Rozner: The next baseball fight is the one to fear

Through all the baseball strikes and lockouts over the last 40 years, there has been one constant.

It's that when the rhetoric gets the loudest, when the players and owners are firing at each other every day and it looks so very bleak, that's when the reasonable folks on both sides are behind the scenes, working through back channels and trying to find a compromise.

What's a little different this time around is Twitter gives players the opportunity to influence public opinion, and the highest-profile agents have their top guys out there pounding Rob Manfred with impunity.

It's not the like the commissioner needs any help. He's been running his own clown show since the day he arrived and it's so bad now that some fans with short memories are pining for the horrible reign of Bud Selig.

As the two sides leak memos and plans, using media to run errands with hopes of getting fans on their side, what's also different is that the big agents are working hard to get control of this operation.

In the past, it was the union board and Don Fehr working together with input from agents, but with players boss Tony Clark having given the owners a de facto salary cap, they no longer believe in Clark's ability to negotiate a fair deal.

Can't blame them for that.

As one baseball executive told me not long ago, rich people don't like to pay taxes - though you don't have to be wealthy to hate paying taxes - and the union essentially forced the owners to stay under or out of the payroll tax, and certainly out of repeater taxes.

What no one likes to talk about is though the public fight seems like it's the owners against the players, all sports labor negotiations are really a fight between big-market owners and their small-market brethren.

That has always been a serious problem in baseball, the Kansas City and Minnesota franchises battling the New York and Los Angeles franchises, asking the players to settle their argument.

Adding to the difficulty, as the biggest player contracts have soared there is brewing a clash between the richest players and the minimum-salary guys who have little status and no platform to speak from.

The 25th man just wants a job. He's not likely to say much, nor does the union care about him. So the players' side is also becoming more splintered and the middle class is disappearing.

Bigger picture, this argument is also about posturing because the current CBA expires after the 2021 season, and if the current talks are any indication, the big-name agents are going to be out for blood next time. If Clark backs down now, he may not be the head of the union by this time next year.

So don't put this all on the owners. Both sides are looking ahead and Clark and Manfred must look tough or risk being unemployed.

And though there hasn't been a work stoppage since 1994-95, there is serious danger of a nasty battle before the CBA even expires.

In May 2002, it was forecast here that the players would threaten a strike around Labor Day weekend that season, not for the irony of it but instead to force the owners to the table while the players still had leverage and with a big gate expected for those holiday series.

The same could happen next year, as once the 2021 season ends the leverage goes to the owners. This tactic failed in 1994 and the season and playoffs were wiped out, but it worked in 2002 and the two sides agreed to a new CBA only hours before a strike was set to take place Aug. 30.

So for all the ugly bluster of today, it's less about this bizarre season. They're not that far apart. It's more about setting the tone for what comes next, and that really threatens to get nasty.

There are serious egos involved, jobs on the line and many billions at stake, and while this season is still likely to be played in some form, you should prepare yourself for the next big conflict.

And always remember that despite sweet tweets to the contrary, neither side cares a lick about you.