Good, Bad and Ugly: St. Louis Cardinals and MLB Lockout Edition

The lockout between Major League Baseball and the MLBPA has me considering the good, bad, and ugly of it all, especially for the Cardinals.

MLB and MLBPA are supposed to meet Monday to continue negotiations toward a new collective bargaining agreement. The MLBPA will submit their counterproposal to MLBs offer from earlier this month.

As we get closer to February and March, the need for a new collective bargaining agreement becomes more necessary as we all want pitchers and catchers to report on time in February. We all want Spring Training and the regular season to start on time.

Here’s hoping talks go well on Monday and we get closer to the baseball season with both sides and, most importantly, the fans, getting what is needed – a summer of baseball!

Good

Not much is good about this lockout, but it is allowing for some good things such as St. Louis Cardinals center fielder Harrison Bader helping out local schools.

With staffing shortages happening due to Covid-19 illnesses, school districts are needing all the help they can get. Bader, who recently won his first Gold Glove, surprised students in the suburban St. Louis  Clayton School District when he served as a substitute P.E. teacher.

Students were attentive and had fun throwing balls around the gym and playing catch.

It would have been nice if the substitute teaching gig could have included the St. Louis Cardinals’ attention, but alas, with the lockout that association could not be complete. This left Bader to hang out with the tots on his own to gain some new fans.

You could imagine this being quite a promotional opportunity for the Cardinals and the local schools.

Bad

Teams are unable to do anything involving players including talking with parties of interest or having events such as Winter Warm-up in St. Louis or the regional Cardinal Caravans.

These two events occur annually in mid-January and are seen as the unofficial start to the new season. The events were either done virtually or canceled due to Covid-19 concerns in 2021.

Cardinals fans from all over love these events. Even in the midst of a global pandemic, it’s disheartening that the events aren’t taking place this time due to the lockout.

Ugly

The players want to earn as much as they can for their talents while they are in their prime. The owners want to have a good product on the field and pay what they deem reasonable for it while making money off tickets, concessions, and assorted memorabilia. It’s really understandable.

But it is a bad look for the league and players, especially in today’s culture.  It looks selfish for the owners and fans due to money when many fans live paycheck to paycheck.

Baseball is a sport loved by kids young and old. The owners and players hopefully realize this even as the allure millions of dollars entices them.

Hopefully, both sides reasonably get what they want so we can have fun watching adults play a kids’ game for money!

Here’s hoping the adults show up Monday and we can get back to offseason baseball for what promises to be a fun 2022 season for Cardinals fans.