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On players angry at Rob Manfred
Last time around, we learned that the meeting between the Phillies and MLB commissioner Rob Manfred got “heated,” with Nick Castellanos explaining that things were “passionate” enough that a version of, “in that case, you can leave” was uttered. It turns out that the player uttering it was Bryce Harper, and that what he actually said was… well, Jeff Passan had it:
Quiet for the majority of the meeting, Harper, sitting in a chair and holding a bat, eventually grew frustrated and said if MLB were to propose a cap and hold firm to it, players “are not scared to lose 162 games,” sources from the meeting told ESPN. Harper stood up, walked toward the middle of the room, faced Manfred and said: “If you want to speak about that, you can get the f— out of our clubhouse.”
Now that’s comforting. From a labor perspective, I mean. Losing 162 games isn’t great, but someone as significant as Harper standing up to the commissioner himself to tell him that a cap is a non-starter, lose-lose situation is an excellent sign. It means that there are players who feel strongly enough about this out there to counter whatever questions arise in the minds of others when Manfred uses some truth to obscure some lies regarding a cap. And hey, I’m not the only one who thinks so. Max Scherzer also approves:
“I’m just glad to hear guys are willing to stick up and stand up for each other,” Scherzer said of Harper, his former teammate for four seasons with the Washington Nationals. “These are conscientious issues, these are work stoppage issues, so you are going to see passion from everybody. It’s good to see the passion from all the players across the league.”
Scherzer told the Athletic that he looks forwarding to meeting with Manfred himself, and that he has “a lot of questions for him.” Frankly I would never want to have Max Scherzer say that about me, and I imagine anything we’d talk about we’d be on the same side on. Good luck with that one, Rob.
Hopefully Scherzer, 41, sticks around through at least next season. The Players Association could use someone like him around for the next round of bargaining, especially given how intense things will be — he was a member of the MLBPA subcommittee that voted against the current CBA for not going far enough in the players’ favor, and someone who would feel that way about it is going to need to have their voice heard as the new world, as it were, struggles to be born.
An MLB first
Jen Pawol will become the first woman umpire in a regular season MLB game on Saturday, when she works the series between the Marlins and Braves. Her promotion from the minors was announced earlier this week, and while a surprise given MLB’s history with woman umps — nearly nonexistent — it also had been almost a given for a bit that she’d make her way to the majors eventually. She’s been on the list of umps to be called up since 2024, and shot through the ranks in the minors before then, with her career beginning in 2016 in the Gulf Coast League, and Pawol making her way to Triple-A in 2023, including serving as the home plate ump in the championship game between the International and Pacific Coast leagues that year.
She was also an umpire in spring training the past two seasons, so the groundwork had been laid. It’s an overdue and monumental achievement for MLB, and for all of the grief I give the league — it’s deserved — between this and their investment in Athletes Unlimited earlier this year, they seem to be focused on woman in a way they haven’t been since uh… well, this is a first, isn’t it?
Which does not mean their work is done with. That there are no woman in the game and no pathways for them to make it even if it is allowed remains an issue, especially with MLB not having any kind of women-focused baseball alternative under their umbrella: softball is softball, it’s a different sport! Still, any progress is significant here given the history, so, make note of it.
The latest Braves’ finances update
The Braves, given they are owned by Liberty Media, have to reveal their financials more honestly than the rest of the league’s owners. Not fully honestly, of course, because “being owned by a huge corporation who has to report their earnings” is not the same thing as “truthful” by any stretch of the imagination, but you at least get a semblance of how things are going, since half-truths told to the public vs. half-truths told to investors are very different things. You can get in trouble for one of them, and it’s not the one that involves telling you or I what’s going on with your business.
The Braves spoke on their finances this week, and the Athletic wrote up the findings. Here’s the gist of it: they’re doing well enough that despite all the money they’re spending — the Braves opened the season ranked eighth in payroll — they had more they could have spent at the deadline. They didn’t for two reasons: because they’re having a terrible year, so why bother to upgrade, and in the shopping they did do to find deals to help them next year, they couldn’t find anything reasonable that worked for them.
