ESPN.com: MLB – Summer of love: expect labor peace
I agree with Caple’s analysis of why there won’t be a strike. The owners aren’t trying to win the whole thing this time, which is why for the first time it’s possible to criticize the players’ position.
That doesn’t make the owners more right. This is still primarily an argument between owners, with the owners (richer and poorer) hoping that the players will subsidize them. They won’t.
Which is why Caple may well be wrong. There doesn’t need to be animosity now. There only needs to be enough of a conflict to provoke one or the other sides to not sign the (inevitable) deal. That’s what happened last time, after the strike and NLRB decision.
This time the NLRB may not favor the players. That doesn’t make them wrong. The fact is that because of the structure of this thing the players cam be stupid, greedy, selfish, unappealing and short sighted, and their argument will still be more appealing than that of the owners.
At least until the owners actually release actual books that show their actual financial state.