CUT THE CHATTER
MLB’s new rules take a little fun, and a lot of talk, out of game
It’s hard to believe that just two months ago, Pete Alonso eagerly opined about his new idea to a cramped room of engrossed sportswriters on a mundane afternoon at Mets spring camp.
The chatty first baseman had been in the early stages of setting a novel proposal into motion. Once the regular season started, Alonso wanted a microphone placed somewhere near the firstbase bag at Citi Field so that the listening TV audience could overhear his hilarious conversations with opposing players.
He provided examples of those exchanges from his indelible rookie season – when Anthony Rendon told Alonso he crushed so many home runs that the moon league was calling, when Freddie Freeman rattled off a list of sumptuous red wines for Alonso to try, when Kris Bryant asked Alonso for his bat because it was distinctly effective.
The small talk took place between pitches, after someone slapped a single to left field, reached the bag and sparked up a conversation with the popular Mets rookie first baseman. With Alonso, what you see is what you get, and he wanted to share those moments with his expanding fanbase in hopes of generating greater interest in baseball. In his view, being miked up would appeal to a younger audience and grow the sport internationally.
But Alonso’s idea will have to wait because if baseball returns in the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic, fielders will be encouraged to retreat several steps away from the baserunner. Socializing, even for entertainment value, will no longer be an option.
Players will try to swallow their inclinations toward kindness and decency and instead practice staying quiet. They’ll be too busy focusing on the exhaustive instructions outlined in Major League Baseball’s 67-page health-andsafety protocol on how to play baseball while limiting risk of catching the virus.
No crowding or chatting around lockers. No in-person meetings indoors, unless it’s through an iPad (in which case, be aware of the Astros hacking the system.) Sit or stand 6 feet away from another teammate, coach or player. No high-fives. No hugs. No celebrations after walk-off home runs. No eating together in the kitchen. No hanging out in the hotel.
The number of changes detailed in MLB’s protocol will take a great deal of social sacrifice from the players, coaches, managers, personnel, stadium staff and many others for it to work. Perhaps most dishearteningly, it pushes the sport back several steps. It abolishes freedom and creativity – painting a soldierlike acceptance of orders.
But the miked up idea Alonso wanted to initiate, and any other original innovations to the game, now seem like a relic of the past and a laughable aspiration of the future. Then again, who knows. Maybe after 2020, or 2021, we can all laugh about these weird times in baseball and pretend they were all just a bad dream.