The Dodgers winning the World Series to complete the pandemic-shortened MLB season "capped an arduous achievement for baseball," but now "comes an even taller task: doing it all over again in 2021 with a much longer season and continued uncertainty surrounding the virus," according to James Wagner of the N.Y. TIMES. MLBPA Exec Dir Tony Clark said, "There's a lot that we'll need to work out. There's a lot of contingencies that we're going to have to plan for because there's no one at the moment that knows what '21 is going to look like." Before the World Series ended, Clark said that the union "began what he called an informal dialogue with MLB about next season." Not only are there "baseball matters to sort out," but "health and economic ones, too." For now, MLB and the MLBPA "have a foundation for the 2021 season." Any changes, like those made to the '20 season amid a national emergency, are "subject to discussions between both sides." MLB Deputy Commissioner Dan Halem said that everything about a longer season is "more difficult." So many things "had to go right, from testing deliveries to individual responsibility, to pull off the 60-game regular season." Wagner: "Now multiply that by nearly three" (N.Y. TIMES, 11/6).
TOUGH ROAD AHEAD? YAHOO SPORTS' Tim Brown wrote, "The fight is ahead." The union "has the right to grieve the terms by which the past season was played, for financial damages allegedly suffered by players and by claiming the owners had negotiated in bad faith." The league "has the right to defend itself and will." The owners "did not make the sort of money they ordinarily do" and "neither did the players." The relationship between the MLBPA and MLB is "in tatters," and nobody "can know what tomorrow will bear" (SPORTS.YAHOO.com, 11/5).
