MLB in 2020: The Twilight Zone

Not sure if this is approved by the Society for American Baseball Research or could result in the revocation of my Baseball Writers’ Association of America card, but I trained for the 2020 season the only way possible.

I binge-watched the first season of “The Twilight Zone,” October 1959 to July 1960.

Sure, one could have done a deep dive into the game’s most obscure sabermetrics, or memorized statistics going back a century. Yet on Feb. 1, who among all the experts had Dr. Anthony Fauci, the man leading the fight against a previously unknown plague, throwing out the ceremonial first pitch on opening night?

On Feb. 1, who among us predicted cardboard cutouts would pose as fans in otherwise empty stadiums?

Who predicted piped-in fan noise to simulate real humans?

Who predicted Toronto playing all home games in America?

Who predicted there would be a 60-game season and a starved sports nation would be rushing to tune into team announcers calling road games from their home stadiums?

And who predicted the NBA, NHL and WNBA, in an attempt to beat COVID-19, would play out their seasons inside a bubble?

Look, I am as interested as anyone to see what the Red Sox plan to do without Mookie Betts and manager Alex Cora and with that wreck of a starting rotation. (Does anyone smell fourth place in the American League East?) I’m as interested as anyone to watch Yoenis Cespedes, who hasn’t played since July 2018 after surgery on both heels and a broken ankle from a run-in with a wild boar. Can’t believe I wrote the previous sentence, but hey, anytime you invoke Rod Serling, to paraphrase John Sterling, “You can’t predict the Twilight Zone, Suzyn.”

Can you imagine if Cespedes beat teammate Pete Alonso and Aaron Judge and the rest of the slugging Yankees in a 60-Game Big Apple Home Run Derby?

What a story that would be.

And, of course, I’m as interested as anyone to see if Gerrit Cole, who signed a nine-year, $324 million free-agent deal with the powerhouse Yankees, is the human who lost to the Nationals’ Max Scherzer in Game 1 of the World Series. Or the unhittable robot who hasn’t lost a regular-season game since May 22, 2019, with the Astros. We’ll get our first glimpse from Washington when the two face each other Thursday night in D.C.

Which brings us back to “The Twilight Zone.” Serling certainly could serve up chilling, bizarre meals with a slice of morality for dessert. There was even one first-season baseball episode, “The Mighty Casey.” It’s a crazy tale in which desperate Hoboken Zephyrs manager Mouth McGarry uses a robot pitcher named Casey. Blinding fastball, roller-coaster curve, Casey is unhittable until he is beaned. After the doctor finds no pulse, that Casey isn’t human, his inventor gives Casey an artificial heart so the National League still will let him to play. Problem is Casey has developed human emotions and compassion. He smiles. He feels sorry for hitters. He gives up 14 runs in one inning. Title dreams die. Casey leaves to be a social worker. The inventor gives

McGarry the robot blueprint and leads to Serling’s final narration:

“Once upon a time, there was a Major League Baseball team called the Hoboken Zephyrs, who, during the last year of their existence, wound up in last place and shortly thereafter wound up in oblivion. There’s a rumor, unsubstantiated, of course, a manager named McGarry took them to the West Coast and wound up with several pennants and a couple of world championships. This team had a pitching staff that made history. None of them smiled very much. If you’re interested as to where these gentlemen came from, you might check under ‘B’ for baseball … in The Twilight Zone.”

This, of course, was a thinly veiled reference; the Dodgers had just moved from Brooklyn to Los Angeles and won the 1959 World Series with a staff of Sandy Koufax, Johnny Podres and Don Drysdale …

Which 60 years later is my way of predicting the Dodgers will win their first World Series since 1988 over the Yankees.

The Dodgers are deep. They’re talented. And in a short season where injuries, opt-outs and COVID-19 could play a major role, they have the depth and talent that only the Yankees can match. And as cool a narrative as it would be to pick up on Judge’s post-ALCS clubhouse speech where he told his teammates to remember the feeling, the hurt, the

emptiness … 2020 is the Dodgers’ year (read Sterling’s final narrative).

Of course, “ESPN: The Twilight Zone,” if there was such a thing, would pick the Tampa Bay Rays. Creative. Terrific pitching. If somebody were to actually use Casey in a game, it would have to be the Rays. And hey, they’re used to playing games without fans.

Houston figures to be tough, too, and the one statistic I’m most interested in is how many times the Astros will be hit by a pitch this season. Nobody likes a cheater. Nobody. If MLB really had courage they would pipe in ear-splitting jeering and booing when they played on the road.

The truth is we don’t know what’s going to happen this season. We don’t know what’s going to happen next week. A dozen or so players, from Ryan Zimmerman to David Price to Buster Posey already have opted out because of COVID-19 concerns, social justice, lingering injuries, a combination of factors.

Giants manager Gabe Kapler and Reds slugger Joey Votto are among a number of those in uniform who have taken a knee during the national anthem of exhibition games. This will be a powerful, sometimes controversial, storyline in professional sports in the coming months. Not because kneeling disrespects the flag, but because to fail to stand against racism at this important juncture in our American story is to fall

on the wrong side of history. Speaking of which …

“Looking forward to live sports,” President Trump tweeted the other day, “but anytime I witness a player kneeling during the National Anthem, a sign of great disrespect for our Country and our Flag, the game is over for me!”

Everything in sports is happening in a bubble, a vacuum, like the movie “The Truman Show.” No live fans, yet everyone is watching on TV as the games crawl along on one knee and then the other. The Yankees, Red Sox and Mets will play all their games within the AL East and NL East. This means going into the coronavirus hot spots in Florida and Georgia. MLB is not identifying who is sidelined with COVID-19, so that will lead to a surreal guessing game. The uncertainty is going to drive the oddsmakers and bettors a little nuts.

Then again, cooped up, uptight, worried, we’re all a little nuts these days. COVID-19 might not play a defining role in 2020 MLB, or COVID-19 could hit hard. The worst could happen early or in the World Series. So many states, too cavalier in April and May, are paying hell in July. None of us know what is going to happen. None of us. It’s scary.

Yeah, this is “The Twilight Zone.”

Only it’s real. And it’s our episode.