Baseball 2020 - We Hardly Knew Ye

Baseball 2020 - We Hardly Knew Ye
Commentary by Sanford D. Horn
July 28, 2020

I’m as big a baseball fan as there can be. Opening Day should be the first Monday in April, in Cincinnati with the Reds hosting a division rival - Brewers, Cardinals, Cubs, or Pirates, with the remaining 14 other Opening Day games played the next day. All day games. If Opening Day itself is not designated a national holiday, it should be on April 15 - Jackie Robinson Day as designated by Major League Baseball.

I pine for the return of our national pastime from the final out of the World Series through the day in February when pitchers and catchers report for duty, through the first radio broadcast of a Mets exhibition game, until the shout of “play ball!” on Mets Opening Day.

This past off-season was no exception. From the last out made by the sign stealing Astros giving Washington, DC its first baseball championship since 1924, through a stunted spring training, summer camp, and a long awaited late July Opening Day, after less than a week, I’m thinking playing at all is a mistake.

In addition to the number of players, coaches, umpires, and staff who opted out of the 2020 season for health reasons, the Miami Marlins reported (up to the minute Tuesday afternoon) 17 team members - 15 players and two coaches testing positive for the Coronavirus. This not only put their home opener against the Orioles on the shelf, but the rest of the week as well.

The further impact of the Marlins Coronavirus diagnosis is starting to look like the Domino Effect running up and down the Eastern Seaboard. The Monday and Tuesday games in Philadelphia between the Phillies and the Yankees were postponed as a precautionary measure - even after fumigating the clubhouse, as the Marlins most recently played in Philadelphia. Because of those postponements, the Yankees and Orioles schedules have been adjusted for those two teams to meet up in Baltimore for two games starting Wednesday. Additional scheduling changes will be announced as the week progresses. The schedules of the 10 teams in the National League East and American League East are now in flux.

Should an independent flare up affect another team, it will impact three of four more teams. Ultimately, with travel on planes, trains, and buses, as well as hotel lodging from city to city, the 2020 baseball season is in grave jeopardy.

There is another issue to consider - the rise in player injuries, particularly pitchers, at a higher rate than usual. This can be attributed to an elongated period of downtime, and less preparation time once the July opening dates were announced. Teams should be entitled to play at full strength, save for the couple of typical injuries that plague most teams, with a full complement of Major Leaguers, not Triple-A call ups. There’s no telling how long the Marlins, as a team, will be sidelined, nor should they be rushed back to action. Can a league continue while down a team? Should it? Let’s face it, the main reason the season began at all is for the paychecks - the players want to be paid, and the team owners somehow need to recoup the losses from ticket sales and concessions.

According to Major League Baseball, there have been more than 6,400 Coronavirus tests since Friday, July 24, with no new positive cases from any of the remaining 29 teams. However, if Major League Baseball is truly concerned about the health and well being of its players - its money making product - it should seriously consider pulling the plug on the 2020 season, and start fresh in 2021. This die-hard fan wants to see a full season with full rosters of healthy players - even if they play for the hated Yankees.

Sanford D. Horn is a writer and educator living in Westfield, IN. He has been a New York Mets fan since 1972 growing up in New Jersey.