How Major League Baseball can save itself beyond 2021

This is the how baseball's destructive standoff needs to end: The owners, with greater wealth and with the lasting stewardship of the game, need to emerge from their bargaining bunker and extend themselves into the middle ground with an offer of a significant concession. Maybe a season of 81 games -- a number of significance, because it's exactly half of the regular schedule -- with a very high percentage of the players' prorated salary. Maybe not 100%, but something that represents a legitimate good-faith proffer.

If something like this happens, the union leadership cannot miss the opportunity; it needs to recognize genuine effort to get to the middle ground and then build on it. The fact…