that the owners make billions. Like, a lot of people, they got all worked up. There's not going to be any baseball. Look at this. They're so far apart. And I'm like, this is what they call negotiations.

Am I right or wrong? A hundred percent. A hundred percent. What's going on today? Well, you tell me. So it's the afternoon of June. It's clear that the season is in doubt. But now it's not because of the virus.

It's all about that deal with the players. And Mike, what's the crux of this labor issue that the commissioner is suddenly encountering? So at this point in the pandemic, it is clear to the owners and anyone else paying attention that the last thing to come back is going to be mass gatherings. And that means no fans in the stadium for any of the season. Typically at a game you have anywhere from 20, 30, 40, 50,000 people there, all those seats will be empty and all that revenue will no longer be there either. So the owners want to negotiate new terms for what the players are going to be paid per game, because the owners say we're going to be making even less money than we thought because there will be no fans in the stands.

What was the lowest moment of the past week? Oh, you know, I think the union's last proposal when they stated 100, you know, their failure to move in response to what we thought was a pretty good proposal, you know, was disappointing. And what's the response from the players? The players say we're already taking a huge pay cut. A shorter season means fewer games, we're paid per game, and this is a lot less money. So now, even though we're having a shorter season, you want us to take more of a pay cut? The players say, look, we only have a couple of

years in which we're in the league. The average career is five years. And you're asking us to give up more money? What about the owners who will be there for many, many more years and are worth billions and billions of dollars? Is there been a point in this where you sort of said to yourself, like, gosh, this is worse than I thought it would be? Because you're thinking I'm going to go down as well because it's it's an existential threat to the sport. Right. It's an existential threat to the sport, right? It's an existential threat to you. Right. Yeah, it is. Yes, the outcome of no games is a massive threat to the good of the game.

threat to the good of the game. Remember, the sport has these other problems. Basketball has more of a cultural following. Football has better ratings. There was the Astros cheating scandal. There is the decline in attendance. And if baseball doesn't come back amid a pandemic at the same time that other sports are, because players, many who are millionaires, and owners, many who are billionaires, are having a fight over money, it could have a devastating long-term impact on the sport. And of course, looming in the back of Manfred's head and everyone else in baseball is the fact

that in the sport's recent history, they did lose a season because of labor issues. And baseball paid enormously for it. they did lose a season because of labor issues. And baseball paid enormously for it. We'll be right back. So as all this is going on with Manfred, I'm thinking of 1994. And what happened in 1994? It's opening day, 94. Huge crowd in the, oh boy, weather could not have been more cooperative. I'm 11 years old and I am into baseball more than I've ever been. Yes, 11 games being played this afternoon

in Major League Baseball on opening day 1994, including President Clinton at Jacobs Field in downtown Cleveland. I feel like I know nearly every player on every team. The Yankees on top, and Mike Stanley to lead things off. I'm looking at the box scores every day. I'm watching SportsCenter in the morning. We just got a computer in the house.

I'm printing out pictures of Yankee players and pasting them onto cardboard and putting them up in my bedroom. Here's perhaps the most popular padre of all time, Tony Gwynn, stepping in. It's also a magical season. Ground ball, through the middle into center field. That's a base hit. It looks like the all-star Tony Gwynn is going to hit 400. Back in at the home run. Three home runs in a row. Looks like the home run record may be broken. Uh-oh. America likes that. It's gone. Looks like the home run record may be broken.

The Yankees are back. They're great again. I win 110 games. And in this, when I'm literally sitting at the edge of my seat as a fan, more engrossed in the game than I've ever been before. The Expos leave the field in first place, yet wondering if their best season ever is in jeopardy. Even so, they're prepared to sit it out for as long as it takes. The season is stopped. We didn't want a strike. We didn't want this to happen, but we have no other choice but to go out and take care of ourselves and the game of baseball.

In the middle of the summer, the players go on strike in a dispute with the owners about money. And then... But I'll say what I've said to many of you, either independently or collectively, the baseball commissioner at the time comes out like a lot of things in life. You anticipate something and fear that it's coming. Hope that it isn't. And announces that the World Series will be canceled. And when the day is here, there's an incredible amount of sadness. There will be no more baseball in 1994.

