Oh Joy! Strike Date Set...Finally!

The other shoe finally dropped, and the players who did not want to set a strike date during the All-Star break have finally done so. According to The LA Times, the date chosen is September 16, which a) avoids being on strike on the anniversary of the September 11th tragedy and all of the attendant moral and p.r. issues and b) ensures that the players have all but their last regular-season paycheck in hand.

We all knew that it was coming. Let's just hope that it now prods both sides to come to an agreement. As Donald Fehr said in his interview with Baseball America:

First of all, you don't set a strike date unless you believe that you have no other reasonable option, and that doing so will be a spur to reach an agreement. Sometimes in collective bargaining as well as other things, deadlines are helpful. Sometimes they're not; we learned that last time. But sometimes they are.