Wayhay The BlueJayBlogsTM is alive!! (Insert your favorite Frankenstein’s monster imagery here). I’m not sure what way this thing is going to go, it has no plan, no direction, no aim, no purpose – simply a tool for me to ramble on about all things Toronto Blue Jays, and maybe some MLB generic stuff.
I guess I should open with some introductions. I’m just a fan, I’ve no media credentials, I’m not associated with the club in any way, there will be no ground breaking inside scoops. What you will get is one man’s thoughts on the current situation with the club, some hopes and aspersions for the future and hopefully you find we agree on most things and you enjoy reading what I have to write, and we have some laughs together along the way.
I’ve thought about doing this blog for many years now, always held back by some of the usual personal procrastinations, what should the format be? What’s my angle? What’s my gimmick? I can start without first buying all the right super expensive writing software. I need a podcast to go with my blog. I should build the website from scratch first.
So finally this new year I decided just f**king do it. It’s been years and you’ve written nothing so how much worse can actually finally writing some be? I penciled in today as blog day 1. I’d talk all about the opening weekend of spring training games, and we’d figure out the rest from there. Which of course meant the lockout would still be going on and there would be no baseball. My apologies.
As a general rule I always side with the players in any sport. They put in all the hard work, they provide the entertainment, they should receive as much of the money as possible. But I must say in this particular CBA breakdown I’ve never been more on the players side. What’s these owners are up to, is genuinely shocking. Its pure greed, and I just don’t see any other way to describe it. In any walk of life involving a union and a CBA, once the current agreement is up, you can continue to work ahead under the old agreement while negotiating the new one. It’s actually what leads to most strikes by the union. The idea the company isn’t trying hard enough to make the new agreement in a quick enough fashion, and the union doesn’t want to be taken advantage of.
Well not this time, no not here, here we have a bunch of owners with an agreement in place that any reasonable person would already say was too favorable to the them, and they call quits and lock the doors until they can have even more money. It’s unbelievable. And it’s 100% because of this decision that there was no baseball this weekend. Nothing else.
I’ve been quite upset by a lot of the reporting I’ve seen too. Seems a lot of the major press outlets are worried about their press passes for next year and are writing with a heavy lean to the owners side. Lots of citing how much to top 1% of players make, showing Matt Scherzer driving a Porsche etc. Yes some players are very well paid, but so many aren’t. League minimum contracts pay so little and with service manipulation as it is, so many players never play past that contract, being edged out of the game in favor of a younger cheaper option. And I for one thinks is great when these Porsche driving 1%ers fight for the collective union and don’t just sit back counting their millions.