And how is young baseball crazed Mike feeling as he hears that the World Series has been canceled, the season is officially over. I was crushed. I was crushed. And there was nothing really to compare it to. What I saw in that moment as a kid is something that I understand better now after covering it, after covering it, which is that there's two sides to baseball. There's the romantic side, but there's the other side of it, which is that it is a business and baseball runs into problems when business rears its head and it rips the romanticism right out of it. And what's interesting is that the commissioner at the time in 1994, the guy who actually had to cancel the season was Bud Selig. What do you mean? Different from Manfred, he's a baseball romantic. If you get on the phone with Selig, you always have to listen to him regale and tell stories about baseball history.

Just a deep-seated love of the game. And he was the person that had to cancel the 1994 season. He was the one that had to put his name on the statement that came out and said, there will be no World Series. So as this season, the 2020 season, looked in doubt, I thought the person to call is Bud Seely. Hello? Commissioner, can you hear me all right? I can hear you very good. Good. Because he understands more than anyone else the situation that Manfred finds himself in.

So we're looking at the whole question of a baseball season. Right. Take us back to 1994. Tell us that story and tell us why a baseball season is so important. Well, let me, as I always do, Mike, to give you a little history. So, like I said, Seelig starts with some baseball history. He goes back to World War II. Hundreds of players were sent off to fight.

But even as they were at war, FDR had written a letter in December of 1942, urging baseball to continue. The season was not in question. And so through this unbelievable Second World War, they did play baseball. So we go to 1994. I guess it was about the 16th of September. My memory serves me well, and I think it does. I was in a county stadium, and we were going to have to announce that there would be no season.

That night I came home and I sat upstairs in the den and I replayed every World Series from 1945. Good afternoon, everyone. This is Don Dunphy speaking for Bill Corum and Bill Slater. My first recollection was the Cardinal of St. Louis Browns. I just sat there very quietly and deep thought. I was hurt.

It's one of the low moments of my career and my life because the World War couldn't eliminate the World Series. It was really sad. When you're sitting there that night in the den, what else is going through your head? Well, one thing I don't think any of us ever really understood was how much it was hurting the sport. Fans were angry and we dragged them through the mud.

I mean, it's now 26 years ago and the pain, as I sit here and talk to you comes back to me. And I was worried. It scared me. How do you feel about a baseball strike? I think it's stupid. I think the players are just being selfish. You think the players are being selfish?

Yeah. Yeah. And they make enough money anyways. It would be pretty boring without baseball in the summer. It just ruins the game where they're striking. I don't know. I think everyone's money hungry. I wish they'd find an agreement and keep on playing. Should they play for free?

Yeah. Why? Because it's just a game. It doesn't matter how much money I get. And the owners, they say they don't make enough money. But the question is, what is enough money? So what are you going to do? I don't know. I guess just watch minor league baseball. I already know what I'm going to start doing.

I'm going to start rereading Dante's Inferno because that's where I think they should send the whole lot of them. So, as you probably suspected, it wasn't just 11-year-old Mike who was mad at baseball. It was... No. And as bad as 94 was, 95, 96,

and 97 were just as bad because fans were so upset by the strike that the sport had to rebuild itself and rebuild its credibility with the fans.

Mike, how much do you think 1994 is on the mind of Manfred? Enormously. Huge. Front of mind. Because that labor lawyer who I met back when I was covering drugs and baseball, he was just starting out in baseball in 1994. And he was a junior lawyer who was deeply involved in the strike and trying to help the owners win the labor fight. And that's when I met him. And the more I saw Rob, the more I liked him. And he and I worked well together. Somebody asked me the other day, how often did you talk to Rob back then? Maybe 10 times a day,

more than he wanted, I may add. So after Manford became commissioner, Seelig tried to give him some space and some distance. He didn't want to look like the father telling the son how to run the sport. And a bit of distance grew between the two of them. But one thing we'll say to each other, Mike, as Manfred found himself in this situation, he began to lean back on Sealy. I'm the only other guy in the face of the earth that understands exactly what the pressure is and what the situation is.

And they talked more than they had at any other point since Manfred had become commissioner. Since I've done that job for 22 and a half years. And yet, and I'm the only one who understands what he's under. So yes, there's no question about that. I really appreciate it. Well, great. Well, I hope you enjoyed it. It was a pleasure to do it.

