"Lots of people want to be owners and lots of people don't realize how hard it is to be an owner. I keep telling people, it's not as easy as I thought," he said.

"The owners care more about winning than making money. They're not against making money. Of course, they don't want to lose money. The obsession with winning and beating your competitors is really what drives these people who own these teams. There's nothing as satisfying as winning a championship."

On 10/16/2026 at 7:04 PM, Chick Mercedes said:

Online I would imagine is generally on the side of labor yes. In years past. I don’t know if the flow of online political leaning is gaining any more of the *ahem* more supply side people nowadays

When the choice is siding with JR or the players, it's an easy choice.

But, still they are both shitting on the fans.

The lockout will end on like March 1st and you're going to see a crazy run in the first few days, similar to when NBA FA opens I'd imagine. Some guys will be left hanging (and teams) and the Sox will have to be prepared for a billion scenarios. Not going to be easy, luckily we don't have any real core players to re sign, unless you think Fedde or Grich or Newsome is a core guy, I don't. I think Grich is going to get overpaid and go back to just being like a 1 WAR player. Fedde I'd welcome back, same with Newsome, but they aren't core guys.

20 minutes ago, chitownsportsfan said:

The lockout will end on like March 1st and you're going to see a crazy run in the first few days, similar to when NBA FA opens I'd imagine. Some guys will be left hanging (and teams) and the Sox will have to be prepared for a billion scenarios. Not going to be easy, luckily we don't have any real core players to re sign, unless you think Fedde or Grich or Newsome is a core guy, I don't. I think Grich is going to get overpaid and go back to just being like a 1 WAR player. Fedde I'd welcome back, same with Newsome, but they aren't core guys.

That would be an interesting poll. I am thinking April 5th with loss of games.

12 minutes ago, Texsox said:

That would be an interesting poll. I am thinking April 5th with loss of games.

Only reason I think it will be March 1st or so is because these greedy POS won't want the revenue loss of cancelled games. Doesn't matter how much it will screw over the players' schedules.

Memorial Day weekend when the 60 game clauses in the national TV deals automatically kick in and the owners lose negotiating power regarding their desire to lock in new deals.

12 minutes ago, chitownsportsfan said:

Only reason I think it will be March 1st or so is because these greedy POS won't want the revenue loss of cancelled games. Doesn't matter how much it will screw over the players' schedules.

The last one ended on 3/10 and they pushed back opening day. Greedy players won't allow it to end earlier. They don't care about fans who schedule vacations around spring training and opening day. Both sides have equal respect for the fans who make this possible. And those same fans just decided which side's s%*# smells better.

22 minutes ago, chitownsportsfan said:

Only reason I think it will be March 1st or so is because these greedy POS won't want the revenue loss of cancelled games. Doesn't matter how much it will screw over the players' schedules.

It ended March 10th last time and they missed no games

Owners have already calculated labor cost certainly of a cap gets them each an additional $800 million boost in franchise variation...

Is that a position the majority of baseball fans are going to be sympathetic towards?

Maybe to the 20-22% of US households 50+ that have acculumulated net worths of $1-3 million over the last decade plus.

Families under 35/40 or so are going to hate it...just like hearing there's going to be so much abundance due to AI in the future that you won't need to save or even work and you can pursue the best UBI version of yourself as a hobby lol.

https://www.tradingview.com/symbols/EURONEXT-VWRL/?timeframe=120M

For a decade, this ETF is close to doubling that ROI that "poor" MLB owners are getting.

NFL and NBA owners both at 300-350% jumps in valuations.

Greed is good???

Edited Friday at 08:51 PM2 days by caulfield12

The two sides are much more dug in on their issues right now than last time. I don’t see the early March end date of last time to be a good indicator. I think the earliest this lockout ends is April but probably will go much later than that.

If one of the sides caves on the salary cap issue before then, I’ll be very surprised.

3 hours ago, Bob Sacamano said:

It ended March 10th last time and they missed no games

Yea that's about the latest they can go without pushing the WS back, and they don't like doing that either.

JR being duped by the owners into being the frontman for the '94-95 strike should be a studied industry standard like The Hawthorne Studies is to productivity or Pavlov is to classical conditioning.

What an idiot.

8 minutes ago, Falstaff said:

JR being duped by the owners into being the frontman for the '94-95 strike should be a studied industry standard like The Hawthorne Studies is to productivity or Pavlov is to classical conditioning.

What an idiot.

I'm convinced that 94 team would have won the World Series that year. Ironic that JR was the front man for that strike.

1 hour ago, Falstaff said:

JR being duped by the owners into being the frontman for the '94-95 strike should be a studied industry standard like The Hawthorne Studies is to productivity or Pavlov is to classical conditioning.

What an idiot.

Duped? What makes you think it hasn't been his top goal for decades to break the union? He whines about the baseball pay structure all of the time. Far from duped, I'd bet Jerry volunteered as tribute for this job.

1 hour ago, southsider2k5 said:

Duped? What makes you think it hasn't been his top goal for decades to break the union? He whines about the baseball pay structure all of the time. Far from duped, I'd bet Jerry volunteered as tribute for this job.

Yeah I agree. I don’t think he was duped whatsoever. He just put his priorities on the table for everyone to see.

1 hour ago, Lukakke Appling said:

Yeah I agree. I don’t think he was duped whatsoever. He just put his priorities on the table for everyone to see.

Ironic that he stands to make another $600 million having very little now personally to do with these labor negotiations...if they do get that salary cap imposed (eventually).

Edited 5 hours ago5 hr by caulfield12

4 hours ago, Falstaff said:

JR being duped by the owners into being the frontman for the '94-95 strike should be a studied industry standard like The Hawthorne Studies is to productivity or Pavlov is to classical conditioning.

What an idiot.

I'm guessing you studied psychology.

3 hours ago, southsider2k5 said:

Duped? What makes you think it hasn't been his top goal for decades to break the union? He whines about the baseball pay structure all of the time. Far from duped, I'd bet Jerry volunteered as tribute for this job.

I believe every step was calculated and planned. I could easy see the owners agreeing that a team owner with a serious chance to win a World Series after such a drought was the perfect front man. The owner with the most to lose had to be the face.

Whether he volunteered or was voluntold may never be known.

2 hours ago, Texsox said:

I believe every step was calculated and planned. I could easy see the owners agreeing that a team owner with a serious chance to win a World Series after such a drought was the perfect front man. The owner with the most to lose had to be the face.

Whether he volunteered or was voluntold may never be known.

He was definitely closest to Selig at that time...

https://www.chicagotribune.com/1995/08/20/reinsdorf-to-blame/

"OK. Since last Aug. 12, the Sox have traded away Jack McDowell’s $5 million salary; failed to re-sign Julio Franco and Darrin Jackson, both of whom had hefty salaries in 1994; declined to pursue any legitimate and therefore costly talent on the free-agent market (compare Cleveland’s rather different approach to the ’95 season); traded away Jim Abbott’s $3 million salary; and tried desperately to trade away Robin Ventura’s $5 million salary."

Interesting thing is that he was also quoted in August 1994 as coming off push for a resolution without a cap.

Edited 2 hours ago2 hr by caulfield12