IT'S EASY TO FORGET, just one year later, how narrowly Major League Baseball avoided catastrophe. The league's lockout of the players was approaching its 100th day. The doomsday clock for missing regular-season games was ticking ever louder. Players were annoyed. Owners were cranky. Fans were demoralized. The sport was self-immolating.
On March 9, 2022, when commissioner Rob Manfred postponed a second week of regular-season games, panic set in across the sport. This was the moment they feared. They'd weathered proposals dismissed with eyerolls, the implementation of the game's first work stoppage in a quarter-century, a 43-day pause with zero substantive discussions, a weeklong bargaining session in Florida that ended with no deal, the cancellation of Opening Day -- posturing, preening, politicking, all the maneuvers to set up this moment: the point of no return.