Reese Kaplan -- Should We Believe Lockout Progress Is Happening?

To some people the start of the baseball season is a rite of winter into spring, when there's a glimmer of hope that sunshine and summer activities are not too far behind the wind, the frost and the snow of the cursed months of December, January and February.  Coming into the house and hearing the crack of the bat by stars and wannabes in Florida and Arizona temporarily lets us all forget the stress of the day, the freezing temperatures and fills that awful lull after football season ends.  Of course, for those of us in the New York area, football season pretty much ends not too many weeks after the preseason ends.  

Now the lockout talks are starting to get a bit more serious as a report came out last evening that federal arbiters are being asked to come hear both sides at the negotiation table in order to help move the process forward.  The players union has already given up several key points and it would appear now it's time for the owners to capitulate against their will on some of the issues that have caused frustration and tension at the table.  

I've made that trip into a Port St. Lucie game in the winter months and it energizes your blood flow.  All of the weight of whatever has been dragging you down since October ball ended gets pushed right out the window and you become ready to engage in the energetic debates about who looks good, who needs to work on things and how high up in the standings the team will finish.  In spring training all teams are destined for greatness and are buoyed by the optimism of their fans whose rooting interest is not strictly fueled by cold suds.  

Right now the debates about a shortened season schedule seem highly inappropriate when a corresponding item dropped about increasing the length of the AAA minor league schedule from 140 to 154 games.  It seems the clubs realize it's in everyone's best interest to play as many games as possible down there, not only for the revenue that will be coming in, but also for the value of additional development time of the players-to-be who hope to sniff The Show at some point in the very near future.  

While arguments can be made that the extended minor league number of games is a hedge against what happens if the major league season is shortened due to labor negotiations, the fact is people are hungry for any kind of ballgame right now and they will even accept ones that are missing the 40-man roster prospects.  How long the youthful substitutes will be acceptable is questionable, particularly when for folks in the NYC area a trip to Syracuse with the family is at best a weekend-only activity. 

Baseball is in our blood from childhood and even during this period of pandemic isolation we are ready to sit with huge crowds (hopefully properly protected) to enjoy the ritual as we like it best.   Normalcy seems a thing of the distant past and the two warring sides are artificially tap dancing on the edge of removing still more of it from our lives by refusing to settle issues in the conference rooms and with the consultation of their administrative representatives.  The call for arbiters seems to signal that they are ready to accelerate the end to this lockout.  That's a very good thing.  However, like many rumors read online, I'll believe it only when I see it.