Play Ball!

I’ve been pretty angry with Major League Baseball due to all the boo-hoo nonsense that went on between MLB billionaire owners and multimillion-dollar earning players about how to share profits and such while thousands of people are dying from the coronavirus and millions are unemployed.

But, once they put on their big-boy pants and came to an agreement to have a 60-game season and postseason and actually play ball, albeit in front of no fans, I was pretty excited about having baseball to watch… as in live baseball games that I had not already seen from the 1980s and all that.

Today, the Atlanta Braves (not only my team, but “America’s Team,” if you recall when all of their games were on WTBS) will have their first game of the season. It’s a pretty weird situation, but it’s a cool one to watch play out. It’s like if every team was sitting at 51-51 on July 24, with 60 games left in the season.

I was a little dubious about being able to enjoy a baseball game with an empty stadium, but I watched a “summer training” game the other day between the Braves and Marlins, and I’ll say, it went pretty. well. The Braves production crew actually piped in some simulated crowd noise, which I think might have added to the experience.

It was good to see live sports again. And it looked like they were willing to do what was needed to provide as safe a playing environment for players, coaches, umpires and staff. It’s not the same as actually being there, but in these pandemic days, I’ll take what I can get.