And we'll talk soon. Thanks. Bye. So what happens next in the story, Mike? So at this point, it's been more than a month since my first conversation with Rob. And things are getting really nasty between the owners and the players. The middle of June, and boy, what Astros fans would give to be sitting in the stands of Minute Maid Park right about now.

It's true. And we were hopeful. Baseball negotiations grinding to a halt. Like we're almost to July now and there's still nothing. I mean, we're still on the same position that we were in in March. And if they don't do something about it, the sport is going to fade even more. How are you a commissioner? Like baseball should have been back a month ago.

They should be basically saying, here's our opportunity to recapture an audience. It's just, it's unfortunate that it's been so public. I think fans have been turned away a little bit. There's a reason Major League Baseball's executive office is filled with labor lawyers because they're in a labor fight every 12 years in this league. So Manfred becomes so frustrated that he decides to go out on television and say, well, I know the owners are 100 percent committed to getting baseball back on the field.

Well, I know the owners are 100 percent committed to getting baseball back on the field. Unfortunately, I can't tell you that I'm 100 percent certain that's going to happen. You know, I said there was going to be a season, but actually now I'm not sure. And he's trying any attempt to restart the negotiations, get the players back to the table, and move forward. That ultimately doesn't really work, and he has to go out on his own and announces that a 60-game season will start on July 23rd. So, Mike, he can do that, just call a 60-game season without a deal between the players and the owners? It wasn't his first choice. He wanted both sides to buy in. He wanted a better deal on how much

the players would take a reduction in salary. But without any other choice and his deep desire to have a season at pretty much any cost, that was his only option. So is this seen as a win for the players or for the owners? Both and neither. The players are going to get paid their full salary for the games that they play, Manfred is going to get his season. But neither of them are walking away feeling good about their relationship. And in the two months that they've taken to resolve this labor issue, they're now back to a health and safety problem. Because in that time, COVID has exploded and spread to new states. And actually today, as I was preparing to talk to Rob for the final time, news broke that the all-star player on the Nationals, Juan Soto, had tested positive for COVID. So here's Manfred on the cusp of having the season he fought so hard for,

learning just hours before the first pitch that one of the star players may have the virus. Not ideal. Another oh shit moment in a long season. Commissioner? Hey Schmidt, how are you? Hell of a day. Well, we're going to make it to the starting line. Everybody seems excited like we've done something.

All we did was get out of the gate, you know? The hard part is playing 60 games, you know? So anyways, I'm glad we are where we are. You know, I feel pretty good about it. Where are you right now? I'm in Washington. I'm at Nationals Park. What's the feeling in the air? You're at opening day with no fans, just the members of the staff. What does that feel like?

Like no opening day I've ever seen. It's really different, Mike. I mean, it's very stark right now. It's early still, but it's very different, Mike. I mean, it's very stark right now. It's early still, but it's very stark right now. When you heard today that Juan Soto contracted COVID, we're talking about the all-star on the world championship team. Are you like, oh, no, we can't do this? What's your mindset?

I mean, look, my initial reaction is i can't believe this is happening on opening day but then i dropped back and i thought about we knew we were going to have positives it's unfortunate that was opening day and then it was juan soto but the protocols were built to deal with this the whole point is you you got to build a system that's flexible enough to deal with what's coming. We knew it was coming. I'm mindful that today is July 23rd. The first time we spoke was May 20th. It's been two months. What we've got now is pretty much the plan that you had back then for the virus. But in this period of time, you went through this whole tumultuous thing. If you could go back, would you have done anything differently?

And is there any mistakes you made in the process? Well, if I could go back, you know, I'd love an opportunity to replay that hand. I really would, Michael. I think that one thing I can certainly point to, the whole from the very beginning, the back and forth in the press and all that. I just, I tried to avoid it. I didn't manage to do it. I'd love to have had a chance to go back and do it over again and be better at it.

