This generation of players has probably already ascertained, just as predecessors such as Tom Glavine and David Cone did, that most fans won't side with them in a labor dispute. Many of the folks who pay to watch the players still view baseball as a child's game, rather than the business that it is, and believe that if they had been born with Mike Trout’s speed or Giancarlo Stanton’s power or Max Scherzer’s slider, they would play for free.
That ridiculous fantasy remains the backbone of popular sentiment, so the players can’t really fret about the responses they’re reading on social media following the union’s seeming threat of a spring training boycott, emitted in tweet bursts Friday from some agents and a statement by union chief Tony Clark.