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Home , 1975 World Series, 1994 World Series, Bill Dinneen, Bob Stanley (baseball), Boston Red Sox, Carlton Fisk

The Sox Saturday, June 27, 2020

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MLB’s pandemic rules mean big changes for Red Sox TV and radio coverage

Chad Finn

In Major League ’s packet of rules and regulations for restarting the season even as the COVID-19 virus refuses to yield the field, the effects the pandemic will have on the way media members do their jobs may as well be footnotes.

That’s understandable given the wholesale changes required to the schedule and the implementation of complex protocols just to get a 60-game season started.

Still, the changes with the media are significant, and will have a noticeable effect on what viewers and listeners receive for a game broadcast.

A few notable rules: Only 35 media members per game will be allowed in , including photographers but not including broadcasters; interviews with players and other personnel will be done via video conferencing; reporters must leave the ballpark within an hour of the end of postgame interviews.

The rules for the television and radio teams are unlike anything that has been done before. Home teams will provide a “neutral” feed for each game, with instructions to show players on both teams equally; television commentators will not be in the ballpark for road games, instead calling them off a feed, but radio announcers will be permitted in road booths.

The Red Sox broadcast teams for WEEI radio and NESN are in the process of figuring their approaches, but some groundwork has already been laid for the targeted July 23 or 24 restart.

In somewhat of a surprise, NESN currently intends to broadcast all games, including those at , from its studios in Watertown.

“I believe that we are going to do all games from NESN at this point, subject to change,” said Dave O’Brien, the Red Sox play-by-play voice on the network since 2016. “What we’re being told is that NESN will give us everything that we need, tons of monitors, different looks. There might actually be more access if players are going to be miked.

“The feeds should be excellent. But it sure will be different.”

O’Brien said the expectation is that analysts and will both join him — at a social distance, of course — in a three-man “booth” for all 60 games.

“It’s a great thing that we can have our favorite booth for 60 games,‘' said O’Brien. “If it were 162, probably not. But 60 games, we can make that work.”

It’s uncertain right now whether NESN will broadcast any “” games.

On the radio side, , a radio voice of the Red Sox since 1983, said there have not been any meetings yet about the final plan. But he has been told that the plan right now is that the radio crew won’t travel for road games.

“As far as I know, the first plan was to do all games at Fenway, with us doing the away games off the monitor at Fenway,‘' said Castiglione. “But nothing is cut in stone.”

One area in which O’Brien and Castiglione disagree is the effect a ballpark without any fans might have on a broadcast.

“It’s hard to quantify how huge a deal not having fans will be,‘' said O’Brien, who worked on the radio side with Castiglione from 2007-15 before moving to NESN. “The sound of the crowd is the bed we lie on. It’s the soundtrack.

“As a broadcaster, you rely on the crowd. Xander [Bogaerts] rips a three- homer in the eighth to take the lead, nothing can touch that sound from 37,000 fans’ reaction. We can let Fenway fill the moment. For these games, we’ll have to let something else compensate for that.”

Castiglione, who said he has talked to some production people who believe ambient crowd noise “would not sound phony,‘' said the absence of a crowd would not change how he calls the game.

“The crowd right after an exciting play is important,‘' he said. “But as far as calling the actual play, I don’t think it will affect that. You’re concentrating on the action and describing where the ball is. So I don’t think no fans in the park will be a big factor.”

While Castiglione is used to the crowds of 35,000-plus at Fenway, and team president Sam Kennedy has said there’s a possibility of having fans in the ballpark later in the season, the broadcaster does have some experience calling games in front of rows of empty seats.

“I did games at my first job [for the Indians] at Stadium where there were 3,000 people at an 80,000-seat stadium,‘' said Castiglione. “My first year, ’79, the Oakland A’s, in those days when [A’s owner] wouldn’t pay his bills, they had about 800-1,000 people in the stands.

“ against the last-place Oakland A’s. Nobody there. We’ve been there before.”

O’Brien and Castiglione are on the same page with this: They’re glad the game is coming back, even in its unfamiliar and abbreviated form.

“Getting back to the game, despite all of the rancor of the negotiations, I hope that’s a good thing for everybody,‘' said O’Brien. “I believe it will be.”

Said Castiglione: “I hope the virus cooperates and we go as now scheduled. But 60 games is better than none.”

