Even after a quarter-century of labor peace, baseball remains the sport most like the story about the scorpion and the frog. All the years of distrust, of relations frayed and aspersions cast and motives questioned, of the very things that make the relationship between Major League Baseball and the MLB Players Association so brittle, simply can't help but reveal themselves. The fighting, the hostility -- it's inevitable, a snap of Thanos' fingers. It's in baseball's nature.
Which is to say that while recent days undoubtedly have looked and felt bad for the game's return, it's a touch early to go full doomsday.