Very well then. The current MLB lockdown has now reached its silly phase. In the general absence of real baseball news, on February 9, NBC Sports Philly ran a story on one of Bryce Harper’s Instagram posts. The reigning NL MVP is apparently eager to get to spring training.
If there is one person who wants to start the official 2022 MLB season, it is surely Bryce Harper. It’s also just as surely the other eight players currently under contracts worth more than $300 million. It would be a simple commercial question. However, a contract is worth nothing if you are locked out because you belong to a union.
What’s a $300 million man to do when there’s an MLB lockout?
Stupid and fun, isn’t it? The trail to this MLB lockdown began, necessarily and correctly, with the rise of the Major League Players Association, and the MLBPA eventually resulted in $300 million contracts.
For a bit. And probably not on schedule now, as players and owners still have to figure out how to distribute all the money paid to MLB teams in wheelbarrows.
What’s a great player to do? Take pictures of your stuff for Florida, apparently, while you ponder the idea that maybe if you didn’t have that contact, and some of your teammates did more…. Well, whatever.
Apparently, Harper has decided it’s high time to organize travel clothes for a social media post titled “THIS TIME OF YEAR!”
Easily identifiable are a small Phillies bag with the logo no longer officially preferred by the team, and in or near a larger bag, a pair of jeans, a belt, a knit hat labeled “LIONS NOT SHEEP”, and several pairs of what appear to be boat shoes.
It was a very benign message compared to some that MLB players and fans have delivered on the internet criticizing the owners and baseball commissioner. Some of these messages have been curbed, such as Max Scherzer’s curiously punctuated article (“We don’t need mediation because what we offer MLB is fair to both parties :”) Some fans were smart (“This MLB lockdown is longer than a fucking CVS receipt”), and some of the players and fans weren’t quite right in the eyes of younger readers.
According to the New York Daily News, the commissioner was scheduled to address the media on Feb. 10 and was expected to announce the evidence that spring training would be delayed. This means that opening day is now in jeopardy.
It’s been called “the biggest blow to MLB’s lockdown yet.” (Well, that’s probably the biggest blow to the hopes of borderline players.)
I wonder what Bryce Harper’s next Florida packing photo will include? Maybe some of the noses cut off the heads of owners and players to upset their faces.
