Outside The Confines: It’s a cruel, cruel summer

Buckle up, BCB readers, we’re in for quite the links post today. As I unfortunately predicted on Monday, tensions continue to mount between the two sides of baseball: owners and players, and an incredible gaffe by Rob Manfred on Monday resulted in a near-meltdown of baseball Twitter.

Reactions to Manfred switching from being 100 percent certain of a season to not 100 percent certain in the span of two days have created a mass of ridicule, player outcry, and fans who are ready to scrap the season (and some who think the sport itself is in jeopardy).

It has been quite a week so far and we’re only at the halfway mark, so let’s just jump into it.

• For starters, before we claim all players are spoiled millionaires, an anonymous take from someone making league average:

• Rob Mains has a (potentially) unpopular opinion as he tells fans to stop blaming Rob Manfred.
• But if you look to Craig Edwards at FanGraphs, he says Rob Manfred is threatening to cancel the season.
• At SI.com Stephanie Apstein tells you precisely where to lay the blame: with owners.
• Thomas Boswell reminds us it’s a good idea to not let billionaire owners pretend they’re struggling for money.
• Some folks are missing the Bud Selig days, and Craig Calcaterra suggests Rob needs Bud to bail him out.
• As rumors circulate that some owners don’t even want a season, Sean Doolittle has some other thoughts.

• Meanwhile a cavalcade of players are replying “Tell us when and where” in regards to playing this season, and RotoWear didn’t miss a beat.

• Emma Baccellieri writes about how the Royals came out big winners in the undrafted free agent market.
• David Laurila features Kendall Graveman’s favorite pitch.
• Comic writer and artist Todd McFarlane might be regretting spending $3 million on that Mark McGwire ball now.
• Joe Posnanski continues to count down great baseball moments with the game where Pete Rose really broke Ty Cobb’s record. (The Athletic subscription required.)
• Jeff Wilson reminds us there’s a little thing called coronavirus set to spike in Texas that could cause problems for MLB if negotiations continue.
• Corey Brock has a countdown of the best broadcasters in baseball. (The Athletic subscription required.)
• MASCOTS!

• Marc Topkin shares that Marcus Stroman has offered to help local Tampa-area players.
• A little self promotion, as I’m not sure everyone knows I have a baseball YouTube channel, but in this week’s new video I explain The Opener.

And tomorrow will be a better day than today, Buster. Make it so.