Manfred Is A Tone-Deaf Embarrassment Who Decided To Shit All Over An Exciting World Series By Whining About Money And Hoping Fans (Many Of Whom Are Now Unemployed And In Poverty During An Out-Of-Control Pandemic) Will Feel Sorry For Billionaires

Craig Calcaterra despises commissioner Rob Manfred far more eloquently than I do, so . . .

Game 6 is tonight, not that the Commissioner of Friggin' Baseball is all that interested in hyping it up. He'd much rather talk about money because, well, money. . . .

Yesterday was the final off-day of the baseball season, and there was a lot to think about and discuss. . . . So of course Rob Manfred decided to shove all of that aside in an effort to make the headlines all about money.

Specifically, he gave an interview to Sportico in which he claimed that the league's owners have gone $8.3 billion in debt and will post nearly $3 billion in operational losses due to the pandemic. He said, "We are going to be at historic high levels of debt. And it's going to be difficult for the industry to weather another year where we don't have fans in the ballpark and have other limitations on how much we can't play and how we can play."

Which is to say, he shit all over the World Series in the interest of advancing his and the owners' financial agenda. Think about how horrible a leader and ambassador of the game Rob Manfred is that he chose to willingly steal the spotlight away from Clayton Kersahw, Randy Arozarena, Cody Bellinger, Blake Snell, Walker Buehler, Manual Margot and all of the other great players we've been watching for the last week and, instead, decided to make the financial woes of 30 billionaires the story of the day.

I realize how important it is for Manfred to get out in front of the bad press he and the owners he leads are getting for laying off hundreds of low-paid front office workers . . . but you'd think that could wait even a couple of days until we're actually in the offseason . . .

The man is absolutely tone deaf. He either does not understand why people watch baseball or he simply does not care. There is no other explanation for him giving that interview now. What an absolute embarrassment that was. What an absolute embarrassment he is for the game. . . .

So, since Manfred inserted it into the news cycle, let’s talk about the merits of all of that. . . .

Evan Drellich of The Athletic has an overarching story about the hundreds and hundreds of layoffs being made by big league clubs. The scope is big and continues to grow . . .

No one disputes that there have been substantial losses due to the pandemic. . . . Is Manfred's claim of nearly $3 billion correct, though? I have no idea, but I doubt it.

Neither Manfred, his predecessors, nor any owners outside of the publicly-owned Atlanta [team] have ever shown the public their books to prove the massive losses they claim to have suffered (and it's a pretty common claim throughout history). . . . They have zero credibility when it comes to any specific numbers they cite and no news outlet that runs them uncritically or without noting that they are unsubstantiated should be taken seriously . . .

Amy Coney Barrett was confirmed. Which means that Republican presidents have now appointed 15 of the last 19 Supreme Court justices. This despite Republicans having lost the popular vote in six of the last seven presidential elections. In case you want to know how well democracy is working.