All-Star Week was a dream for baseball fans. The labor debate is their looming nightmare.

PHILADELPHIA — Both nights at Citizens Bank Park were a baseball lover’s dream.

This Philadelphia crowd erupted for their hometown stars, booed just about everyone else, then shut up completely when Jordan Walker walked off as the Home Run Derby champion Monday night after he launched four homers on four swings.

On Tuesday evening, the All-Star Game was full of its usual pageantry. It featured the stars of this sport in front of a packed house, complete with more boos from these Philly fanatics — especially for the introduction of the division rival … mascots. (Mr. and Mrs. Met? They weren’t saying, Boo-urns, that’s for sure.)

If you had paid attention only to those two events during All-Star Week, you would have seen a sport that appears to be in great health, with big crowds, big names and a big future. Perhaps for your sanity, continue paying attention to those moments when the ball is in play.

But the underbelly showed itself Tuesday morning in a ballroom in a downtown Philadelphia hotel, when Major League Baseball Commissioner Rob Manfred and Major League Baseball Players’ Association executive director Bruce Meyer answered questions — separately, of course — from the Baseball Writers’ Association of America.

What was clear from their sessions is that this dream could turn into a nightmare.

On Dec. 1, the current collective bargaining agreement will expire, and a lockout is expected to ensue. The repercussion of all this acrimony is that the vibrancy seen during the All-Star Game may be halted. There is a chance games will be missed in 2027. There is a chance the entire economic system of baseball will be overhauled through the implementation of a salary cap.

That is the central issue, of course, but it doesn’t end there.

Meyer and Manfred spoke in the same room 15 minutes apart Tuesday morning. Their view of the sport couldn’t be more different.

“We have a great game. Our game is in a great place overall,” said Meyer, who took over as union head in February. “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."

“I believe that in order for this game to reach its full potential, we need to continue to address concerns that our fans have — particularly concerns that go to the core of what we’re about. That is competitive balance,” Manfred said. “We need to make sure that fans in [small] markets at the beginning of the season have a realistic belief that their team has a chance to win.”

In those back-to-back sessions, Meyer and Manfred offered insight into what is going on during negotiations between the league and its players. Manfred’s stance painted a woe-is-me picture for owners in smaller markets, while Meyer insisted that those owners could spend if they wanted to. Manfred pointed out the payroll divide between the haves and have-nots; Meyer used the first-place Tampa Bay Rays and the surging Milwaukee Brewers as examples that small markets can win.

“Cap sports certainly don’t guarantee competitive balance,” Meyer said. “We’ve seen dynasties in football. We’ve seen teams in all those sports, the cap sports, that small-market teams included have never won anything. In baseball, the Dodgers are the first team in 25 years to win back-to-back World Series.

“But if you look at teams that have made the playoffs, teams that have been successful, teams that have been to the World Series, you’ll see a wide variety of teams. Payroll, there is some correlation between winning and paying players. That’s to be expected. Good players tend to cost money, so that’s normal.”

And several minutes later, once Meyer was out of the room, Manfred rebutted. He pointed out that a smaller-market team hasn’t won the World Series since the 2015 Kansas City Royals and that generally, the highest spenders do the best because they can afford the best.

In Manfred’s opinion, a salary cap would prevent super-team fatigue in the form of the Dodgers. In players’ view, a salary floor would force light-spending teams to step up for their fans without limiting the earning potential of the ones who attract all these fans in the first place.

“I think that we need a system where fans, particularly in smaller markets, can have some hope that the players that are signed and developed by their organizations can actually stay there through free agency,” Manfred said. “And honestly, I think we need a system where there is a more robust free-agent market, so if you don’t want to go to New York or Los Angeles, you have a realistic opportunity to get a viable free-agent contract.”

Of course, Baltimore is showing more financial might under new ownership. They attracted first baseman Pete Alonso away from the New York Mets with a five-year, $155 million contract. The Orioles have sealed two long-term extensions in Samuel Basallo and Shane Baz, as well.

Those examples were among those Meyer used to refute claims that small-market franchises have no “hope,” to use Manfred’s word.

This is only the beginning, and the salary cap issue is only the largest of many aspects that will inspire those witnessing this debacle to bang their heads against the wall. MLB has proposed cutting down the draft, limiting amateur signing bonuses and preventing domestic players from being drafted out of high school. The league has also suggested limitations on the sort of long-term contracts that have become highly sought-after in free agency.

And in recent weeks, MLB has aired ads attempting to rally fans to support salary cap implementation. Called “Level the Field,” MLB points to a $446 million payroll gap in 2025 between the Dodgers and Miami Marlins.

“Too many fans in markets across the game have too little hope that their team has a fair chance to win,” the website reads. It ends with a call to MLBPA to bend on this key issue so they can “continue improving the game for the fans.”

It’s ironic, many within the union feel, that MLB would need to push an advertising campaign this strongly if so many fans want a salary cap, as the league claims.

“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,” Meyer said.

“I have watched over the last two years the owners, the commissioner’s office, try to convince fans, the consumers of their product, that the product is broken,” Meyer said. “I think it’s perverse.”

What might be even more perverse is how this all falls back onto the fans. You know, the ones who spend their money — an ever-increasing amount of it, at that — to watch this beautiful sport.

This sport is at its best when it can be watched. So enjoy nights like Monday and Tuesday. Enjoy the rest of the season. Because what comes next might not be enjoyable at all.