Do you think there's long-term damage from it? You know, I think that I do think it was unsightly and we should not have allowed it to happen. I think we sort of have a debt to our fans. Let me ask it this way. The two months of nasty public back-and-forth negotiations between the owners and the players, do you think that will have long-term damage to the sport going forward

similar to 94? I don't know what to say to that one, Michael. I just don't know. So tonight on the field will be exactly what you mapped out. The players will be distance, no high fives, no spitting. What is your hope for how this game feels to the fans watching at home? Honestly, I hope that at the end of the night, what fans are thinking is, you know what, it's not

everything that we're used to and love about the game, but you know what, it's great to have baseball back. And an empty stadium and no acknowledgement from the fans and no acknowledgement to the fans from those there. We're done. Okay. Thanks, man. I'll talk to you soon, huh? Bye. We get a real good feel for tonight. And now one of the more well-known Washington National fans, Dr. Anthony Fauci,

to throw out the first pitch. Here's your pitch. Come on. Wow! Dr. Anthony Thursday evening. The game is currently underway. The first pitch was thrown out by Dr. Anthony Fauci, and it was pretty wobbly. I assume you've been watching the game.

Yes, and we're now in the middle of a rain delay. Right, which is perhaps why you're talking to me. I know you didn't set out to be philosophical about baseball with this assignment, but if we could get philosophical for just a moment, I wonder how you're thinking about baseball and this game right now. Look, I told you about my first realization when I was 11 years old, that baseball walks a fine line between being a game and a business. When I became a sports reporter, I covered the darkest underbelly of the sport and saw it in probably a nastier light than most fans could ever dream of. And in the years after that, I had a hard time falling back into the romantic fandom of baseball.

I had just seen too much. But last year, almost a decade after I left sports, I got my fandom back. I caught the bug again. And as 2020 started, I was ready to continue that and to try and be that fan again. These negotiations brought back those feelings of the two-headed monster of baseball and the business head becoming too big. But at the end of the day, there's going to be a season and it's going to look weird and feel very, very different. But it's a season and it's baseball. In other words, you're still a But it's a season. And it's baseball. In other words, you're still a little bit of a romantic. Look, I'll take it. I'll take it for now.

Last season, a couple of very difficult IL stints really prevented him from accomplishing much of anything. Mike, thank you very much. Enjoy the game. Enjoy the season. Thanks for having me. High in the air to left center. That ball is high. It is far. It is gone. Oh, way back in the left center field seats.

Had there been fans in the ballpark, it was a guy that bought the worst seat that would have gotten that souvenir. Oh, what a shot by Stanton. It's a two-run dinger, and the Yankees immediately take a 2-0 lead. He turned around a 96-mile-an-hour fastball, 459 feet. What's the saying we always have? The harder it comes in, the harder it goes out. And that's the MVP swing

that the New York Yankees acquired from the Marlins. As the old line goes, that ball went so far they should serve a meal on it. So the Yankees acquired from the Marlins. As the old line goes, that ball went so far, they should serve a meal on it. So the Yanks take a 2-0 lead. That was Stanley's 21st career. We'll be right back. Here's what else you need to know today. On Thursday, the United States reached a new milestone in the pandemic

with 4 million known infections. Infections are now on the rise in 39 different states, Washington, D.C., Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands. Everything was going well, a tremendous list of speakers, thousands of people wanting to be there, and I mean, in some cases, desperately be there. At the White House, President Trump said he would cancel the public portion of the Republican National Convention, scheduled for August.

To avoid strict social distancing rules, the president had moved the events from North Carolina to Florida, which now has the highest infection rate in the country. But I looked at my team and I said, the timing for this event is not right. It's just not right with what's happened recently, the flare-up in Florida. To have a big convention, it's not the right time. The Daily is made by Theo Balcom, Andy Mills, Lisa Tobin, Rachel Quester, Lindsay Garrison, Annie Brown, Claire Tennesketter, Paige Cowett, Michael Simon-Johnson, Brad Fisher, Larissa Anderson, Wendy Dorr, Chris Wood, Jessica Chung, Stella Tan, Alexandra Lee Young, Jonathan Wolfe, Lisa Chow, Eric Krupke, Mark George, Luke Vanderplug, Kelly Prime, Julia Longoria, Sindhu Yanasambandan, M.J. Davis-Lynn, Austin Mitchell, Nina Patuk, Dan Powell, Dave Shaw, Sidney Harper, Daniel Guimet, Hans Butow, Robert Jimison, Mike Benoit, Bianca Gaver, Our theme music is by Jim Brunberg and Ben Landsberg of Wonderly. Special thanks to Sam Dolnick, Michaela Bouchard, Lauren Jackson, Julia Simon, Mahima

Chablani, Nora Keller, and Travis Shaw of the Toronto Blue Jays. That's it for The Daily. I'm Michael Barbaro. See you on Monday.