Now it’s Major League Baseball versus COVID-19. Who do you like?
The Baseball Players Association and the owners have reached a decision for the historic playing of the 2020 season, which will join 1972, when a strike canceled 86 games; 1981, when the first 713 games were wiped out; and 1995, which saw the entire post-season, including the World Series, left unplayed.
MLB claims to have reached an agreement to resume spring practice on July 1 and commence a 60-game season with 40 games played among three regional divisions and 20 interleague match-ups.
This dispute has been going on as long as the virus, and it remains to be seen if the teams can pull it off with COVID-19 baffling all the health experts who claimed at least to see a lull during the summer. So far, not happening.
Yet undecided are whether fans, and if so how many, will be allowed in the stadiums, where millions will be spent cleaning every one of the ballparks and team facilities underneath. Star players like Mike Trout, whose wife is birthing their first child, and Gerrit Cole, who has at-risk elders to take care off, don’t have to play and will still be paid the full 38 percent of their salaries for a shortened slate.
Like college and pro football, where schools and teams are confident they can begin the season, baseball has no idea if it can get to its revamped 10-team post-season, which starts in late September. Besides the regular injury list, MLB will also have COVID-19 unavailable-to-play lists for those who test positives or show symptoms. For the starved baseball fans, most won’t care who is playing in the games, they just want to hear the crack of the bat if not the roar of the crowd.
Right now, COVID-19 is in first place in all the standings with teams in every sport trying to catch and contain the virus. The country is in an unfortunate dilemma of wanting the pandemic to end so sports can return, but the virus is relentless to make us change. Let’s hope the new normal succeeds and we can hear the familiar chant of “Play Ball!”
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