Donald Trump loves sports. He says so himself, constantly. And he has a habit of wading into sports business when the mood strikes him. Remember the Flo Balogun red card situation with FIFA? That was him. So it’s not crazy to wonder whether the President might poke his head into MLB’s ongoing labor negotiations.
Rob Manfred, the commissioner, was asked about that exact scenario. His answer was careful. Deliberate. Basically a polite way of saying “I’m not touching that.”
“Look, I think it would be wildly, wildly inappropriate for me to speculate what the president of the United States might do or not do in a hypothetical situation,” Manfred told USA Today’s Bob Nightengale. He acknowledged Trump is a big sports fan and knows the business side. Then he shut it down. “I’m going to pass.”
Fair enough. But here’s the thing. Trump already kind of has an opinion on this.
Trump’s Take on a Salary Cap
The President has been public about his stance. He thinks baseball needs a salary cap. He said so directly, unprompted, in a way that makes you wonder if he’s been watching a lot of old NFL Films.
“If you don’t have a salary cap, you don’t have a sport. They can’t help themselves,” Trump said. “Football has a salary cap. They should have done it a long time ago. I know so much about sports, they should have done it a long time ago.”
He went on to say it’s “shocking” MLB never put one in place. And he noted they had a chance to do it before but “blew it.”
That puts him squarely on the owners’ side. Which is where things get complicated.
The Cap Problem
Baseball has never had a hard salary cap. Players hate the idea. It’s a non-starter for the union. The last time owners pushed for one, it triggered a work stoppage that wiped out the 1994 World Series. That is not ancient history. That is a scar the sport still carries.
So when Trump says the sport needs a cap, he’s picking a side in the most divisive labor issue in MLB history. And if he decides to use the bully pulpit, or worse, actually lean on the process, it could shift things in a way nobody’s really prepared for.
Manfred doesn’t want to talk about it. But the President already has. And he’s not exactly subtle.
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