For month we watched a public mudslinging fest take place between MLB owners and the Players Union. While the two sides have always been at odds, it’s leadership that the sport’s commissioner is supposed to provide. Rob Manfred may be a very intelligent man, but you wouldn’t know if looking at the results of his actions.

Major League Baseball owners are represented by one man, Manfred. He was chosen having come from a labor negotiations background. With the sport likely coming to an ugly labor dispute following the conclusion of the 2021 season, it was Manfred who would be tasked at following in Selig’s footsteps but not making the same mistakes. Unfortunately, we are now here, a place that has given us an unprecedented set of parameters, and a terribly worse set of mistakes.

While money was made out to be the reason players were publicly disparaged by those who own the teams, a reality is that any season in 2020 would be played during a worldwide pandemic. Although the rest of the world has done an exemplary job of flattening their curve and combatting the virus, this one is still seeing new records every day. For baseball to be played in that structure, players wanted their fairly agreed upon pay, but more importantly a safe environment in which to work.

After the dust settled on economical issues, we were given resumption. Now six days into the new Summer Camp (which mind you, has a sponsor and branding intended to drive those owner’s immediate revenue), we’ve already got a long list of avoidable mistakes. Manfred and MLB have not come through with the necessary PPE in order to properly protect those within the game. Testing is being done, but results aren’t streamlined to meet deadlines, which has now caused multiple organizations to cease operations during a three-week sprint to get ready.

The way these five days have gone is reflective of a very ugly reality. It’s a lack of leadership and follow through that paints the picture as a “set it and forget it” type of scenario. We were given a date for resumption, so everything was just going to fall into place. Major League Baseball is set to unveil the 2020 schedule tonight, but we have no reason to believe we’ll logically make it to that point.

Whether now or in the future, whether the league gets its act together or not, Manfred needs to begin asking himself for accountability. He’s banged a drum for years that the game must be changed. Pace of play initiatives and poorly thought out marketing strategies have done little to benefit even the intended bottom line. While routinely chomping on his own feet whether by calling the World Series trophy a piece of metal, or publicly suggesting the league never intended to play anything more than the minimal amount of games, he’s become more court jester than duly appointed judge.

Other sports have returned thus far, and while we’re still going up against a relatively unknown enemy, the reason to believe in positivity on those fronts is because leadership has ensured a strong plan of action. Rather than denigrating the product and squabbling over who will make more money, the first course of action was how would this be accomplished, and then everything else was allowed to figure itself out with proper runway to ensure follow through.

I certainly hope we have a 2020 Major League Baseball season to watch. The Twins are going to be very good, and the nightly drama of a 60-game sprint should be a blast. If we don’t though, it won’t be on the players opting out or the virus causing them to consider that action. It will be on leadership, specifically that of one man, who fell completely short.

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