Just a week into baseball\u2019s labor talks, President Donald Trump has taken a side.<\/p>\n
The president said Friday that he supports a salary cap in Major League Baseball, aligning himself with the owners in a nascent negotiation that could grow contentious enough to cancel games next year.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf you don\u2019t have a salary cap you don\u2019t have a sport, because they can\u2019t help themselves,\u201d Trump told reporters<\/a> Friday aboard Air Force One, per audio published online by the White House. \u201cThey should have done it a long time ago.\u201d<\/p>\n The president added it was \u201cshocking, frankly, that they didn\u2019t put a cap on many years ago.\u201d<\/p>\n The players\u2019 union declined comment to The Athletic on Friday. MLB did not immediately respond to a request for comment.<\/p>\n To presidential historians, it seemed only a matter of time before Trump weighed in on baseball\u2019s negotiation. During his time in the White House, Trump has tried to exert influence on sporting matters in a way few presidents have.<\/p>\n \u201cI know so much about sports,\u201d Trump said at one point during his exchange with reporters, in which he also addressed the college sports landscape and the NBA Finals<\/a>.<\/p>\n In baseball, Trump previously claimed credit for improving the chances that the late Pete Rose would be inducted into baseball\u2019s Hall of Fame. Trump has also publicly criticized MLB and the league\u2019s commissioner, Rob Manfred.<\/p>\n That he would now side with the owners during collective bargaining isn\u2019t necessarily surprising.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat jumps out at me is his extreme hostility to labor organizing,\u201d Allan Lichtman, a historian and political analyst at American University, told The Athletic for a story published earlier this year<\/a>. \u201cIf he were to jump into a labor management dispute within baseball, I have no doubt that his anti-union proclivities would prevail.\u201d<\/p>\n MLB is the only major sports league in the U.S. without a cap and floor, in no small part because the MLB Players Association has historically been the strongest union in sports.<\/p>\n Baseball\u2019s current labor deal expires Dec. 1. Owners are expected to lock out the players on Dec. 2, setting up a stare-down that\u2019s expected to last until at least the spring.<\/p>\n The last time the two sides seriously fought over the possible introduction of a cap system, from 1994-95, the players went on strike for 232 days, leading to the cancellation of the \u201994 World Series. Now, at the outset of negotiations that are expected to last at least nine months, fans and industry officials alike fear the sport could be headed for a repeat of that ugly clash.<\/p>\n