Sports Time Radio

Now I’m sure you know someone or maybe you are that person who has a thankless job. Well even though it’s well paying it seems as though being a commissioner of a professional sports league has to fall into this category. Here’s how it went for a couple of these commissioners these past couple of weeks.

Rob Manfred who is the commissioner of Major League Baseball was interviewed two weeks ago and was very positive in saying that their was going to be a baseball season. Now he didn’t go into detail about how many games or any of the other particulars for the season. Then after some more negotiations between the owners and the players association things didn’t look good. Manfred was then interviewed again earlier this week and said that he was now doubtful that there would be a 2020 baseball season. I’m not sure why, but apparently the commissioner isn’t allowed to change his mind and Manfred is just getting killed by the media for this. Now I am completely confused by this since there are people who change their minds on a daily, hourly or even minute to minute basis; so why can’t the commissioner of Major League Baseball change his mind. Now to be fair with the way the negotiations are going I can totally understand why Manfred might think there won’t be a 2020 season.

In case you’re not up to date on the baseball negotiations the owners sent a new proposal to the players association at the end of last week and asked for a reply by Sunday. Well since the proposal included a pay cut it was immediately turned down by the players and their union. The players association then said that there wouldn’t be a counter offer; so that more or less has put an end to negotiations between the two sides.

Now interestingly Manfred has the power to actually force a season, but so far has been unwilling to do this. Now recently some players have come out and have almost dared Manfred to use this power he’s been given. With the way the negotiations are going a forced season by Manfred would give the players exactly what they want. See if Manfred does decide to force a 2020 season the players would be guaranteed their prorated salaries that they agreed to back in March; so the owners wouldn’t be able to ask them to take ay kind of salary reduction in a forced season.

Maybe you find this funny like I do, but I could just see some major league players standing outside Manfred’s office daring him to force a season. It would be something like we use to do when we where kids. I wonder how long it will be before a player or players double dare or maybe even double dog dare Manfred to force a season. Please just picture that in you mind and then try to tell me you didn’t get a chuckle out of that.

Unfortunately I’ve settled on the fact that I won’t get to watch my favorite sport; baseball in 2020. Now that I’ve resigned myself to that; I’m more concerned about if there will be a strike or lock out after the 2021 season.

Are next commissioner who hasn’t been able to catch a break these past few weeks and this will come as no surprise to you is Roger Goodall the commissioner of the National Football League.

Goodall made a big, big change when he said that he supports any player that wants to take a knee during the national anthem. This of course is a stark contrast to where the NFL’s stance when Colin Kaepernick and a few other players started kneeling was it four years ago now. Of course this didn’t dissuade Goodall critics from coming out of the woodwork to take shots at the commissioner for making this change even though it appears that this is what they wanted all along. It’s oddly confusing that you can finally get a resolution in your favor and still find a platform to complain about it, but I guess this is how things go. I can only imagine what we’d be hearing had Goodall came out and didn’t change the NFL’s view on kneeling.

Goodall also mentioned this week that he’d like to see Kaepernick back in the NFL. Now to be fair Goodall has never said that he didn’t want Kaepernick in the NFL, but with the response he got you’d think Goodall was personally responsible for a team not signing Kaepernick.

Now I’m not sure if it’s a lack of understanding or if it’s just the idea that all of the facts could ruin your story, but Goodall can’t force a team to sign Kaepernick. Remember that Goodall works for the owners; so he can’t tell one of them to sign any player let alone Kaepernick. I’m not sure why people and especially people in the media think that Goodall has that kind of power. Oddly Goodall saying that he’d like to see Kaepernick back in the NFL might actually help Kaepernick get signed, but I doubt anyone will mention that.

The question now becomes; is there a good fit for Kaepernick? And if so with which team?

There’s been some noise that the Seattle Seahawks might be interesting in signing Kaepernick, but lately it seems that the team being pushed to the forefront is the New England Patriots. As we know the Patriots will have different starting quarterback for the first since 2008. New England didn’t sign one of the many free agent quarterbacks and they also didn’t use a high draft to bring in a rookie quarterback; so it looks a though the starting quarterback job is Jarrett Stidham’s to lose. Now since this is going to be Stidham’s first shot at being an NFL starting quarterback you have to wonder if Kaepernick would be a good fit as his back up. Don’t forget that the Patriots do have veteran quarterback Brian Hoyer on their roster.

Do you think there’s a spot for Kaepernick in New England? If not with the Patriots; do you have a landing spot for Kaepernick?

Now don’t forget that you can listen to the Sports Time Radio podcast live on BlogTalkRadio.com. Now if you miss the live version of the podcast just head on over to TuneIn.com and you can listen any time you want.

If you’re interested you can find me on Twitter @Burketime