Know why Rob Manfred was chuckling through his press conference Tuesday while announcing that Opening Day and the first two series of Major League Baseball’s regular season would be canceled?
Because he’s smug, petty, and tone-deaf? Why, yes, I suppose that is all true. Good points by you.
But it’s mostly this: He did his job.
The commissioner is a bad actor by at least one definition, and he could not mask his glibness while delivering news that fell somewhere between saddening and enraging to baseball fans. The moment demanded somberness, but Manfred could not muster it, because there is no chance that in his mind somberness was appropriate for the occasion.