Baseball had a chance to make a statement and to do things right — but didn’t

Bob Ryan

Like any good parent, I hate it when the kids fight. I hate it even more when these particular kids — and the Players Association — demonstrate a shocking disrespect for their product, and its future.

I feel very proprietary toward Baseball; hence my claim to be a “parent” of those who have been entrusted with its welfare. I love all kinds of sports, but Baseball was my foundation sport. Baseball is how it all began for me.

If you had your picture in the local morning paper wearing a Brooklyn Dodger uniform when you were 2; if you had spent your 5-year-old summer in Columbus, Ga., because your father was working for the Sally League Columbus Cardinals; if on many a summer Sunday morning in the 1950s you were awakened and informed you were heading to the or Stadium (or even before the rename); if New York Giants and players were personal friends of your father; if you were given a book titled “Modern Baseball Strategy” for Christmas when you were 9; if your passion had taken you to 53 major league and 60 minor league parks in 41 states, plus the provinces of Quebec and Ontario; if you have in your possession nine scorebooks chronicling 43 seasons of baseball (plus scorecards with games charted between 1967 and 1976); and if you believe that if you had to filibuster for your life, the topic you would choose would be Baseball …

Then perhaps you would know how I feel about the way these adversaries have been trashing their product and embarrassing themselves these past few months.

In a better world, and Tony would have sat down three months ago, face to face. It would have been nice had one of them said, “OK, we have a global pandemic on our hands and the prospect of a completely altered society whenever this awful thing ends. It’s pretty obvious that what our goal should be is to do whatever will be in the best long-range interests of the game.

“Common sense tells us we will never get a deal we both love. What we need is a deal we both hate but which will be in the best interests of the game.”

Yes, I know, that reflects colossal naivete. History has taught us that neither side is capable of legitimate compromise.

Do they not realize they have a game that was in jeopardy, COVID-19 or no COVID-19? Attendance has declined seven years in succession. The games are too long. Baseball has an aging demographic.

My first thought upon leaving the house on a summer morning in the ’50 was: What type of baseball would we be playing today? One-on-one against a backstop? Maybe four-on-four with a rubber ball or tennis ball? Or, if everything broke right, actual hardball with at least seven-on-seven at Extension Field, two blocks away?

Who grows up that way now? Sadly, we all know the answer.

These kids of mine acted as if it were 1955 and baseball was reigning supreme. The NFL had 12 teams then. The NBA had eight. The NHL had six. America came to a standstill at World time, even with weekday starts of 1 p.m. Eastern.

That world no longer exists.

Baseball had a chance to grab the spotlight once again. Instead, it was the same old same old, and they weren’t even negotiating. They were firing out e-mails. How mature.

Someone needed to step forward and do some metaphorical head-knocking. And I’ll tell you who was in a perfect position.

John Henry.

Where was the John Henry who listened to do those Cardinals games from that Arkansas farm? Where was the John Henry whose legitimate romanticism has led him to usher Fenway into the 21st century when the prior regime in its final days was scheming day and night to get rid of it?

And John Henry (who also owns the Globe) represents Boston.

So what? Well, I’ll tell you what. No major city in America has deeper baseball roots.

Boston was a charter member of the first really formalized league, the National Association. The year was 1871. Boston won four pennants. Boston was a charter member of the , founded in 1876. Boston was a charter member of the , founded in 1901.

And Boston has had a fabulous 21st century.

It would have been very appropriate for the man who is proud to say he presides over baseball’s “Most Beloved Ballpark” to have taken the lead.

Yes, I know it’s only Baseball. But the late Robert B. Parker sure spoke for me when he said, “Baseball is the most important thing in life that doesn’t matter.” That’s actually true of Sport in general, but right now my concern is Baseball.

P.S. The kids are officially out of the will.

* MassLive.com

Boston Red Sox broadcasters Jerry Remy, Dennis Eckersley expected to call all 60 games remotely from NESN studio (report)

Chris Cotillo

NESN plans to have analysts Jerry Remy and Dennis Eckersley call all 60 Red Sox games remotely from its studio in Watertown this season, play-by-play announcer Dave O’Brien told Chad Finn of the Boston Globe. TV announcers are allowed to attend home games, but it appears NESN will have its three-man booth work remotely for the entire season.

