I'm with the union, Jack

As the only winner from the Seattle newspaper strike that started in November 2000, I feel obligated to opine upon the current work stoppage in baseball.

Everyone lost when the Seattle newspaper guild was on strike for seven weeks, starting the Thanksgiving of 2000.

Well, everyone except me.

I lost some money in terms of wages, but truthfully, I wasn’t making enough for it to really matter. I lost traction in my progress up the org chart at The Seattle Times, but I eventually made my way out of high-school sports coverage. The most important outcome for me is that after it ended, I was taking ski trips with groups that included Sharon Pian Chan. By the time I was back at work, we were dating though there remains some dispute between us as to the exact timeline of events, and her inability to recall the details correctly is further proof that — at least at first — our relationship was more important to me than it was for her.

This is an odd way to start discussing the current work stoppage in baseball, but I also wanted make my biases clear.

1. I’m not impartial. I have a pretty strong union bias. I believe in the labor movement, both what’s left of it and what it might become. I’m especially intrigued by the union stirrings within Starbucks.

2. I hope that one of those players finds love — true love — out there in the midst of all of this uncertainty.

3. I absolutely hate — I mean all-caps HATE — the discourse that inevitably surrounds any sort of collective-bargaining discussion in professional sports.