Here’s a mini-midweek pseudo-rant I just wanted to share with you fine people.
As I have probably mentioned 30 or 40 thousand times since everything began being canceled and shut down in March, I am a huge baseball fan. My incredibly selfish complaint about the past couple of months is that baseball isn’t here and it’s turning my generally irascible mood more sour each day that it’s away. I am — and have been — rather pessimistic about Major League Baseball returning this year.
They keep teasing me that they might, though.
Various plans have been floated about MLB’s return to play under coronavirus conditions, none of which seem to ever gain more than two days’ worth of traction, and all of which are pretty vague.
MLB is considering a three-division, 10-team plan in which teams play only within their division – a concept gaining support among owners and executives. It would abolish the traditional American and National Leagues, and realign the divisions based on geography.
The plan, pending approval of medical experts and providing that COVID-19 testing is available to the public, would eliminate the need for players to be in isolation and allow them to still play at their home ballparks while severely reducing travel.
This is a more sensible plan than the one MLB kicked around about keeping all the players in quarantine and playing games at spring training facilities in Phoenix all summer in 110-degree heat.
The return of Korean Baseball under modified conditions has exacerbated the tease, especially with ESPN milking it like this:
Baseball is back. Bat flips are back. #KBO pic.twitter.com/g90AlrvSf3
— SportsCenter (@SportsCenter) May 5, 2020
BE STILL MY BEATING HEART.
OK, it was pretty still because that happened between 3 and 4 in the morning my time.
Here is a good discussion about why the return of the KBO doesn’t necessarily bode well for the return of MLB.
Tony Clark, the head of the Major League Baseball Players Association confirmed that it’s all just speculation so far:
Despite all that has been floated and all the rhetoric that is out there, we have not received anything formal that details an actual plan. To Carlos’ point, unless or until we see and receive an actual proposal with a plan or plans — because my guess is there’s going to need to be flexibility in whatever is going to be considered — it’s all assumptions. It lends itself to the uncertainty because there’s a lot of ideations, but not any substance behind them just yet.
Not giving the players a formal proposal makes it seem to me as if no progress has been made at all.
In the end, MLB is subject to the same back-to-work problems that the rest of America is facing:
I’ve heard some chatter about that as well,” Girardi said when asked about what Plouffe reported Monday. “I still think it really comes down to … we’re at the mercy of our federal and state government. I mean that’s what we’re at the mercy of. We have to make sure states are open,
Yeah, baseball fans a screwed this year.
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PJ Media Senior Columnist and Associate Editor Stephen Kruiser is the author of “Don’t Let the Hippies Shower” and “Straight Outta Feelings: Political Zen in the Age of Outrage,” both of which address serious subjects in a humorous way. Monday through Friday he edits PJ Media’s “Morning Briefing.” His columns appear every Tuesday and Friday.
