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Glavine: Players will be blamed for lost season even if complaints '100% justified'

Stephen Dunn / Getty Images Sport / Getty

The financial aspect of restarting its season is a significant hurdle for Major League Baseball.

Atlanta Braves legend Tom Glavine says the bulk of the blame will fall on the players, as he feels it did in 1994, if baseball does not return in 2020.

"If it were to come down to an economic issue and that's the reason baseball didn't come back, you're looking at a situation similar to the strike of '94 and '95, as far as fans are concerned," he said, according to Steve Bummer of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

"Even if players were 100% justified in what they were complaining about, they're still going to look bad."

Tampa Bay Rays left-hander Blake Snell made headlines last week when he said on his Twitch channel that he wouldn't accept another pay cut after ownership and players agreed to prorated contracts in March. While other players have backed Snell, his comments have also drawn criticism.

Glavine, a former player representative for the union, admitted he's glad he's not playing now due to the conflict around potential further pay cuts - particularly with the owners asking for a 50-50 revenue-sharing agreement. He added that he understands player concerns about returning if safety conditions are questionable but can see the reasoning on both sides of the disagreement.

"Anybody who (is) at all familiar with the union and collective bargaining agreements (knows) that a 50-50 revenue split is a salary cap," he said. "Now again, we're in an extenuating circumstance. You have to have conversations ... but you have to understand that 50-50 revenue split to the union is a scary proposition.

"Does that mean they're not going to be willing to sit down and try to figure something out? In a time where you've lost half a season at minimum, would you expect that the owners would have to pay everyone's full salary? I probably wouldn't. What the solution is, I don't know. It's something they need to sit down and figure out."

Glavine, 54, was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 2014 after a 22-year career split between the Braves and New York Mets. A 10-time All-Star, Glavine went 305-203 with a 3.54 ERA. The southpaw won the 1991 and 1998 NL Cy Young Awards and finished top three in voting on four other occasions.

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