Opening day amid virus: Masked men, empty parks, odd sounds

Opening day, at last.

A baseball season that was on the brink before it ever began because of the virus outbreak is set to start Thursday night when excitable Max Scherzer and the World Series champion Washington Nationals host $324 million ace Gerrit Cole and the New York Yankees.

When it does get underway — the DC forecast calls for thunderstorms, the latest rocky inning in this what-can-go-wrong game — it’ll mark the most bizarre year in the history of Major League Baseball.

A 60-game season, stars opting out. Ballparks without fans, players wearing masks. Piped-in sound effects, cardboard cutouts for spectators. Spray-painted ads on the mound, pitchers with personal rosin bags.

And a rack of strange rules. DHs in the National League, well, OK. An automatic runner on second to start the 10th inning? C’mon, now.

“Gosh, it’s going to be fun,” Cole said. “It’s going to have fake crowd noise, and going to be 2020 coronavirus baseball.”

Plus a team that still doesn’t know where it’s going to play — barred from Toronto because of health concerns, Vladimir Guerrero Jr. and the Blue Jays were hoping to roost in Pittsburgh or Baltimore or Buffalo or somewhere else.

“You just have to accept it. Seems like every day there’s a challenge and you just have to overcome it. If this is what it’s going to be, this is what’s going to be,” Scherzer said.

“This is 2020 baseball,” he said.

To many fans, that will do. No other choice, really. Four months after the games were supposed to start, strange ball is better than no ball, right?

We’ll see.

Opening day brings a tasty doubleheader: a marquee pitching matchup in Washington, followed by the nightcap at Dodger Stadium when Clayton Kershaw taking on the San Francisco Giants.

One player Kershaw won’t face: six-time All-Star, three-time champion and former MVP Buster Posey. The Giants catcher and his wife have adopted twin identical girls who were prematurely born, and he’s among about a dozen players who have chosen to sit out this year.

“From a baseball standpoint, it was a tough decision for me,” Posey said. “From a family standpoint, making a decision to protect children, our children, it was relatively easy.”

Dodgers pitcher David Price, Washington infielder Ryan Zimmerman and Atlanta outfielder Nick Markakis also are sitting out.

Other players won’t be ready by the weekend — on Wednesday, the Royals announced Hunter Dozier (26 home runs, 10 triples) had tested positive for the virus and was being put on the injured list.

For those are who healthy, it’s time to play. For how long, with the virus looming, we’ll find out soon enough.

Elsewhere around the bases this year:

SOCIAL JUSTICE

MLB players traditionally haven’t been as outspoken as those in the NFL and NBA on social issues. Until this year, former Oakland catcher Bruce Maxwell was the only baseball player to take a knee before the national anthem — he did that in 2017 and felt it cost him a future spot in the majors.

New Giants manager Gabe Kapler and several of his players knelt during the national anthem before an exhibition game this week. A group of Reds did the same in support of the Black Lives Matter movement.

MASKED MEN

Didi Gregorius and Clint Frazier homered in exhibition games while wearing masks —those aren’t mandated on the field, but many other rules and guidelines are in place.

Social distancing in the dugout. Skip tossing the ball around the infield after strikeouts. Keep the Phillie Phanatic and mascots off the field.