[ad_1]
JUPITER, Fla. — You want to see die-hards?
Looking for the finest display ever of unconditional love?
Come on down to the unsubtly named Roger Dean Chevrolet Stadium, where Major League Baseball’s future is currently being debated and decided. Where roughly 15 media members stand outside the ballpark’s gates — we, too, are locked out — and find ourselves joined by about 20 folks who aren’t here out of profession, but rather out of passion.
“Oh, yeah. I love baseball,” Richie Nestro, 75, a retired Yonkers firefighter who winters down here while still owning a home in Westchester, said on Wednesday. “I’ve been a Yankees fan since [Mickey] Mantle, but it was easier back then because you only had 16 teams.”
It was easier back then for fans, of course, who didn’t need to worry about collective bargaining agreements, competitive-balance taxes or what percentage of the two-to-three-year service-time class would be eligible for arbitration. This tiny sidewalk sample, however, sided more with the players, whose autographs they sought as they entered and exited the premises. New Met Max Scherzer rewarded a few folks on Tuesday, as did Players Association executive director (and longtime big-league first baseman) Tony Clark.
“I blame the owners,” said Justin Pecoriello, 22, a Mets fan from Westport, Conn. who is a senior at the University of Central Florida. “They’ve got enough.”
“I was a union rep for the fire department,” Nestro said, “so I’m pro-union.”
“[Rob] Manfred. I blame him for everything,” said Hayden Weintraub, a 13-year-old Mets fan who lives in Flushing. “He’s just the easiest person to pin on everything.”
Added his father, Evan Weintraub, of Manfred: “I mean, he’s almost as bad as Putin.”
“Yeah,” concluded Gail Weintraub, Evan’s mother and Hayden’s grandmother, “but nobody will die from this.”
Nonetheless, there is an impact. “It sucks,” said Pecoriello, who not only drove the two-plus hours from school to here, but stopped in Port St. Lucie on the way to purchase a baseball for potential autographs. “Especially being in Florida, my grandparents live in West Palm. It’s kind of our thing to go to spring training.”
“It makes me sad,” Gail Weintraub said. “It just makes me sad that they can’t come to an agreement when there were so many millions of people that really depend on baseball to lift their spirits. Especially with COVID. …You would think that they would learn from the COVID season what life without baseball is. And I just wish that they would not be so stubborn.”
Her frustration notwithstanding, Gail Weintraub said, she already has secured her 2022 Mets season tickets for, if and when this mess gets resolved. Pecoriello — who created the Twitter account @MetsSpongebob, combining his two joys in highly entertaining fashion — conceded he’d continue to follow the sport ardently, “but I think the casual fan might turn them away.”
“I get annoyed by both sides, because I know they both have the pluses and the minuses. I just want to watch it,” said Grayson Eleftheriou, 23, an aspiring pro golfer. “Even though I complain, I’m still gonna watch it.”
Eleftheriou, who grew up a Dodgers fan in Southern California and then moved down here in 2014, occupies his own “die-hard” category. Unlike the other fans who camp out by the players’ parking lost in search of personal interaction with stars like Scherzer, Gerrit Cole and Francisco Lindor, Eleftheriou (it’s Greek) mostly hangs out with the media folks as we monitor the comings and goings of MLB’s attorneys and owners so we can document how long the two sides meet, caucus and then meet again. He hits the links in the morning and then joins us for the early-afternoon start of talks.
“I want to be here when it happens, if it’s going to happen,” he said, “it” being a completed deal. “I’m going to read everybody’s articles, anyway, all day. Might as well see it happen live.”
The players and owners had these supporters at hello and won’t get a goodbye, no matter how stupid things get. It sure would be nice, though, to see the enthusiasts get their way already and let them into the ballpark to see major-league ballgames.
[ad_2]