BASEBALL HAS NO FUTURE WHEN BRYCE HARPER TELLS MANFRED: “GET THE F— OUT”
The commissioner was told off by the Philadelphia superstar, who has no interest in ownership's salary-cap demands and said players “are not scared to lose 162 games” during the fraught 2027 season
In about 16 months, after 11:59 p.m. ET on Dec. 1, Major League Baseball will not exist in North America. An inoperable 2027 season will be laid to shame, when positive fans can find uplifting athletic competitions to follow. Watch the NFL. Watch college football. Watch the NBA. Watch the WNBA. Watch soccer or “football,” as President Trump suggests. Watch Coldplay and affair-in-the-suite antics.
Anyone who thinks Rob Manfred can fix what already counts as irreversible chaos — the owners are demanding a salary cap, while players prefer to be temple-pummeled by 103-mph fastballs from Jacob Misiorowski — should have followed the commissioner into the clubhouse of the Philadelphia Phillies. He is visiting all 30 teams and inevitably discusses the sport’s contentious economics, which makes sense when the collective bargaining agreement expires after next season. Manfred tried this with a group that will be paid more than $300 million this year, with luxury taxes, and is contending for a championship behind free-spending owner John Middleton.
He was not prepared for what thrashed him.
“If you want to speak about that, you can get the f— out of our clubhouse,” said Bryce Harper, the leader of the Phillies, who is in the middle of a $330-million deal for 13 seasons and wants a contract extension. He also told Manfred that players “are not scared to lose 162 games” in the fraught 2027 season, a fate that might bury the game.
The commissioner was told to get the f— out by a superstar player. This should send an early message to owners who think they can bully a union that always wins when the NFL Players Association is losing. Manfred, according to ESPN’s Jeff Passan, responded that he was “not going to get the f— out of here.” Never mind that the Phillies are trying to win the National League East and reach the World Series for the second time in four seasons. He had a major topic to discuss.
“It was pretty intense, definitely passionate,” Nick Castellanos told ESPN. “Both of 'em. The commissioner giving it back to Bryce, and Bryce giving it back to the commissioner. That's Harp. He's been doing this since he was 15 years old. It's just another day. I wasn't surprised.”
This is a day when baseball is in jeopardy. This season and another one must be played, but across the board, both sides are taking aim already. It reminds me of when Justin Turner ripped Manfred for referring to the Series trophy as “a piece of metal,” when he refused to strip the Houston Astros of a title after a sign-stealing scandal. Turner didn’t care about respecting the boss. Harper doesn’t care about respecting the boss.
Manfred must convince the players that the game, with minimal broadcasting support, might fall apart without a salary cap. “Institutional collusion,” is how Tony Clark, head of the MLB Players Association, describes the tack of the owners. Attendance booms, in places such as Los Angeles and two New York ballparks and — Philadelphia. But it also continues to bust when the Athletics play in West Sacramento, the Rays play in a minor-league park in Tampa, and the Marlins, White Sox and Pirates struggle with crowds under 20,000 a game. The owners have wanted a salary cap for decades, with Jerry Reinsdorf teaming with commissioner Bud Selig and killing the Series in 1994.
The players won. They will win again. And maybe then, in 2028, the rotten franchises will be sold or contracted. There is a reason Reinsdorf, going on 90, continues to control the Sox until at least 2029 — if not until 2034, when he’d be 98. He doesn’t want to sell to Justin Ishbia, or anyone else, until he has a salary cap. He has ruined the franchise. He doesn’t have nearly enough fans, in a Cubs market, to continue as a second team in a city that is struggling. He sticks around to win a stupid war because he is stupid.
“Rob seems to be in a pretty desperate place on how important it is to get a salary cap, because he's floating the word ‘lockout’ in advance of our collective bargaining agreement (expiration),” Castellanos said. "That's nothing to throw around. That's the same thing as me saying in a marriage, ‘I think divorce is a possibility. It's probably going to happen.’ You don't just say those things.”
Unless it happens.
Recently, Manfred recruited retired players to teach today’s players about the benefits of a salary cap. Among them: CC Sabathia, who was inducted Sunday into the Hall of Fame. Of course, CC thinks a cap is great when he sees his plaque. All the current players notice are franchises rising in value and revenue, if not as fast as the blurry NFL and skyrocketing NBA. They see great owners, such as Middleton and Mark Walter in Los Angeles, and they see terrible owners such as Reinsdorf, who is one of two owners never to pay $100 million to a player. The Athletics are the other team, but owner John Fisher has a boatload of kids forcing upcoming paydays in Las Vegas. Imagine telling Nick Kurtz someday that he is not worth $100 million, though he just had 19 total bases, four home runs, eight RBIs, six runs and six hits in one game.
If that happened in Chicago, Reinsdorf would trade him. What a stinking wretch.
As it stands, MLB is quick to leak gambling news. Remember, Manfred is the one who cut deals with sportsbooks to increase revenues. Yet here he is, reporting that another Cleveland pitcher — closer Emmanuel Clase — is on leave during an investigation. He joins Luis Ortiz, whose leave has been extended to Aug. 31. How many Guardians are throwing ballgames? Why would a fan show up?
“I’m not happy. This stinks,” manager Stephen Vogt said. "It's a different part of our game now because it's legal. Two of our guys are being investigated, and it hurts. It's an unfortunate situation.”
It’s unfortunate enough that Manfred should be touring clubhouses about gambling. Nah. Sixteen months in advance, he is immersed in the same, old salary cap. Every time he appears in a clubhouse, a star player should tell him to “get the f— out.”
That’s what everyone will tell him on Dec. 1 of next year.
###
Jay Mariotti, called “without question the most impacting Chicago sportswriter of the past quarter-century,’’ writes general sports columns for Substack while appearing on some of the 1,678,498 podcasts and shows in production today. He is an accomplished columnist, TV panelist and talk/podcast host. Living in Los Angeles, he gravitated by osmosis to film projects.