Normally, O’Brien would work with a rotating cast of color analysts, with Remy and Eckersley cycling through and sometimes working home games as together in a three-man booth. In 2020, with no travel for the broadcast team, the plan is to have the trio work every game that NESN calls.

“It’s a great thing that we can have our favorite booth for 60 games,” O’Brien told Finn. “If it were 162, probably not. But 60 games, we can make that work.”

Major League Baseball’s media policy for the shortened 2020 season states that TV broadcasters can attend home games for the teams they cover but not travel on the road. Home teams will provide neutral feeds of games at their own ballparks, with road announcers having the ability to call games at home and on the road.

O’Brien, Remy and Eckersley could theoretically call Boston’s 30 home games from the Fenway Park booth. But the plan, as of now, is to do everything in studio.

“I believe that we are going to do all games from NESN at this point, subject to change,” O’Brien told Finn. “What we’re being told is that NESN will give us everything that we need, tons of monitors, different looks. There might actually be more access if players are going to be miked.”

Back in April, Remy, who has repeatedly battled cancer, told the Boston Herald that the COVID-19 pandemic was the “scariest thing” he has dealt with in his life.

“I have underlying conditions, so it’s a little bit more dangerous for me to be exposed to any of this, so I’m making sure that I don’t go out because I’m at high risk,” Remy told the Herald’s Steve Hewitt. “If I get it, it could be pretty bad.”

WEEI play-by-play man Joe Castiglione isn’t planning on traveling to away games and expects to call road games from the Fenway Park booth, according to Finn. The 73-year-old was slated to work with a three- man rotation of Sean McDonough, Will Flemming and this season, but it’s unclear how the color duties will be broken up for the radio team in a shortened season.

* MLB.com

9 must-see Red Sox artifacts on display at Hall

Bill Ladson

The National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum's collection of more than 40,000 three-dimensional pieces contains artifacts that tell the story of the game’s legendary players, moments and triumphs. Beginning this summer and running through the end of 2020, the Hall of Fame will share some of those memorable artifacts through a new limited time experience: Starting Nine, which features nine artifacts from each of the 30 current MLB franchises.

The Red Sox, of course, have a wealth of history from ’ hitting exploits to ’s against the in of the 1975 , so one can imagine how long it took for the curators to pick the best artifacts.

Whether you’ve visited before or you’ve always wanted to check it out, this is another great reason to plan a visit to the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum -- the spiritual home of America’s Pastime in beautiful Cooperstown, N.Y.

1. ' shoes Fun facts: On April 29, 1986, Boston’s Roger Clemens wore these shoes when he became the first Major League to strike out 20 batters in a nine-inning game as the Red Sox defeated the Mariners, 3-1. Clemens won both the and Most Valuable Player Awards that season, becoming the first Red Sox pitcher to sweep the honors.

2. Ball thrown by Fun facts: On October 13, 1903, when the Red Sox were called simply the Boston Americans, right-hander Bill Dinneen struck out the Pirates’ with this ball, ending the World Series and making Boston the first modern World Champions.

3. Carlton Fisk's bat Fun facts: It was the shot heard around Boston. It was Game 6 of the . Red Sox Carlton Fisk clouted the game-winning home run by swinging ’s bat and waving the ball fair with his hands. The 12th inning walk-off home run clanged off the left-field foul pole and sent the Reds and Red Sox to a winner-take-all Game 7.

4. Pedro Martinez's jersey Fun facts: At the 1999 All-Star Game, Martinez wore this jersey while striking out five of the six batters he faced at Fenway Park. The dominant performance helped the AL to a 4-1 victory and earned Martínez the game’s MVP Award.

5. 's bat Fun facts: What a postseason Red Sox slugger David Ortiz had in 2013. Ortiz used this bat during that October, hitting .353 with five home runs, 13 RBIs and a .706 slugging average. Ortiz was at his best during the World Series against the Cardinals, hitting .688 and winning the World Series MVP.

6. 's bat Fun facts: Wielding this bat at Fenway Park on September 29, 1978, Red Sox slugger Jim Rice collected a second-inning for his 400th total base of the season. He became the first American Leaguer to reach that mark since Joe DiMaggio notched 418 in 1937.

