It Looks Like Baseball Is Coming Back!

During these last several months, we have all wanted to see our favorite team sports in the worst possible way, and if you have been following the negotiations between MLB owners and players these last two months, you know that that is exactly how MLB has arrived at an agreement to stage a season:  In just about the worst possible way.

What we are going to get is a sixty game season.  As I understand it, each team will play forty games within their own division, and four games each with teams in the other league's corresponding division (NL East vs. AL East etc). Still not sure if  the playoff fields will be expanded from 10 to 12 or 14.  Looks like they're gonna make it up as they go along.  We get the DH across the board, which I like.  We also get extra innings starting with a runner on second base, which I am not so sure about.  No world about double headers with seven inning games. But you know what?  If ever there was a year to throw anything, and I mean anything, up against the wall, then a sixty game pandemic shortened season is it.  Hell, institute a mercy rule while you're at it.

While I said last week that I fall into the category of "I Don't Care" if there is a season, I also fall into a sub-category.  Call it "I Don't Care, But Now As Long As They're Going To Play, I'll Look Forward To Watching The Pirates Again."

I will also tell you the one guy for whom I am really happy.  Pirates new manager Derek Shelton.

I mean, here was a guy who has waited his whole life to get his shot at being a major league manager, only to see it waylaid by the unimaginable circumstances of the corona virus pandemic.  I will be really happy to see him get the chance to finally walk a lineup card out to an umpire as a Manager in the Big Leagues.  He has been  regular weekly guest over the last three months with Ron Cook and Joe Starkey on 93.7 The Fan, and he seems like a genuinely good guy.  As a Pirates fan, I hope that he succeeds beyond all of our wildest expectations.  Working for Bob Nutting's Pirates, he's going to need a lot of luck.

Let's hope that we can all get some joy out of this bastardized season of Major League Baseball.  Enjoy it while we can before those negotiations for a new CBA begin in 2021, because we all know how really, really ugly those are going to be.

#letsgobucs #raisethejollyroger