Six former Braves players will participate in a televised discussion of issues surrounding a possible start of the pandemic-delayed MLB season.
Tom Glavine, Jeff Francoeur, Brian Jordan, Paul Byrd, Peter Moylan and Nick Green will be featured on “The Return of Baseball: A Fox Sports Roundtable,” an hour-long show that will air Saturday at 8 p.m. and 11 p.m. on Fox Sports Southeast.
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The discussion, covering player safety, collective bargaining and other topics, will be moderated by Braves broadcasters Chip Caray, Kelly Crull and Jerome Jurenovich. The six former players also have roles on Braves telecasts, including pregame and postgame shows, but it remains unclear when games will begin. Negotiations are ongoing between MLB and the players' union about a possible start of the season in early July if financial, logistical and health concerns can be worked out.
In advance video clips of Saturday’s show provided by FSSE, Francoeur said he’s “hoping eventually there’s (so) much money involved from TV deals and other stuff, hopefully postseason money, that they can come to some sort of agreement.”
Francoeur added: “Thirty million Americans are out of work, and they don’t want to hear a bunch of millionaires and billionaires griping at each other about money.”
Glavine said there is “an equal amount of pressure” on both sides to reach a deal on the economics of starting the season.
“If we don’t have baseball, baseball is going to lose, and it’s going to lose more than it did after the strike in 1994,” Glavine said. “If this thing falls apart because of economics, I think that what happened after the strike in 1994, with people swearing off the game, it’s going to be even more so this time if it happened again.”
Glavine also said he “would not be the least bit surprised” if some players with preexisting medical conditions “opt out” of playing this season. “And if it’s the case, then I think their teammates need to be supportive of them,” he said.
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