7. Dave Roberts' spikes Fun facts: Red Sox pinch-runner Dave Roberts wore these spikes as he stole second base in Game 4 of the 2004 ALCS against the Yankees. His ninth-inning theft eventually led to an extra-inning 6-4 victory, the first of eight straight wins that gave the club its first World Championship in 86 years.

8. Ted Williams'

Fun facts: Ted Williams was arguably the best hitter in baseball history and his iconic strike zone diagram first appeared in the July 8, 1968, issue of and later graced the cover of Ted Williams' and John Underwood’s 1971 book, The Science of Hitting. This three-dimensional version was created for a 1982 episode of The Baseball Bunch television series starring .

9. Cy Young's Trophy

Fun facts: On August 13, 1908, Lieutenant Governor Eben Draper presented this silver loving cup to Red Sox pitcher Cy Young, who was known as the "The King of ." The Boston Post newspaper had collected donations from the pitcher's many fans in order to have the majestic trophy made in time for the celebration dubbed "Cy Young Day" at Boston's Grounds.

* WEEI.com

First Red Sox move? Lock up , Eduardo Rodriguez.

Rob Bradford

As of noon Friday, the Red Sox can make transactions again. Exciting to be sure, but nobody was expecting a flurry of press conference announcements at 12:01 p.m.

But there are two items on the to-do list and Co. should be prioritizing when it comes to making moves: Extensions for Rafael Devers and Eduardo Rodriguez.

Unlike so many things in our world, this is the right thing at the right time.

Go back to 2006. was struggling with an ERA of close to 5.00 heading into July when then- walked out and asked the pitcher if he would be interested in signing an extension. The Red Sox were reading the room correctly. Leveraging the present to form a strategy for the future. Beckett signed his extension, potentially costing himself around $60 million after he bypassed becoming a free agent following his superb 2007 campaign.

"It's brilliant," Beckett recently said on the Bradfo Sho podcast.

When talking about Devers and Rodriguez, it isn't exactly apples to apples when comparing what happened with Beckett. But the point is that the time is now to take advantage of potential unknowns and insecurities when it comes to the coming years.

The Red Sox were planning on making it a priority to engage Devers after the 2019 season, with his service time and production lining up almost perfectly with , who the Astros locked up on a five- year, $100 million extension that was agreed upon before last season but kicked in this year. As is, the Red Sox will be eligible for arbitration for the first time this coming offseason.

Rodriguez will be eligible for free agency after next season, having made a fairly powerful case for being a top-of-the-rotation pitcher that should be counted on for years to come.

So, what route would the two go? Before the pandemic, it would have been a safe bet that each player would likely go the route of or Jackie Bradley Jr., betting on themselves all the way to free agency. But times have changed.

The prevailing thought that the financial windfall both players would get down the line might not be what they anticipated before baseball's economic downturn. How exactly is this step back when it comes to revenue going to impact salaries going forward is anybody's guess. But it should certainly make players look at potential extensions in a different light.

And as is the case for any extension, the team's motivation is to add certainty while potentially saving some money down the road. That hasn't changed. If you want to build a foundation while managing costs, trying to get out ahead of the curve with guys like Devers and Rodriguez is the way to go.

It's time to start thinking about these sorts of things again. And that in itself is a win for everyone.

* NBC Sports Boston

Who are the best closers in Red Sox history? Ranking the Top 5

John Tomase

For 86 years, the job of the Red Sox was never to be the last man standing. Nearly a century of futility meant none of them had a chance to record the final out of the World Series, because the Red Sox always found ways to lose on the rare occasions they got there at all.

That was true of , one of baseball's first closers, and it was true of the Monster, , too. It stayed that way until stabbed a grounder in 2004, unleashing a new era in team history. Since that day, four men have tossed the last out of a World Series, and two of them are on this list.

One name you won't find: . A three-time All-Star during his Red Sox career, Kimbrel recorded 108 saves in a Boston uniform, but for our money, these five men were better.

5. Ellis Kinder They called him Old Folks because he didn't debut until age 31 and he didn't retire until he was just shy of 43, but in between, Kinder sure made up for lost time.

An accomplished starter early in his career — he went 23-6 with a league-leading six shutouts for the Red Sox in 1949 en route to a fifth-place finish in the MVP race — Kinder converted to relief in 1951 and helped redefine the role. He went 11-2 with a league-leading 16 saves in 1951, and two years later he tied a big-league record by recording 27 saves. All told, he saved 93 games in a Red Sox uniform, twice finishing in the top 11 of the MVP race as a reliever.

