Major League Baseball has announced that spring training has been cancelled and the start of the regular season has been postponed due to the Coronavirus epidemic. All remaining spring training/exhibition games are cancelled as of today. The regular season will be delayed by at least two weeks to possibly a month or longer. MLB will reevaluate the situation in a couple of weeks. This means the earliest the season could start would be April 9.
All major American Sports have been suspended or cancelled due to the Coronavirus scare. The NBA suspended its season the other day and the NHL and MLS followed suit. The NCAA cancelled the entire March Madness college basketball tournament and other sports such as Tennis, Golf, and minor league baseball have also suspended or cancelled their season. The worry is growing across the nation and other major sporting events, concerts and large gatherings are being cancelled.
Some states like California and Washington have issued bans on large gatherings. MLB teams like the Mariners, Giants, and Athletics were already considering looking for alternative sites for the first couple of weeks of regular season games. Some games may even be played in front of empty stadiums. If and when the season resumes, and it will resume at some point, MLB will have to determine how many games will be played and how it will impact the schedule.
Leaders from the Major League Baseball Players Association and MLB will meet tonight to discuss a variety of issues related to player concerns, sources tell ESPN. Some players have expressed concern about remaining in camp and want instead to leave and be with their families.
— Jeff Passan (@JeffPassan) March 12, 2020
Gov. Pritzker just said he spoke to all owners of Chicago’s major sports teams and asked them not to have home games or, if they have games, not to have fans in attendance until May 1. He said all owners agreed to that request.
— Adam Hoge (@AdamHoge) March 12, 2020
The official statement from the @Dodgers. pic.twitter.com/qZJBvb7caA
— AlaNNa Rizzo (@alannarizzo) March 12, 2020
It’s possible MLB goes to a 144, or 140 game schedule, or shorter. For the Dodgers, most of the players have already left camp. The Dodgers have told their players that they are welcome to stay in Glendale, or go home. Or go wherever they need to go. If the season is completely cancelled, some questions arise for the Dodgers. What happens to free agents like Mookie Betts, Justin Turner, and Joc Pederson? That would mean that Betts would have played no games as a Dodger and Justin Turner may have played his last game as a Dodger. Terrible to think about. What about the All-Star game? The Dodgers are making renovations to Chavez Ravine in anticipation of the All-star game, the first at Dodger Stadium since 1980. If the Coronavirus wipes out the All-star game, would the Dodgers get to host for 2021?
What about player salaries, ticket refunds, rescheduling, and other logistics? There are so many questions and we have so few answers. All we can do is wait and hope that this terrible virus goes away and that Dodger baseball returns. No matter what happens out there, stay safe everyone. Be careful, limit travel as much as possible and wash your hands as much as you can.
I love baseball. It along with music has been my passion and what has kept me sane. I got on this site, and another to talk about what I truly love. Now for a while it seems, there will be nothing to talk about. And the funny thing is, I will miss the little semi arguments we sometimes have. But I will not miss the out and out vitriol that some spew. This is the first blog I ever wrote on or made comments about my beloved Dodgers. I got into some very heated arguments here with some people, including the late MJ. I regret that I sometime went overboard and lost my temper. Which I have been known to do. Through it all, it was still about Dodger baseball. Something none of us will be seeing for a little longer. I had looked forward to this season as maybe finally our time. A feeling that I have not experienced since 1988. There are personality’s on any of these sites that I still do not get along with. For whatever reason, and it seems to me it is all counter productive since we all love the same team. But we are mere fans, and fans when dissapointed tend to be like the Army. They bitch. Sometimes there is good reason, but when the conversation deteriorates into name calling and generally being rude to each other, I have begun to tune out. I totally respect Scott and what he has done here. And he has done it alone for quite a while. I do not know what happened to Oscar, and I miss seeing his face on his video’s. I could never do something like this. He has kept this forum open for those who want to talk Dodger baseball even after so many posters left. They have their reasons, I have stayed and continued to post when I felt I had something to contribute. I have tried always to keep it light and somewhat informative. The other day, I got an email from Badger. Someone I consider pretty well versed in baseball and the Dodgers. He and an old adversary had buried the hatchet so to speak and he asked me to post on the site, since his adversary was someone I had many problems with also. So I have done so a couple of times, mainly out of curiosity to see if this person had mellowed. A lot of our former posters are there. And they seem to like it. That is their choice. I have for the most part posted here, and on another site that is run by a fan in Pennsylvania. He has become a friend of sorts and we have sent each other baseball cards since we both collect. The only other poster I have had that kind of contact with is Badger. I sent him, since he is a vet, a copy of the song I had just written about homeless vets. Now for the foreseeable future, there won’t be much to chat about. Scott has struggled to keep this site viable. And that is one of the reasons I have kept posting here. As long as the site remains here, I will post here. Mostly it is because I respect his writing and his passion for the team and for doing this blog even in the worst of circumstances. I sincerely hope this is all over soon, and we can hear the refrain, play ball, and watch the team and the game we love.
Thank you Michael. I appreciate all of your kind words.
Not much to talk about as far as baseball is concerned Bear. I noticed Mark put a quick end to any talk about the major issue of our time, the coronavirus, as it quickly turned to conversation about how badly the US has handled it. And that means pointing the finger at those in charge. Can’t have that.
The conversation here just got too anti Friedman for me. The Dodgers aren’t just good, they are very good. We are lucky to have a team this good. Many here act like they’ve been violated somehow because we haven’t won a championship. We aren’t guaranteed anything but the pursuit.