Hard to escape empty feeling of games played in near silence
Something is clearly better than nothing.
The entire 2020 Major League Baseball season could have been canceled.
The entire 2020 MLB season could still last just one month or a couple weeks if the coronavirus pandemic officially gets in the way of the grand ol’ game.
You also can’t have it both ways. If you acknowledge that something is clearly better than nothing, you can’t complain when the new version of something
doesn’t meet your previous lofty standards.
I’m sincerely excited to finally have baseball back in our daily lives. Since last week, I have looked forward to going to Minute Maid Park on Friday night for the Astros’ long-delayed season opener.
Baseball, in many ways, was and always will be my favorite sport to watch and follow. And in many ways, it’s my favorite sport to write about and cover in person.
All the above being said …
Baseball could be pretty boring in 2020.
Not for devoted Astros fans. Not if you have your team and MLB is still your thing. Definitely not in the playoffs, when the daily intensity will crank up — even if devoted fans are still not allowed in the stands — storylines will thicken, and seasons and careers will be on the line across the country at the same time.
But if you’re flipping through the TV in August, have multiple live sporting options to choose from for the first time in a long time and MLB is on your clicker’s chopping block?
Yeah, baseball might be pretty boring. And challenging if you try to sit down and successfully make it through an entire nine-inning game.
I was again reminded Sunday night of the problem this incredibly stripped down, totally surreal version of MLB faces.
Huge stadiums empty. All the normal sounds — so familiar and comforting — erased. The buzz drained.
Major League Soccer was far more appealing and eye-catching. Netflix was more intriguing. And every time I flipped to a nationally televised exhibition between the White Sox and Cubs at Wrigley Field, I remembered how eerie and weird MLB’s scene is going to be in 2020.
The regular season won’t look much different than a meaningless exhibition contest. And if we’re being honest, the regular season is going to look like a backfield spring training game. Or a high school game in a small town — and even that game would have more shouting fans in the stands.
Maybe I’ll be wrong in a month. But I believe the NBA is going to be must-see sports TV inside the league’s Mickey Mouse bubble in Orlando, Fla. The action will be constant, the best-on-the-planet talent will take center stage without all the annoying inarena distractions and the unpredictable drama of the playoffs should dominate national highlights and social-media conversations.
The NFL will be allconsuming and almost as powerful, even with stadiums at 20 percent capacity.
Much of baseball’s beauty is still derived from its old-fashioned pace and the chess match within a chess match. But the slowness of the game could often be mind-numbing on the screen in 2020, with all the emptiness painfully standing out.
MLB was back on TV this past weekend. Saturday night, I watched IndyCar. Sunday evening, I kept coming back to the MLS is Back Tournament.
The initial version of MLB on TV in 2020 just couldn’t hold my attention. And I kept noticing everything that was missing instead of what was actually there.
Fake crowd noise isn’t going to help MLB’s cause. Cardboard cutouts? Another sign these really might be end times.
Of course, this has absolutely nothing to do with the players, managers, coaches and team personnel. They didn’t ask for this crazy situation and have no control over how their sport appears on TV the next three months. They are trying to win baseball games — within an unprecedented health situation — and are living the baseball life (with a mask).
“You have to find your own motivation. The motivation is to win. The motivation is to play the game,” Astros manager Dusty Baker said via a video conference before Monday’s exhibition game at Kansas City. “It’s easier when there’s energy and there’s electricity in the stands, you know what I mean? And I’m big in urging the guys to recall what the energy and the feeling was like when they were in the playoffs and the World Series and even on a daily basis.”
Baker has employed tunnel vision. Focus on what’s in front of you and ignore everything else.
He also joked that the lack of sounds surrounding the game will only emphasize the sounds that eventually emerge.
“You’ve got to be careful what you say because voices carry. You can hear everything,” Baker said. “You’ll probably hear some stuff over the TV that you wouldn’t ordinarily hear. My mom would just tell me she read my lips. Now she might hear my voice.”
Announcers will have to carry fans through the 60-game experiment. Less is more should apply: Let the baseball stand out; avoid constant chatter and unnecessary stories. Sadly, the latter will too often prevail.
Players, ultimately, will carry the game.
And for as boring as the sixth inning of Pittsburgh at Kansas City in mid-September might be on TV, it will always be better than the alternative in 2020: nothing.
“It’s going to be different,” Baker said. “But you’ve still got to play to win. You play to win, and you play for the spirit that was in that stadium and is still there.”