He lived hard and was known as a carouser off the field, which contributed to an early death at age 54 following open-heart surgery.

4. Talk about coming out of nowhere. When the 2013 season opened, Uehara was simply a middle man, albeit a curiously talented one. Signed the previous December in a transaction that barely caused a ripple, Uehara was pressed into duty as a closer when the first two candidates — former All-Stars and — broke down. What Uehara did thereafter fit right in on a magical team.

The exuberant right-hander barely broke 90 mph, but he introduced the masses to the concept of spin rate, which helped explain what made his splitter so unhittable. Blessed with pinpoint control, Uehara struck out 101 and walked only nine in 2013 while posting a 1.09 ERA. He stayed unhittable right through the final out of the World Series, celebrating Boston's first championship at Fenway Park in nearly 100 years.

He spent three more years in Boston, remaining effective and earning his first All-Star berth at age 39 in 2014.

3. Stanley was by no means a typical closer, even for the and '80s. He relied primarily on a sinker, threw one of the nastiest (and only?) palm balls in the game, and was built like a plumber. But he could throw all day.

The Maine native spent his entire 13-year career in Boston and made a pair of All-Star teams, including one in 1979 as a starter. But Stanley rose to fame as a rubber-armed closer. In 1983, he tossed 168.1 of relief, a topped only by all-time. He owned the franchise saves record when he retired (132), and he came agonizingly close to ending the World Series jinx in 1986, but he got crossed up with catcher on a crucial in the 10th inning of Game 6 before allowing 's dribbler behind the first base bag to end it.

The Steamer was known for smashing beachballs with a rake and he wore his heart on his sleeve.

2. Dick Radatz The Monster was a fan favorite known for his imposing 6-foot-6 stature, his dominance of Hall of Famer , and his demonstrative celebration after each , massive arms thrust over his massive head. He was also one of the only shows in town during the fallow period between the near-misses of 1948 and 1949 and the Impossible Dream season of 1967.

Over his first three seasons before burning out, Radatz averaged 13 wins and 25 saves while posting a 2.17 ERA. He also struck out nearly 11 batters per nine innings, an unheard of rate for the era. He made two All- Star teams and set a single-season record for by a reliever (181) that still stands while throwing an overpowering that led to 12 strikeouts in 16 lifetime at-bats vs. Mantle.

Radatz settled in Easton after his career and hosted a talk show on WEEI until his death in 2005.

1. He arrived in 2005 declaring that he planned on breaking 's records and he left after the 2011 collapse to sign a $50 million contract with the Phillies, but if there's one thing Papelbon needn't worry about, it's his legacy in Boston.

He saved a franchise-record 219 games, and he didn't just put up empty numbers. Papelbon nearly lasted his entire career without giving up a run in the postseason, putting up zeroes in 2005, 2007, and 2008 before finally blowing a game against the Angels in the 2009 ALDS. He went 2-1 with a 1.00 ERA in 18 playoff appearances, and he was on the mound when the Red Sox closed out the Rockies in 2007. The 6- foot-5 right-hander may not have been quite as physically imposing as Radatz, but when he stared in for a sign, he did so with malice.

His alter ego, Cinco Ocho, was another story, Riverdancing in his underwear to celebrate the postseason and enjoying the good life.

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Welcome to the Red Sox, kid. Here’s your Zoom ID. Cleats come later.

Jen McCaffrey

While Major League Baseball is taking steps toward opening a 60-game season with spring training 2.0 beginning next week, remains in limbo.

The Red Sox announced the signings of 11 non-drafted free agents on Wednesday, but for now, that group has nowhere to go.

Typically, once players sign with the Red Sox they begin their professional careers in -level Gulf Coast League, if they’re coming out of high school, or in short-season Lowell, if they’re coming from college. But, of course, neither of those options are currently available.

In a baseball season that’s been unlike any other, a select group of top prospect minor leaguers, ones who are close contributing in the majors like , will likely be added to each team’s 60-player pool. That group will have the ability to keep working out at a satellite park (-A Pawtucket’s McCoy Stadium as of now) throughout the remainder of the season and will be on-call as needed by the Red Sox.

