Major League Baseball is heading for collective bargaining oblivion, and there is going to be a work stoppage, and we could miss games and...
Wait, what? They're done?
They struck a new deal before the old one expired?
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There was minimal acrimony?
This is still possible?
Oh...well...that's cool. Uh, wanna talk about it?
Major League Baseball announced that its players and owners came to a settlement Tuesday afternoon on a new collective bargaining agreement that will expand the league's playoff format to include two extra wild card qualifiers and drug program to include blood testing.
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The expanded playoff will see the two wild card teams in each league meet in a one-game playoff immediately following the end of the regular season, with the winners moving on to the division series. Unlike what was speculated earlier in the week, there has been no additional information released regarding the stripping of those rules that currently prohibit division rivals from meeting in the LDS.
As for the drug program, the deal certifies the MLB as the very first North American sporting league to authorize blood testing so as to check for HGH. Violations are expected to be met with the same suspension scale as for other performance-enhancing drugs (50 games for the first failed test, etc...).
No timetable has been announced for when the blood tests will begin nor when the new playoff format will take effect. Commissioner Bud Selig remains nonetheless hopeful that fans will be watching a new version of the Wild Card race in the Fall of 2012. Other updates to the agreement allegedly include an expanded use of replay and some other ancillary notes that very few of you will actually care about.
One parting thought, though it's sort of generally accepted that the aforementioned Selig is somewhat of a (insert your preferred insult of choice here), this deal now guarantees 21-consecutive years of labor peace for baseball, dating back to the 94-95 strike. After all the issues throughout the 70s, 80s and 90s, if someone would have told you in 1995 that there would not be a single missed event in baseball as a result of a labor dispute over the next 21 years, would you have believed it?
Thoughts on the extra wild card? Like it? Don't like it? Wish guys were still on steroids? Just happy some rich dudes got together and decided to just be all rich together and not have to see who could piss farther into a headwind?
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