Standing Up to the Boss
By 
Major League Baseball commissioner Rob Manfred is pushing a massive line of anti-union bullshit, arguing to players that they are losing money by not agreeing to a salary cap. This is obviously transparent garbage. Why would the players agree to this? And how stupid does he think they are? The players are not having it. Bryce Harper, being a likely future Hall of Famer, has the clout to tell Manfred to go fuck himself to his face.
Philadelphia Phillies star Bryce Harper stood nose to nose with Rob Manfred during a meeting between the Major League Baseball commissioner and the team last week, telling him to “get the f— out of our clubhouse” if Manfred wanted to talk about the potential implementation of a salary cap, sources told ESPN on Monday.
The confrontation came in a meeting — one of the 30 that Manfred conducts annually in an effort to improve his relations with every team’s players — that lasted more than an hour. Though Manfred never explicitly said the words “salary cap,” sources said the discussion about the game’s economics raised the ire of Harper, one of MLB’s most influential players and a two-time National League MVP.
Quiet for the majority of the meeting, Harper, sitting in a chair and holding a bat, eventually grew frustrated and said if MLB were to propose a cap and hold firm to it, players “are not scared to lose 162 games,” sources from the meeting told ESPN. Harper stood up, walked toward the middle of the room, faced Manfred and said: “If you want to speak about that, you can get the f— out of our clubhouse.”
Manfred, sources said, responded that he was “not going to get the f— out of here,” saying it was important to talk about threats to MLB’s business and ways to grow the game.
After Philadelphia Phillies star Bryce Harper got in the face of Major League Baseball commissioner Rob Manfred during a heated meeting last week, Mark DeRosa, a former big leaguer who now works for Manfred, said something some players took as a threat, according to four people who attended the meeting or were briefed on it.
“The commissioner’s a powerful guy, don’t f— around with him,” was the tone of DeRosa’s message.
Some players were angry at his implication that a commissioner, who has oversight of so many on- and off-field personnel and processes in the sport, could retaliate if they didn’t fall in line with what a commissioner wants, the sources said. After DeRosa’s statement, a player in the room raised the possibility of MLB using the drug-testing program as a means of retribution.
However, DeRosa, an MLB Network broadcaster and 16-year major-league veteran, said he was just joking when reached by The Athletic.
Oh sure thing DeRosa, just joking.
And seriously, what is Manfred going to do? How is he so scary? He can’t do a damn thing to Harper or anyone else. The owners could choose to lock out the players after the current contract ends. That might well happen since they are greedy billionaires who mostly just see their teams as part of their larger portfolio and don’t care about winning in any case so long as the money rolls in. But Manfred personally? What, he’s going to suspend one of the biggest stars in the game for telling him to get the fuck out the clubhouse? This is beyond anything remotely credible? GTFOH Manfred.
It would be nice to see everyone have the level of understanding about their position in the economy as Harper, but then we had commenters argue that Gil Meche was right for turning down $12 million to pretending to come back and pitch based on some sense of honor or whatnot, which is completely ridiculous. All that meant, as Paul pointed out, is that David Glass got to keep another $12 million.