Friday Newsletter time: Owners, players will be working weekend hours as deadline for canceling games looms
Another day appeared to be wasted Thursday in the pursuit of a new collective bargaining agreement.
The life of a sportswriter, as glamorous as it is, requires working weekends.
It turns out that sports are played a lot on Saturdays and Sundays.
This weekend, though, we should have some company.
The owners and players have moved only incrementally toward a new collective bargaining agreement the past four days in Florida, and they plan to meet again today.
Barring a miracle, they won’t be reaching a deal this afternoon. That will leave them three days to reach a deal before the Monday deadline to avoid the loss of regular-season games.
So, yeah, they will be working this weekend.
The union appeared to waste everyone’s time Thursday. Neither side has addressed the luxury tax threshold this week, and that is the No. 1 issue.
Things continue to look bleak, but it’s important to remember that anything and everything in baseball happens against a deadline. Also, money is a tremendous motivating factor, and there’s a lot of money at stake here.
There’s still time. The owners and players will have to work over the weekend, but there’s still time.
Money well spent
Speaking of owners, the Rangers’ owners were accused very loudly of not spending money the past few years before they plopped down $561.2 million before the lockout.
As far as the major-league roster is concerned, that’s not wrong. Some of their thriftiness was by design, but it’s still not wrong to say owners didn’t spend on players.
But to say they didn’t spend at all isn’t accurate. They are on the hook for $700 million of the $1.2 billion Globe Life Field.
Beyond that, though, Rangers owners green-lighted the construction of Rangers Village, which essentially is a dorm for minor-league players. And it’s at near-capacity with another week left before report date for minor-league spring training.
Not every minor-leaguer stays in the village. Players who are married, for instance, are among those who get off-campus housing.
The village, though, is free, and the Rangers believe that is one reason why so many minor-leaguers are already in camp. Ninety are taking part in the mini-camp, and another three dozen are at the Surprise Recreation Campus.
“We have another 40 players who are here using the village and working out on their own here because we opened up a facility to anybody who wants to come here early and prepare for the season,” general manager Chris Young said. “Having the village and the complex is having the intended effect of allowing our players a location and a resource to come in and get better and reach their full potential.”
Among the players in the village are 2021 draftees Jack Leiter, Aaron Zavala, Cam Cauley, Ian Moeller and Jo Jo Blackmon.
Card of the Week
The boy and I ended to a new card shop last week in Arlington called the Card House, which is heavy on packs and supplies.
Nothing great came from the packs of 2022 Topps Baseball Series 1, though my son was pretty fired up to get Mike Trout, Freddie Freeman, Fernando Tatis Jr. and a Greg Maddux insert in one pack.
He was not thrilled about the Jose Altuve card.
There were also some cards available in displays, and more budget-friendly cards to sort through in 5,000-card boxes.
That’s where I landed this week’s Card of the Week, the 2019 Bowman Chrome Mason Englert refractor 134/499.
Englert, the Rangers’ fourth-round pick in 2018 from Forney, is a friend of the Newsletter. He was part of one of our very first feature stories, which looked at him and two other pitchers (Cole Winn and Owen White) selected in 2018.
Englert also is quoted in a story written last week about all the minor-leaguers who have already arrived in Arizona.
Plus, his father is a paid subscriber.
This is the least I could do.
Doggy video!
Deploy these hounds to Ukraine. The Russians would be forced to surrender. Enjoy. See you Monday.
The Rangers not only scrimped on players they also had a front office “reorganization” and jettisoned much salary. One wonders what the septuagenarian owners have in mind.