​PHILADELPHIA — On Tuesday morning in a hotel ballroom, the two men primed to shape the future of baseball provided a valuable glimpse into the sport’s upcoming labor fight.MLB commissioner Rob Manfred and MLBPA interim executive director Bruce Meyer held separate question-and-answer sessions with assembled members of the Baseball Writers Association of America. Unsurprisingly, Manfred and Meyer offered diametrically opposed perspectives on the state of the sport.AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementWith the current collective bargaining agreement set to expire on Dec. 1, the entire industry is preparing for an extended work stoppage. A lockout feels like a foregone conclusion. Missing games in 2027 is a real possibility. That reality is, in large part, a product of the league’s insistence on implementing a salary-cap system, something the union has fundamentally opposed for its entire existence. The storm clouds are rumbling, the sky is getting darker.While no shocking revelations were made Tuesday, the dual media conferences functioned as a drawing of battle lines. How Manfred and Meyer spoke about the sport illustrated how the league and union plan to handle their messaging moving forward.Meyer, who assumed the union’s top job in February following the scandalous resignation of former boss Tony Clark, led off the proceedings. He began by heralding the health of the sport. It was a theme he would return to multiple times.AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisement”We have a great game. Our game is in a great place overall,” he declared. “We have record attendance, record ratings, worldwide interest, youth demographic coming back. We had a great season last year — great playoffs, great World Series, great WBC.”He then criticized the league for attempting to redirect that momentum into frustration.“The league, these supposed stewards of the game, have spent an inordinate amount of time trying to convince those same fans that they don’t have hope, or they shouldn’t have hope, or that the product that they’re paying to consume in record numbers is somehow broken.”That’s a reasonable line of messaging for the players’ association to take, even if the staid, subdued Meyer is an odd fit as a spokesperson for that enthusiasm-forward approach. Effectively, the union is arguing that if things are good, the status quo is working well and baseball is in a strong place, why the need to fundamentally reshape things by adding a cap?The commissioner was then asked that exact question and offered a big-picture reply.AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisement”Momentum in the game is a great thing,” Manfred said. “We got that momentum by listening to our fans and making changes that, you know, candidly, that the MLBPA was not interested in. Those changes have paid off in terms of creating that momentum, and the best way to lose momentum is to stay still.”Over the course of his remarks, Manfred repeatedly employed some version of the phrase