It’s a season of the unknown
Baseball makes you wait. That is part of its oldworld charm. The story takes time to reveal itself, pitch by pitch, inning by inning, game by game by game by … well, you get the idea.
Players weather a rigorous six-month schedule, with few days off. No other professional athletes spend as many days performing.
So what will it look like now, after more than four months in hibernation since the coronavirus pandemic shut down spring training in mid-march? We find out beginning Thursday, when Major League Baseball began its 60-game schedule with two games: the New York Yankees at the Nationals in Washington, and the San Francisco Giants at the Dodgers in Los Angeles.
It is a season rife with rule changes, extensive safety protocols and a whole lot of unknowns.
“It’s hard for those of us in baseball because we want to be knowledgeable about what’s going on,” said longtime broadcaster Jim Kaat, 81, who pitched for 25 years in the majors, “and sometimes the toughest thing to say is, ‘I don’t know.’ ”
Of course, no one ever knows how a season will unfold. But nobody living has ever seen a season like this, and not just the cardboard cutouts in the stands, a spitting ban, video-game crowd noise and the looming specter of a still-raging virus.
Baseball has not staged a schedule so short since 1878, when the first World Series was still a generation away.
As was the case that year, teams will play a 60game schedule, after the players’ union and the owners failed to reach a negotiated agreement, forcing commissioner Rob Manfred to impose a schedule with players getting full prorated salaries.
The contentious labor standoff, with sharp words volleyed between the league office and the union, sent ominous signals about future strife beyond this bizarre season. The collective bargaining agreement expires in December 2021, and players are wary of giving any more ground to the owners.
“The challenges are going to be amplified even more the next time, and we realize that,” said Nationals pitcher Max Scherzer, a member of the union’s executive subcommittee. “We love the game as much as anybody, and we want to see the growth of it continue. But you can’t work across the aisle until you have everybody functioning on your side correctly.
“If you start having divisions, then it doesn’t matter what the other side’s doing, you’re fighting yourself. We really got to see what it’s like to have guys working together — not only on our team but across the league.”
The players’ unity, fortified during the labor standoff, will be tested this season by the shared responsibility of adhering to safety protocols. Players are required to wear masks while indoors, avoid high-fives and fist bumps, use their own soap in the shower and so on.
Unlike the NBA, the NHL and MLS, baseball is forgoing a contained environment, or “bubble,” and nearly every team will play at its normal home stadium (the Toronto Blue Jays, however, are still scrambling to find a site in the United States).
The league has limited travel by keeping all games within the same geographic divisions and set up extra clubhouse and dugout space to promote social distancing.
But away from the field, players are largely on their own, trusted to avoid prohibited actions like eating at public restaurants and taking public transportation to games. If a player slips, he could contract the virus and threaten his team’s season.
“You have to be the best version of yourself, the best teammate that you’ve ever been in your life,” said Joe Maddon, the manager of the Los Angeles Angels. “That’s what we need — more than a guy that may get a knock in the latter part of a game or a pitcher that might throw a couple of scoreless innings, we need the guy that’s going to stick with the protocol and permit us to play this all year.”