Yours for Good Fermentables ™: Pic(k) of the Week: Watch for baseballs!

Saturday, February 26, 2022

Pic(k) of the Week: Watch for baseballs!

Watch for baseballs! It's a sign of spring.

Pictured:
Eight (!) youth baseball fields abut the southern entrance of the South Peachtree Trail, in Medlock Park, DeKalb County, Georgia, USA.

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But there's no sign of 'adult' baseball yet in sight.

The labor agreement between baseball owners and players expired last year and Major League Baseball's owners are 'locking out' the players. In fact, spring training games were to have begun this week ... and none were played.

In their negotiations, baseball players are looking for a new agreement to:

enforce a commitment to winning on the part of all teams

to pay the younger players producing an increasing share of on-field value commensurate with that production,

to encourage more spending on players instead of discouraging it.

Team owners are either disagreeing with each demand or to the requirements for each.

If the two sides cannot reach agreement by Monday, 28 February 2022, baseball's Opening Day —originally set for 31 March— will need to be postponed (or worse).

First the virus, now this. Sigh.

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UPDATE

After the second-longest labor dispute in baseball history, the owners and players reached a deal on 10 March, clearing the way for baseball’s return. With, now, an abbreviated spring training schedule, Opening Day was set for 7 April, a week later than originally scheduled. More: below.

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The broad concepts of the deal, after all the back and forth, were built on compromise, with neither side getting everything they wanted. The salary threshold at which team spending will incur tax penalties — known as the competitive balance tax — will be higher than ever. The postseason will expand to include 12 teams. MLB revenue will fund a new bonus pool to be distributed among high-achieving young players with less than three years of service time. Minimum salaries will rise, and the amateur draft format will include a lottery for the first pick."
— Washington Post (10 March 2022).

Photo originally taken: 26 August 2021.

Pic(k) of the Week: one in a weekly series of images posted on Saturdays, and occasionally —but not always (as is the case today)— with a good fermentable as the subject.

Photo 9 of 52, for year 2022. See it at Flickr: here.

Commercial reproduction requires explicit permission, as per Creative Commons.

Camera: Olympus OM-D E-M10 II.