Swing for the Fences: Unexpected Silver Linings
Michael Schmid ‘21
Managing Editor
One of the phrases I hear most often in 2020 is “getting back to normal.”[1] Among the primary motivators for bringing back Major League Baseball (MLB), along with other professional sports, was to slake the nation’s desire to “get back to normal.” Yet, just like pretty much everything this year, the expectation did not exactly match reality. The game of baseball has been changed in unforeseen ways by the seismic events that have unfolded this year, and the sport will likely look different going forward. That’s not, however, necessarily a bad thing for baseball.
When I first heard that Major League Baseball was planning to return in late July, I was pretty doubtful that it was a wise decision. It seemed almost destined to fail, particularly when I learned that the league eschewed the “bubble city” plans established by the NHL and NBA for their playoffs. This meant that baseball teams would be traveling around the country during a pandemic, playing a sport where players spend a good portion of the game spitting on the ground. Before the season even started, things did not look good. Atlanta Braves star first baseman Freddy Freeman got quite ill with the coronavirus; Boston Red Sox pitcher Eduardo Rodriguez is out indefinitely due to heart problems caused by the virus. Then, less than a week into the season, the Miami Marlins had an outbreak in which at least twenty people in the organization tested positive, making the cancellation of the season look nearly inevitable.
But the season went on, and the rate of positive tests around the League decreased. Once again, baseball re-asserted itself as a daily fixture in the lives of my girlfriend and I this summer. Our favorite team, the Toronto Blue Jays, unexpectedly found themselves in a position to make the playoffs after MLB announced that the playoffs would consist of eight teams, instead of five, from each league. Before the team was able to worry about the postseason, they had to find a place to play. Because of coronavirus concerns, the Canadian government refused to allow them to play in Toronto. Eventually, the Blue Jays found a temporary home just across the border in Buffalo, which made my Upstate New York heart happy.
COVID-19 was an unexpected vehicle for some significant rule changes that have improved the game. First, the easy one: The league instituted a universal designated hitter. Finally![2] Without Bartolo Colón, nobody really wanted to watch pitchers hit anymore. Frankly, this was long overdue. Baseball, however, is a sport that can get stuck in its ways, so I guess all it took to make this change was a pandemic. The other major rule change has also been a pleasant surprise. This year, if the game goes to extra innings, the teams start each inning with a runner already on second base. The reasoning behind this rule is that, since the season is so condensed and teams have very few days off, this rule will help teams score more quickly, which would end extra-inning games sooner. Another rule change instituted for a similar reason was that both games in a doubleheader have been shortened from nine innings to seven. I was skeptical of the new extra-innings rule at first, but it has been amazing. Extra-innings games are way more exciting, and we all get to avoid those marathon, eighteen-inning games that seem to last for forever. An unexpected bonus of the rule change is that it has led to teams bunting more often, which has led to more retired-players-turned-announcers complaining that players “don’t bunt as well as they used to.” In fact, after watching so many baseball games this summer, I’ve learned from multiple announcers that nobody seems to do anything as well as they used to. So let’s work on that, everyone.
Despite the rule changes being a success—at least in my infallible opinion—there were some misses. Topping the list: Fox’s CGI fans that the network put in the stands during games in a sad attempt to mimic live fan attendance. If the idea was bad, the execution was worse. The fans look horribly unrealistic and react to the game about five seconds too late. Seriously, the virtual fans are about as bad of an idea as glow pucks and the football robot,[3] both of which were also created by Fox Sports.
Likely the most consequential way the sport has changed this year has been in addressing the racial justice protests that have been sweeping the nation. Unlike other leagues such as the WNBA, NBA, and NFL, racial justice activism has not been as widespread in a sport in which only 7.8 percent of players on Opening Day rosters and two of the thirty managers are Black. This year, however, players across the league have felt comfortable becoming more vocal. On Opening Day, teams chose to kneel prior to the start of the game. Some high-profile Black players, including Mookie Betts, Jackie Bradley, Jr., and Dominic Smith have spoken to the media about their experiences with racism and the need for athletes to continue to be actively involved in social justice issues. In late August, following the lead of the Milwaukee Bucks in the NBA, multiple teams postponed their games to protest the shooting of Jacob Blake by law enforcement in Kenosha, Wisconsin. When games resumed, players were seen wearing “Black Lives Matter” shirts before games and underneath their jerseys during the games. Fittingly, this occurred on the week the league celebrates Jackie Robinson Day, which honors the first Black man to play in Major League Baseball.
The desire to return to the normalcy of a pre-COVID world is an entirely understandable aspiration, yet it is likely futile. The COVID-19 pandemic, its resulting economic downturn, and the racial justice protests have and will continue to alter life as we knew it before. In many ways, this upheaval presents challenges, sacrifices, and losses that none of us wish to see continue. In other ways, our adaptations to our changed circumstances has led to unexpected silver linings. For baseball, some of the changes brought on by COVID—both trivial and consequential, overdue and unexpected—have shifted the game in a positive direction.
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ms3ru@virginia.edu