Opening Day MLB Collective Bargaining Agreement Odds and Ends

Happy Opening Day one and all!  There is no greater feeling than that of opening day in major league baseball as each club and its fans enters a state of eternal optimism!  Who remembers who won last year's World Series?  Even the Cubbies can wait a few days before the eternal mantra of "wait until next year"starts being uttered in Wrigleyville.  Heck, with Major League Baseball and the MLBPA agreeing to add one more wild card per each league, they may even get to wait until late July before they throw in the towel.   Yes, as I described before, Commissioner Bud has gone wild card crazy.  Up against a stringent deadline and scheduling nightmare, the Commissioner's Office and MLBPA representatives were able to work together to come to an agreement for this season.  While the World Series and League Championship Series will remain, for 2012 only in order to deal with the scheduling nightmare, the parties agreed the five-game Division Series will begin with two home games for lower seeds, followed by up to three home games for higher seeds. Division Titles and Wild Card slots will also be decided by a one-game play-in if necessary, as opposed to the prior use of head to head records.  The way the playoff system will work is that the two wild card teams will play a one game play-off to decide who moves on to the division series.  This also creates a competitive incentive to win the division as division winners will have two off days prior to the start of their series, where as the wild card teams will likely have to burn an ace pitcher to make it to the next stage.  In lauding the deal, Cardinals Manager Mike Matheney pointed to how exciting the last day of the season was last year and how that this system can guarantee that type of excitement every year.

In the NFL, It Gets Better; I Promise.

Pete Olsen, Ohio State University Moritz College of Law 3L Student, and author of the blog "Wide Rights" has uncovered quite a find in the new NFL collective bargaining agreement.  The NFL is the first professional sports league to protect players from any sexual orientation related discrimination (assist PrawfsBlawg). 
As Prawfsblawg (emphasis added by author) points out, the language from the 2006 CBA Article VII, Player Security, reads :

Section 1. No Discrimination: There will be no discrimination in any form against any player by the Management Council, any Club or by the NFLPA because of race, religion, national origin or activity or lack of activity on behalf of the NFLPA.

The new language in the 2011 CBA, now moved to Article 49, reads: