We all never came up with a name for this day, did we? In our collective defense, we’ve all been pretty busy. 

Now, however, as the NFL powers down, we feel the sting of this day’s arrival without its standard significance. 

Now, officially, opens the window of baseball’s lost opportunity. The winter of baseball’s discontent, with no end in sight. 

For in normal times, we’d follow Al Michaels’ Super Bowl sign-off from SoFi Stadium with the question: How many days until pitchers and catchers? Ironically, the NFL’s adding a week to its schedule would have minimized that gap to just a few days, further intensifying the excitement for the crack of the bat and the pounding of the glove. 

Instead, we await Major League Baseball’s next collective bargaining session, Rob Manfred’s lockout approaching 2 ¹/₂ months. The questions concern not what distinguishes “Reporting Day” from the first workout, as per annual tradition, but rather whether the regular season can start on time on March 31. 

The safe bet lands on “No,” as these talks have proceeded about as smoothly as the 2009 transition from Jay Leno to Conan O’Brien on “The Tonight Show.” 

There should be another get-together shortly, the players’ turn to counteroffer after the owners took a whack at it Saturday. That whack, like those preceding it, underwhelmed the players, the clubs continuing to work the margins rather than bite into fundamental change. The players continue to look for better terms on the luxury-tax thresholds and rates, minimum salaries and the pre-arbitration bonus pool as well as improved guardrails against tanking and service-time manipulation. 

The owners, meanwhile, feel frustrated by the players’ lack of “give” in the proverbial give and take. The players’ most significant concession to date came when they backed off their ask for free agency to begin after five years of service, reverting to the status quo, relenting on a luxury they never enjoyed and desiring to count that as a concession. 

It’s a dumpster fire, all the more so when you consider that, as they essentially argue over how much money should and must be spent on players, the two sides still must tackle the issue that most bothers many longtime fans, not to mention many of the industry’s long-time employees: the quality of the product. What can be done to counter the well-intentioned deep thought that has hurt the game’s fun quotient. 

I reject the imminent obituaries sounded for baseball. Over 46 million people bought a ticket to a ballgame in 2021, a number set to spike in 2022 with COVID restrictions lifted, and anecdotally, young fans don’t seem as offended by the changes to a game they don’t know any other way. Actually, this demographic largely appreciates the bat flips and organic displays of emotion that come with all of those home runs and strikeouts, not to mention the custom cleats and other such displays of personality upon which sour geezers still frown. 

Yet Manfred himself discussed the prospect of lost regular-season games as “disastrous,” and all the more so when you contemplate what could have been, the masses of sports fans riding the wave of a thrilling NFL postseason straight into the widespread good cheer that emanates from players pouring into Florida and Arizona. The only item emanating from those two states anytime soon will be the refunds coming, once MLB acknowledges that the exhibition games won’t start on Feb. 26 as scheduled. 

What a downer of a day. What an unforced error for baseball, which knew within months of its last collective bargaining agreement that this cold war stood on the horizon and didn’t come close to sufficiently addressing it. 

How many days until pitchers and catchers? At this juncture, you’d say probably more than the 14 days or so the two sides have to avoid disaster. Yeesh.