Category Archives: Baseball

Baseball, Commentary, Paid Content

It’s hard, but stop whining

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If you’re a fan of major league baseball, you have a right to be upset that greedy owners are holding you and the game you love in contempt, while a deadly virus makes a mockery of many things you thought of as normal and threatens lives and livelihoods. Things have turned upside down. I get it. I feel your pain and your anger.

That being said, it looks like you will have your baseball in one form or another. And it’s about goddamn time you appreciate that part of it and stop complaining about the package it’s coming in.

I know that’s hard, but stop whining just because it’s not the baseball you’re used to.

Sure, there are concerns. We want the players and coaches and people working around them in the game to all be safe. And I don’t just mean the people we pay to see but the people we don’t, the clubhouse managers, cooks, security guards, batboys and umpires.

A lot of people are affected by the coronavirus and the callous way the owners have treated them and everyone concerned with baseball including the fans is worthy of a serious karmic kick in the privates.

I also get that a huge chunk of our love of baseball is a stable foundation, a predictable format of a certain number of games followed by a postseason. Twitter is now awash with serious people questioning whether a shortened season will be legitimate, and I suppose that’s a valid question in an era where the phrase “small sample size” is as common a feature in a baseball broadcast as “clutch performer.” Baseball’s grand moments are truly grand because they stand out from a long-established pattern. Those moments, those special seasons become musical riffs we hear in our memory that have the power to take our breath away years later.

We worry that losing the commonality of a long grinding regular season will deprive us of the joy of placing that year’s accomplishments neatly on the shelf next to the others in our history and the knowledge that it is just one more completed piece of an orderly baseball universe.

People whose opinions I thrive on are upset that awards handed out for a 50-game season will lack luster, and I don’t blame them. But if we expect players to compete, if that’s what we’re really here for, the human reach and struggle to win and overcome adversity, then hell yes, the awards have meaning. OK, so we won’t learn as much about how good a team is over 162 games. Spare us all the lectures. We know it in our hearts.

All my life, I’ve listened to people say the true test of greatness is a 162-game season only to turn around in October and say exactly the same thing about a seven-game world series. The same people often utter both and are completely unconcerned with the apparent contradiction. We love both, the long grind and the final decision. One is a test, the other a crapshoot. But let’s face it, who doesn’t like a game of chance now and then.

If you like, boycott this unfamiliar experiment because it’s a contrivance of the greedy bastards who couldn’t give two shakes for either the beauty of the game, the artisans who produce it, or the human beings who invest their time and money into it. The game would be so much better run by people who loved baseball as much as they love guaranteed returns on investments.

Do what you can to never give the owners a penny. They don’t deserve you. Encourage the people who play and teach the game to quit MLB and form a better union. But don’t complain about having baseball.

If any of you look at this season and say “That’s not baseball,” then you’re getting on the same viral cruise ship with the morons who say baseball in Japan or in Korea or Taiwan is not baseball because it’s different — because it’s different from what they’re accustomed to.

But having seen baseball through Japanese lenses for more years than I like to say, seeing something familiar from a different perspective teaches you as much about where you’ve been as about where you are.

So fight for change, support the players and human rights and abandon the charlatans who run MLB, but treasure this season for what it is, a special riff in baseball’s musical universe. I guarantee you’ll never forget it.

Baseball, News, Paid Content

Playing it safe in japan

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Is it still baseball without spitting and scratching?

We’re about to find out in Japan, where for the time being, spitting is among the banned activities when pro baseball returns on Friday, nearly three months after the originally scheduled Opening Day.

Essentially, every player and every member of the team staff who comes into contact with players will receive a PCR test prior to Opening Day and be retested once a month.

Here is a quick outline of the coronavirus guidelines published by Nippon Professional Baseball on Wednesday:

For players

  • Temperatures to be taken before leaving for the ballpark. All players and team staff should keep a record of where they go and who they come into contact with.
  • Wear masks as much as possible except when on the field and in the dugout.
  • Be particularly careful about social distancing in designated smoking areas, and limit the number of people there.
  • Refrain from high fives or shaking hands
  • Do not spit
  • Do not lick your hand during the game
  • Practice social distancing as much as possible in the dugout.
  • Do not shout or take part in huddles before the game or the start of a team’s at-bat. You are permitted to raise your voice during the course of play.
  • Avoid contact during mound meetings.

For others

  • Home plate umpires will wear surgical masks during the game, and umpires will avoid contact with players
  • Official scorers will wear masks and maintain a distance of at least 1 meter from each other and up to 2 meters if possible.
  • The media will not be allowed on the field or in the dugouts (Japanese media are never allowed clubhouse access).
  • Members of the media will wear mask and social distance, while remaining at least 2 meters from players when speaking to them in reporting areas. Teams will provide online reporting access.

Quarantines

Those testing positive will submit their tracing reports to their teams, who will report them to NPB so that members of other teams deemed to have had close contact with them can be tested.

There are different quarantine protocols depending on whether the person in question is symptomatic or not, or if a family member tests positive or people come into close contact with others testing positive or if either they or someone living with them feels ill.

Import players coming from overseas must undergo an interview at the airport and self-quarantine for 14 days. Players families entering the country must self-quarantine for 14 days. Players who come into contact with their families during that 14-day period must report to the commissioner’s office and self-quarantine for 14 days.

NOTE: Since non-citizens have been banned from entering Japan, even permanent residents, this last note is kind of hollow at the moment.