Smith: Beautiful day, but not without baseball
It’s days like Tuesday that make it so easy to miss baseball.
Perhaps it’s the comfortable, perfect weather. Sitting on your front step or back deck, soaking up the sun and breathing in the fresh air. The day is not too breezy, just simply pleasant. If you’re an allergy sufferer, there’s nothing to sneeze at, just clear skies and smiles.
The truth, however, is if we see baseball played in 2020, the game will look plenty different. It’s hard to even imagine what it may resemble, but you can be sure that some variation of social distancing will be employed.
The county’s local men’s leagues, most prominently the Delco League, are hoping they can have an abbreviated season. That depends on our government, of course.
With Delaware County scheduled to move into the “yellow phase” of the state’s reopening plan on June 5, at least we’ll begin to get some clarity on what we can expect this summer. And, perhaps, if we are so lucky, Delco will be in the green phase before the Fourth of July and
Gov. Tom Wolf will give us the signal to commence outdoor sporting activities.
While many of the youth in-house leagues have canceled their seasons, perhaps the older kids — the high school graduates who are going off to college to play baseball — will be able to get in a few games in before the leaves start to fall.
One of the best summer assignments for any local sports reporter is Little League baseball. That’s one gig I am going to miss this July. Last year, it was an absolute blast following around the little guys from Newtown Edgmont Little League, who captured the Section 8 title. There was the never-ending rain delay in the Section 8 tournament. The game resumed sometime after 10 p.m., past the newspaper’s deadline. Hanging out in the clubhouse with the kids during the long respite was the best part of the night.
That memorable NELL team advanced all the way to the state championship game led by Brady Abate, Chase McMahon, Jack Maholick, twins Harrison and Grady McTear, and many others. Most Little Leaguers act the same. Win or lose, they are thrilled to be interviewed after a game. If you ask the coach for one or two kids, soon the entire team is on the scene, just waiting for you to ask them the next question. That youthful innocence is lost this summer.
As for Major League Baseball ... will the owners and players ever see eye-to-eye? It’s OK to be mad at billionaire owners for crying about the lost revenue just as it’s OK to scoff at that $150 million All-Star who says he’s not going to risk his health under these circumstances. As of Tuesday, the players union and the league are so far apart on issues concerning pay and, most importantly, safety protocols, that a prospect of a MLB season seems dim at best.
Joe Sheehan of Sports Illustrated painted a grim picture, tweeting Tuesday that the stalemate is “the owners demanding the players compensate them for losses or there won’t be baseball. That’s not negotiating. The owners have taken the 2020 season hostage.”
If the MLB is forced to sit this one out, can the league ever recover? That’s a conversation worth having. The sport has never been richer, but its popularity is middle-of-theroad at best. It took a long time for the sport to recover after the 1994 players strike. If both sides can’t come to an agreement, the sport may be in for another downturn in popularity.
In the meantime, how do we fill our baseball void? Has anyone paid attention to the MLB The Show players league? Playing
video games, especially baseball video games, is fun. Watching other people play video games, even if it’s Rhys Hoskins at the hands of the PS4 controller? Maybe I’m old school, but I don’t see the entertainment value. But give MLB credit for trying something different during the pandemic.
Something else I find mildly immersive is the simulated season that BaseballReference.com is running. Using the great simulation game Out of the Park Baseball ‘21 – which I recommend if you’re a PC or Mac video game enthusiast – you can follow the Phillies in simulation style. But I’ll warn you: The Phillies are really, really bad. Through Tuesday, they flaunted a 22-31 record, 11.5 games behind first-place Atlanta.
In this sim season,
Bryce Harper is batting
.200 with seven home runs and 17 RBIs. Hoskins has
73 strikeouts in 192 at-bats and is hitting .188. Jake Arrieta has a record of 0-8 with an ERA around 6.00.
Can you imagine if this was real life? At least new additions Didi Gregorius
(.277, 8 HRs, 29 RBIs) and Zack Wheeler (5-4, 4.39 ERA) have done OK. Generally speaking, though, the fake Phillies are not very good.
There are other options if you’re looking for baseball, but they’re not great. The Korean Baseball Organization
is off and running, playing full nine-inning games with no fans in attendance. You don’t know any of the names, unless they are former fringe major leaguers looking to save their careers, but at least it’s real baseball. ESPN has broadcast several games, and you can tune in if you’re awake at 3 a.m.
Bottom line: We could be in for a long summer without baseball. And it’s those sun-splashed, beautiful afternoons in late May that make the reality all the more unfathomable.