Team chairman Terry McGuirk said that, regarding the payroll, he could see the Braves “continuing to maybe move up that ladder.” He also spoke of the organization being the model for other franchises, which is true, but the problem, of course, is that the other franchises that want mixed-use development revenue to go with their baseball revenues don’t want to necessarily reinvest those funds back into the team. And they don’t have to report on their finances with the same degree of truthfulness as the Braves, either. Still, it’s encouraging to see even some chatter about Atlanta spending beyond where they are — we’ll see if they actually do invest in improving the team for 2026 with the additional $37 million they’ve produced this year, though.
What’s going on with the Sun?
The WNBA’s Connecticut Sun appear to be on their way to being sold and relocated, but to whom and to where are the unanswered questions. Here’s the short version of it: Celtics’ minority owner Steve Pagliuca agreed to buy the team for a record $325 million, and also promised to invest $100 million into a practice facility — the Sun are one of the only teams without one at present, and there is not one forthcoming from their current owners, either.
The WNBA has not agreed to this sale, nor do they appear willing to, given Pagliuca wants to move the team from Connecticut to Boston, and have them play in TD Garden, home of the NBA’s Celtics. It’s not the moving that’s the issue, either: it’s that Boston didn’t apply to be an expansion city, so they aren’t on The List. Other cities are on the list. The WNBA reportedly isn’t willing to listen on another bid for the Sun, either, that would move the team to Hartford — which is still in Connecticut — because Hartford is also not on the list.
What gives? Good question, and one that both myself and Neil deMause have been ruminating on for a few days now. As deMause put it:
Hartford and Boston didn’t bid for an expansion franchise for obvious reasons: New England already has an WNBA team, which is the Sun. (It’s about a 45-minute drive from Uncasville to Hartford; Boston is more like an hour and a half.) Even calling a move from Mohegan Sun to Hartford a “relocation” feels like a stretch: When the New York Liberty moved from Madison Square Garden to White Plains and then to Brooklyn those were arguably more significant moves, but nobody at the league suggested that the team be put up for bid to move to Austin or Nashville.
I understand Connecticut fans in Connecticut might not see it as New England’s team, as they are in the state hosting it, have residual anger over the Hartford Whalers relocating to Carolina decades ago, and are also the New England state that is the least New England, in the sense that they’re wedged in between the rest of the region and New York in a way that can also impact their sports allegiances. And Connecticut has a rich basketball history, especially on the women’s side, given that the UConn Huskies have won more titles than anyone else in the NCAA, and are a perpetual presence in March Madness and the Final Four. They are New England’s team, though: that’s how these things work, unless you’d like to suggest that the Red Sox, Celtics, and Bruins are only for Massachusetts, and that it takes putting “New England” in front of the team name to make them eligible for cheering from Vermont, Rhode Island, and so on.
So in that sense, relocating to Boston — as much as it is terrible for fans in Connecticut — is better than having the Sun moved to Houston or whatever, since fans in Connecticut could still drive to Boston to see the team, in the same way fans in Boston (or in Maine, hello), drive to Connecticut to see them now. You can choose the whole “I’d rather die than go to Boston to watch my team” thing, and that’s fine. A little short on rationality, but this is sports we’re talking about, and emotional responses are perfectly acceptable and understandable. But speaking as someone who is not in Boston and does want to still be able to see Sun games in person, rather than having to wait until 2032 or whatever for Boston’s turn on the list to come up, well. If we’re down to relocation as the only option here, then the WNBA’s plan is way off base.
Now, if the Sun can be sold to someone who will rent the arena from the current owners, the Mohegan tribe, and keep them in Uncasville? Perfect solution, I’ll back off any acceptance of relocation. That doesn’t seem to be the way the wind is blowing, though, and the WNBA seems hyper-focused on scratching another expansion city off the list via relocation, which is going to cause more problems than it solves on a fan level.
It’s not like fans in Seattle were actively rooting against the Oklahoma City Thunder in the NBA Finals this year or anything. No residual anger there or a lingering sense of betrayal. And fans in Connecticut definitely aren’t still holding on to the idea of the Whalers, either. Anyway, we’ll close with the second sarcastic “Good luck!” of the column.
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