With answers in short supply, speculation rules the day
I suppose my favorite bit of idle-time speculation is the one proposed by super agent Scott Boras. He suggested a revised baseball schedule that would begin in June. Regular season play would run through all of October and (using neutral fields, domes or warmweather locations) into November. The playoffs, using only domes and warmweather sites, would extend well into December.
If the World Series went seven games, the final game would be played on Boxing Day. Yes, Game Six would be played on Christmas, itself. Perhaps during the seventh-inning stretch they’ll play Adeste Fidelis along with Take Me Out to the Ball Game.
And that’s only one proposal. There have been many others.
All of them have at least two things in common. They are the work of people like me who currently have too much time on their hands and nothing better to do and they are the work of people like me who don’t have any idea what they’re talking about.
The best scientific minds in the world still don’t know what they’re facing or what it will take to contain it. If they don’t know, how can any of the rest of us know?
At this point we can only ask questions — questions that we know can’t be answered today.
Might it be safe to play in June? How about August? Will travel be restricted? If large gatherings remain taboo will it be possible to play games without spectators in the stands? If so, how should that be done? If grandstands are open will people be willing to attend games? How many of them will even have the money to purchase tickets? How much additional “spring training” will be needed before any season opens? Should roster size be expanded and if so by how much? Should the playoffs be expanded?
That doesn’t stop people from speculating. In fact, only last week a new proposal tumbled straight out of Major League Baseball’s fancy offices in New York. When the scheme was reported by several news outlets, MLB officials cautioned that this was only preliminary thinking. But they didn’t deny that the plan had been seriously discussed.
This plan presumes that at some point this summer it will be deemed safe to play in empty stadiums. According to the plan, every team could then use its spring training site as its home grounds. For 15 of the teams that would mean playing in Florida with the other 15 playing in Arizona. Leagues and divisions would have to be reshuffled according to spring training geography.
There would a Grapefruit League and a Cactus League and there would be no interleague play. There would be at least eight games daily in each league, which means each day at least one team would play a day game against one opponent and a night game against another.
Divisions would be determined by spring training geography. For example, the Phillies and Yankees would play in the same division, along with the Orioles, Pirates and Blue Jays. All happen to be spring training neighbors.
This plan features some nice ideas but it also has some weaknesses. One would be the searing summer heat. There’s a reason the Marlins and Diamondbacks have retractable roofs. Furthermore, in Florida, at least, rain would be an obstacle.
Travel would not be uniform. In Arizona most of the spring training sites are close to each other, but that’s not the case in Florida.
Since health would be a paramount issue, frequent medical examinations would be essential. Players would be essentially quarantined and confined to their hotels when not at the stadium. So would managers, coaches, trainers, umpires, grounds keepers, equipment managers, clubhouse custodians, public relations officials and armies of television technicians. It would probably be impossible to keep all of those people contained inside an imaginary bubble.
What will happen if a player is called away because of a family event? Will he not be permitted to return? What about the inevitability of injuries? If a player goes on the injured list where will his replacement come from?
Um, allow me to make some suggestions. If the intent is to play eight games per day at each locale, why schedule those games in 15 empty stadiums? Wouldn’t four be enough? Wouldn’t it be better to deal with four ground crews, four sets of clubhouse technicians and — maybe most important — four sets of TV technicians?
Better yet, why not forget about Florida altogether? Why not put the whole operation in Arizona where there are more stadiums in a small area and less chance of games being rained out? In that case it wouldn’t be necessary to create new leagues and new divisions. Fifteen games could be scheduled every day using eight stadiums. It could even be done with just five stadiums if morning games were scheduled.
Of course that wouldn’t be ideal, but what is?
It might be a means to launch a season for a few weeks before the all-clear is sounded and baseball is able to return to “normal,” — whatever that happens to be. None of us knows.
The only thing we do know is the speculation will continue.