By: Keith Kappes
Columnist
Carter County Times
If you like to keep stats on major league baseball, let’s start the 2022 season with the current score in baseball labor negotiations.
The players have gone on strike five times and the owners have had four “lockouts” since collective bargaining began with a strike in 1972. Depending on your perspective, either side is winning or losing by a score of 5-4.
This was the ninth work stoppage in the history of Major League Baseball (MLB) and it began last Dec. 2 when the owners closed all of their facilities to players as the 2016 collective bargaining agreement expired.
The 2021–22 lockout was the first MLB work stoppage since the 1994–95 strike and the first lockout of the players since 1990. Fortunately for everyone involved, the two sides reached an agreement on March 10.
The pressure points this time around were compensation for young players and limitations on so-called “tanking”, the practice of playing games poorly and losing them intentionally to improve your team’s order in the next MLB players draft.
The owners canceled the first two series of the regular season, but those games will be made up with 9-inning doubleheaders so that each club can play the full, 162-game slate.
Spring training camps reopened immediately, and players started reporting for physical conditioning and exhibition games with other teams. They lost three weeks of workouts so don’t be surprised by numerous early season injuries.
For the second time in history, Cincinnati’s Reds are opening on the road with games at Atlanta against the Braves, starting April 7. They won’t play at home until April 12 against the Cleveland Guardians, formerly known as the Cleveland Indians.
Both the National and American leagues will have designated hitters in their lineups and the playoffs now involve 12 teams.
In case you’ve been wondering about how players did on payday, the minimum salary goes from $570,000 to about $700,000. That means the least experienced and youngest players will be paid $4,321 per game, whether they play or not. That breaks down to $1,728 per hour for an average game of 2.5 hours.
Not even the rookies will have to worry about the price of gasoline.
