MLB owners on Monday gave the go-ahead to making a proposal to the players’ union that could lead to the delayed season starting on the Fourth of July weekend in ballparks without fans, a plan that envisions expanding the designated hitter to the National League.
Spring training could start next month, a person familiar with the decision said. The person spoke on condition of anonymity because details of the plan were not announced.
MLB officials were scheduled to make a presentation to the union yesterday. An agreement with the players’ association would be needed and talks were expected to be difficult — especially over a proposal for a revenue split that would be unprecedented.
Photo: Jim Rassol-USA Today
The players withstood a seven-and-a-half-month strike in 1994-1995 to fight off such a plan.
“If you do anything that resembles a cap, that smells like a cap, you’ve given too much,” said Dave Stewart, a four-time MLB 20-game winner, who is now an agent and spent two years as Arizona’s general manager.
“A salary cap has been a non-starter for the players as long as I’ve been in baseball,” said David Samson, former president of the Expos and Marlins. “I think when MLB is proposing a revenue split, it is with the full knowledge that the players’ union will automatically reject that.”
Each team would play about 82 regular-season games against opponents in their own division, plus regional interleague games. The post-season would be expanded from 10 clubs to 14 by doubling the number of wild cards.
The All-Star Game, scheduled for Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles on July 14, would likely be canceled.
Medical issues were also to be at the forefront of talks.
“Bear with me, but it feels like we’ve zoomed past the most important aspect of any MLB restart plan: health protections for players, families, staff, stadium workers and the workforce it would require to resume a season,” Washington pitcher Sean Doolittle wrote on Twitter. “What’s the plan to ethically acquire enough tests? What’s the protocol if a player, staff member or worker contracts the virus?”
The designated hitter was adopted by the American League for the 1973 season, but has been resisted by National League owners.
The players’ union has favored it because it would create more jobs for hitters in their 30s and money has disappeared as an issue because nearly all veterans have agreed to contracts. Yasiel Puig is the most notable exception.
Revelations of positive doping tests for nearly two dozen Chinese swimmers that went unpunished sparked an intense flurry of accusations and legal threats between the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) and the head of the US drug-fighting organization, who has long been one of WADA’s fiercest critics. WADA on Saturday said it was turning to legal counsel to address a statement released by US Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) CEO Travis Tygart, who said WADA and anti-doping authorities in China swept positive tests “under the carpet by failing to fairly and evenly follow the global rules that apply to everyone else in the world.” The
Taiwanese judoka Yang Yung-wei on Saturday won silver in the men’s under-60kg category at the Asian Judo Championships in Hong Kong. Nicknamed the “judo heartthrob” in Taiwan, the Olympic silver-medalist missed out on his first Asian Championships gold when he lost to Japanese judoka Taiki Nakamura in the finals. Yang defeated three opponents on Saturday to reach the final after receiving a bye through the round of 32. He first topped Laotian Soukphaxay Sithisane in the round of 16 with two seoi nage (over-the-shoulder throws), then ousted Indian Vijay Kumar Yadav in the quarter-finals with his signature ude hishigi sankaku gatame (triangular armlock). He
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