UPDATES: Major League Baseball announced Thursday morning the Nationals and Mets game has been postponed due to COVID-19. Several reports also indicate Francisco Lindor and the Mets have agreed to a 10-year extension.
It’s opening day in Major League Baseball, and here are the headlines.
Baseball returns from its COVID-delayed season of 2020, and President Biden is linked to two of the biggest stories as the 162-game schedule gets under way, hoping to have beaten the pandemic.
Biden said he would not throw out the first pitch in the Washington Nationals opener against the New York Mets, despite a great pitching duel between Max Scherzer and Jacob deGrom, two of the best hurlers in the National League.
Then Biden said the Texas Rangers having no-limit attendance for their opener Monday against Toronto is irresponsible with coronavirus making another surge in certain parts of the country.
And then, as if the two had something to do with one another, the Nationals announced they would be without four players and a coach for their opener because of, yep, the virus. Go figure.
How can the Mets go through all of spring training without coming to contract terms with star shortstop Francisco Lindor? No agreement is near, and don’t the Mets know they can throw their promising season away in the first two months with a clubhouse controversy dividing the team?
The Dodgers are a 99 percent chance favorite to repeat as World Series champions, and right they should be with the best lineup and pitching staff in the game. How again did the Red Sox let Mookie Betts get away, as the Bosox are now picked to finish fourth in the AL East?
Speaking of my hometown, can you believe what has happened to the teams that won four World Series, six Super Bowls and an NBA and NHL championship in the new century? Besides the Sox woes, the Patriots began the post-Tom Brady era by not making the playoffs, the Bruins are fading after a fast start and the Celtics just stink. Meanwhile, Brady confirmed Tampa Bay as the new title town with his seventh Super Bowl ring after the Lightning hoisted the Stanley Cup and the Rays won the American League pennant before losing to the Dodgers in six games.
Back to baseball, which will be a great barometer of how fans react to the other side of COVID. With the same ambivalence that accompanied the shutdown or an enthusiastic reboot of Play Ball!
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