But what about the new guys, and the hundreds of other minor league players in the system?

There are still many moving parts, but MLB teams don’t know yet if they will be allowed to have formal in-person training or workouts for the rest of their minor leaguers. The original thought for the Red Sox was that JetBlue Park could be used for intrasquad games between the different minor league teams in a sort of extended spring training, but as with everything else, there’s no concrete plan for that now, and it seems less likely given the recent spike in Covid-19 outbreaks in Florida.

“We don’t know yet if there are going to be development opportunities for those guys later in the year,” chief baseball officer Chaim Bloom said on a conference call earlier this week. “I think the way that Major League Baseball was approaching this – which I think made sense – was that (the MLB schedule) was priority No. 1. We obviously had to figure this out first. I don’t think anybody has ruled out that possibility, but right now the players that will be working out at the team facilities with team instruction will be the players on the player pool.”

So in the absence of in-person training and workouts, many teams have taken to Zoom to try to provide at least some interaction and structure for their minor leaguers.

The Red Sox are among those teams. According to a source, the club is hosting Zoom orientations for new players joining the organization, in order to get them familiar with how things would operate in a normal year and to give them an idea about what to expect going forward. It’s a far cry from what they would be doing in person with their Rookie GCL team or with the Spinners, but it’s better than nothing for now.

For the existing minor leaguers in the organization who don’t make the 60-player pool cut — mostly those in Single-A Greenville, High-A Salem and -A Portland — the Red Sox have been hosting a variety of online workshops via Zoom on strength and conditioning instruction, mental skills sessions and conversations on baseball fundamentals.

The workshops are meant to supplement whatever work players can do on their own at home. The Red Sox hope they’ll be able to have some type of in-person instruction at some point this year or maybe even a version of the , but the current goal is to try to keep minor leaguers engaged, knowing they are losing a crucial year of development.

The 11 players signed by the Red Sox include eight pitchers, a catcher, and three . The best- known of the bunch may be Van Belle, who pitched at the University of Miami and was ranked by Baseball America as the No. 16 non-drafted free agent senior available following the five-round MLB draft earlier this month. In a normal year, that likely equates with him being a sixth-or seventh-round selection.

But as we are constantly reminded, this is no normal year.

CATCHER

Jose Garcia (Florida International University);

INFIELDERS

Cuba Bess (Grand Canyon University)

Jake MacKenzie (Fordham University)

PITCHERS

Merfy Andrew (St. Thomas University)

Jacinto Arredondo (University of Tampa)

Maceo Campbell (Longwood University)

Jordan DiValerio (St. Joseph’s University)

Graham Hoffman (University of South Florida)

Robert Kwiatkowski (Marshall University)

Cole Milam (Southern Illinois University Edwardsville)

Brian Van Belle (University of Miami).

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Baseball Avoided a Lost Season. But Bigger Threats May Lie Ahead.

Tyler Kepner

The tremors are over. When major league players stick their cleats into the dirt for training camp next week, the ground below them will be still. The invisible threat to their season — the coronavirus — is still out there, of course. But the game is coming back in an unprecedented form. It will be a 60-game dash to October, not the usual cross-country, 162-game slog.

“If you said in spring training: ‘We’re going to have every team tied for first on July 24,’ you’d be like, ‘Sign me up for that race,’” said , the former Mets general manager. “Basically, that’s what we have. We’re starting a week before the normal deadline and saying, ‘OK, here you go, guys, last 60 games, go get ’em!’ That has a chance to be really exciting.”

For fans, that may be the best way to approach the new season: Erase the recent past, embrace the next few months and, by all means, don’t look too far ahead.

After all, Commissioner Rob Manfred finally imposed the schedule — which begins on July 23 — on the players’ union this week after the sides had failed to reach a negotiated agreement over three months of unrealistic proposals and harsh public statements.

Manfred’s decision meant the league avoided the unseemliness of losing a season to economic squabbling amid a pandemic, but the unilateral resolution reflected much deeper problems for the sport. Few of those issues can be resolved without repairing a deep chasm between the union and ownership, a schism that could soon swallow up the sport.

“I’ve never seen anything like what we’ve experienced, in any baseball labor negotiation,” said Fred Claire, the general manager of the Dodgers from 1987 to 1998. “With the letters that went back and forth, with the language that was used, with the total display of lack of trust — it was terrible.

