Fans, home fields return for MLB playoffs
NEW YORK — Kevin Kiermaier and the Tampa Bay Rays fought furiously in 2020 for their first division title in over a decade, assuring themselves homefield advantage throughout the AL playoffs.
In the end, it meant little more than last atbats and a more comfortable clubhouse in San Diego.
The reigning AL champions are back as the league’s top seed, anticipating a few more travel miles and a lot more adrenaline. Plus, this time the fan noise will be real.
“It’s going to be a lot different from last year,” said Kiermaier, a defensive whiz in the outfield. “And obviously for the better.”
Baseball’s postseason is returning to its pre-pandemic format a year after COVID-19 confined most of last October’s action to empty stadiums in neutral sites. It’s a welcome change for players who pushed through last year’s playoffs supplying their own energy on a stage normally powered by the buzz created by live audiences.
“It’s still the postseason, you’re still playing for something,” Yankees star Aaron Judge said. “But having the fans will turn it from a 10 to a 12.”
MLB expanded the postseason field after the truncated 2020 regular season for fairness and extra TV revenue, inviting 16 teams to the playoff tournament instead of the standard 10. Three-game Wild Card series were held at the home stadiums of the higher seeds before the winners shipped off for neutral site Division Series games in Texas and California.
The World Series champion Los Angeles Dodgers spent over three weeks in a baseball bubble around Arlington, Texas, for the Division Series, Championship Series and World Series at the Rangers’ Globe Life Field.
The Rays were only slightly more traveled, playing their ALDS and ALCS games at San Diego’s Petco Park — where the biggest perk was use of the home clubhouse — before joining the Dodgers in Arlington.
“For the World Series, you weren’t traveling at all,” Kiermaier said. “And that’s just not a thing. You’re always going back and forth.”
A smattering of fans were allowed at NLCS and World Series games in Arlington, but the entire AL playoffs were
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