“We’ve got to learn from that, because there’s a big hurdle coming, and it can’t be denied.”

That hurdle is negotiations over a new collective bargaining agreement after the current one expires in December 2021. The current C.B.A. is a clear victory for the owners, who have managed to keep the average salary virtually stagnant — around $4.4 million — since it was ratified in December 2016, despite rising industry revenue.

That dynamic has increasingly loomed over the major leagues for the last few seasons. It explains why the union was wary of giving any ground — even amid a pandemic — and why many observers fear the end of the current C.B.A. could bring the first work stoppage since the strike that canceled the and devastated the sport’s momentum for years.

Manfred and his deputy, Dan Halem, have struggled to forge a productive relationship with , the executive director of the players’ union, and Bruce Meyer, his top negotiator who was hired in 2018.

Manfred, whose reputation suffered over his handling of the ’ cheating scandal this winter, further strained his credibility this month with contradictory tactics — guaranteeing a season on June 10 and threatening cancellation five days later. Clark fired back in a statement, saying the players were “disgusted.”

The root of the disagreement was a March deal, formed soon after the virus North America, in which the players agreed to take prorated salaries this season as long as they got service time for canceled games. Had they authorized further pay cuts, the owners would have agreed to a longer schedule.

When Manfred flew to Arizona last week to meet with Clark, a former All-Star , it produced yet another disagreement: Manfred announced that he and Clark had jointly developed the framework for a deal, but union officials insisted it was merely a proposal.

The players, who had initially wanted 114 games, responded with an offer of 70, which the league refused to consider. The players, in turn, roundly rejected Manfred’s final offer, a move that forced him to implement his schedule and sunk baseball’s hope for a lucrative expanded — which the union still holds as a bargaining chip.

The rejection also means that the union retains its right to file a grievance accusing M.L.B. of negotiating in bad faith.

The union’s hard-line stance irritated some current players, like the Reds’ Trevor Bauer, and some retirees, like the former pitcher Mike Stanton, the Yankees’ union representative during C.B.A. negotiations in 2002, when the sides narrowly avoided a strike.

“When I was in the room and I was a player, man, I was all in: ‘We’ve got to fight for everything, we’ve got to do what’s right not just for us, but for the players in the past and the future,’” Stanton said. “But I look at it differently now. I never really thought all that much about the other people — the stadium workers, the parking attendants, the concession-stand people. It was all about what was going on between the two sides and slugging it out.

“But this was a different situation, you know? This shouldn’t have been a C.B.A. negotiation. It turned into it, but it shouldn’t have been. And all the fans that I’ve talked with, that’s what ticked everybody off.”

How much should the game change?

The impact of those emotions will be harder to quantify than usual this season, because nearly every team will be prohibited from selling tickets, at least initially. M.L.B.’s average per-game attendance dropped for the fourth year in a row in 2019, to to 28,198.

But that figure is still higher than any season before 1993, and with so many more games to sell, M.L.B. — at 68.4 million fans last season — still dwarfs the N.F.L., N.B.A. and N.H.L. in overall attendance. The fans are clearly out there: regional sports networks that broadcast local games ranked No. 1 in prime time cable ratings in nearly every market last season.

This quickie season may appeal as a novelty — with each game counting 2.7 times more than normal — but it will hardly resemble the way fans usually consume the game.

“Baseball takes a lot of time, and I say that in a positive sense,” said Andy Dolich, a sports consultant who has worked in the front offices of teams in M.L.B., the N.F.L. and the N.B.A. “The season, the number of games, the games itself — it’s a soap opera: ‘We’re in it, we’re out of it, we just won 10, we just lost three.’ It is what has attracted people for such a long time.”

But fans’ tastes are changing, Dolich warned, and baseball has work to do to stabilize its popularity in the future. While M.L.B. said that its AtBat app increased in use by 18 percent from 2018 to 2019, baseball’s audience is notorious for skewing older than the other major U.S. team sports.

The Sports Business Journal reported in 2017 that the average age of an M.L.B. viewer was 57 years old — 15 years older than the average N.B.A. viewer. And the popularity of e-sports, especially among younger fans, has grown substantially since then.

“With the absolute tidal wave of gaming and digital devices and instantaneous decision-making, baseball has not stayed current,” Dolich said.

The league added a wild-card play-in game in 2012, and expanded instant replay two years later, and has continually tweaked the format of the , the appetizer for its marquee summer event, the All-Star Game.

But there is only so much baseball can do to change, because of the sport’s built-in structural quirks. The best hitters still come to bat only four or five times per game. Top starting pitchers appear in fewer than 35 games per season. There is no game clock.

Many feel that straying from the game’s essence would not only be inauthentic, but impractical.

“I don’t believe you make baseball fans by fundamentally changing the game,” said the broadcaster Brian Anderson, who also calls N.B.A., N.C.A.A. and the PGA for . “The experience of the ballpark and the community, the personality of the players, the team concept and strategy are all things we should be mining from an entertainment perspective.

“If they’re going to really change the game, they’d have to blow it up — seven innings, ties, three balls for a walk, two strikes for a . I don’t want to see that.”

Indeed, if baseball does not tread carefully as it charts a new course, it risks alienating its most loyal customers. This season will include several rule changes: every pitcher must face at least three batters (or finish an inning); the will be used in both leagues; and will begin with a runner on second base, to reduce the likelihood of marathon games.

The latter two measures are intended to protect players’ health for this season only, but they could become fixtures that might unsettle longtime followers.

“I’m certainly classified as a traditionalist, but when you start talking about a pitcher needing to face three hitters or starting an inning with a man on second, I don’t know what game you’re talking about — and I have no interest in that game,” said Claire, 84. “What concerns me is that I don’t want to see an overreaction to all of this.”

A more appealing innovation that players had endorsed was also tabled: broadcast enhancements that would have given fans a closer look at players’ personalities. The best baseball players do not resonate nationally like their counterparts in the N.F.L. and the N.B.A., and creating crossover stars outside of local markets remains a chronic problem.

“They need to continue to market the high-profile players, and they need better cooperation with those guys to take advantage of their social media platform,” said Duquette, now an analyst for SiriusXM and SNY. “It’s underutilized on both sides.”

Baseball did get extensive national publicity in the months before the pandemic — for the Astros’ cheating scandal, in which they used an illegal sign-stealing scheme on their way to winning the . Manfred was roundly criticized for disciplining no players, but he suspended Manager A.J. Hinch and General Manager Jeff Luhnow, who were then fired by the Astros’ owner, .

Luhnow did not orchestrate the cheating, but some viewed his downfall as an indictment of the team’s analytically driven culture that has spread throughout the game. With so many teams relying heavily on data and video for any marginal advantage, perhaps it was inevitable that some would be tacitly encouraged to cross ethical boundaries.

“I think that’s true,” chief baseball officer Derek Falvey said this spring, when asked about that theory. “We’re all competitive at heart and looking for an edge, I guess. Maybe I’m naïve; I try and be who I am with our group, and they’re going to interpret it how they want.”

As teams have increasingly interpreted the numbers to find bargains and avoid costly mistakes, that has undercut the earning power of veterans; their production, in theory, could be replaced by younger, cheaper players.

That trend dismays many players, though most have responded to the analytics wave by giving executives what they want: power pitchers who hunt for strikeouts and disciplined hitters who wait for pitches to drive in the air.

It has had a clear effect on the game itself. M.L.B. set a record for home runs last year — but also for pitches per game. The average number of pitches per has risen in each of the last four seasons, to 3.93 last year, the most of the 21 seasons tracked by baseball-reference.com.

Accordingly, games lasted an average of 3 hours 10 minutes in 2019, the longest ever.

“They have to do something on the pace of the game,” Duquette said. “It’s absurd. We’re going in the wrong direction, and all of the data suggests that the new fan base talks about how the game is too long.”

Manfred has talked for years about that topic, but has mostly made only minor adjustments; the three- batter-minimum rule, for example, is designed to reduce the many pitching changes that slow down games. Manfred also had the authority to implement a clock before last season, but backed off when players resisted.

This month, though, Manfred had a much more critical decision that involved defying the players. When they dared him to implement a 60-game season over their objections, he did. The potential for a legal fight, a depressed free agent market and another contentious labor negotiation all loom large in the distance.

But for now, almost in spite of itself, baseball is back. Enjoy it while it lasts.