PLAY BALL -- SORT OF

            The beautiful thing about baseball over the past 50 years is that no matter how many times the owners and players square off in labor disputes, fans always come back to the ballpark for more peanuts, popcorn and four-hour Yankees-Red Sox games. 

            We may not be sitting in box seats for this season’s 60-game sprint to the playoffs, but you can bet fans will be tuning in to watch their favorite teams – and the Marlins – practice America’s pastime amidst pandemic restrictions and the universal DH catastrophe. These are strange times, and the only way for baseball to match them is with a short campaign resulting from a hideous labor struggle that is merely a precursor to a showdown that will make Medusa look like Blake Lively. 

            Still, tonight, fans will be able to tune in to games that actually count in the standings and once again wonder why every hitter must step out of the box after every pitch to adjust his batting gloves, even if he didn’t swing the bat. Here’s El Hombre’s look at the really big storylines of the abbreviated 2020 season.

            Greed is Good: A big reason why it took so long for Majoke League Baseball to set a schedule for the season was a good, old-fashioned owner-sponsored attempt to break the Players Union’s collective spirit. El Hombre has said it a million times before, but it bears repeating: In disputes between millionaires and billionaires, root for the millionaires. The owners waged a months-long attempt to subdue the union, in a preliminary bout before next year’s battle royale that will almost certainly shut down the game for a long period of time. While a tenuous labor peace prevails at the moment, and fans shouldn’t worry about the nastiness ahead, remember that those who own the teams don’t care one bit about their customers, except as revenue streams. Why else would they charge $13 for a bottle of Bud?

            Justice Delayed: There are few things as wonderful as settling into a stadium seat on a balmy summer night and getting ready for nine innings of baseball. The country’s inability to get the coronavirus pandemic under control has robbed us of enjoying that pleasure this season, but the biggest baseball tragedy of 2020’s fever dream is the inability of fans around the country to rip into the Houston Astros for the brazen cheating that led to their 2017 World Series title. There will be no banging on trashcans, no “concealing” devices under shirts to look like Jose Altuve, and no ability to direct vitriol and clever insults at the team. It’s just not right. And it won’t have the same impact next year. Talk about a lucky break. Even if Houston goes 0-60 this season, it will still have picked up a huge victory. 

            What’s Next, Ghost Runners? Fans of real baseball – i.e. National League baseball – knew the day would come when the forces of evil prevailed, and the designated hitter would become part of their world. Well, 2020 is the beginning of the end of the sport as we have known it for more than 100 years. Although the DH in National League ball isn’t permanent, yet, it will no doubt be part of the next labor agreement, bringing the gimmick into every ballpark and spoiling the fun of seeing managers actually have to do their jobs. Further, the 10^th inning of tie ballgames will begin with a runner on second base, a bastardization of the game that defies description. Why not let the batters hit off tees during extra innings? Or let batting practice pitchers take the mound? Maybe they could use courtesy runners for catchers or mandate only three balls for walks in extra frames. And everybody gets a juice box and a bag of fruit snacks after the game. Ridiculous.

            Making Due: Over the next two-plus months, MLB players must pretend as if every game is being played in Miami, where the population is wise to the Marlins’ Rachel Phelps-style approach to ownership and doesn’t show up to games. Fans in the seats will be replaced by cutouts, and if teams want to be realistic, 90 percent of the stiffs should be looking at their phones during the games. Teams will pipe in fan noise – wonder if the Phillies will broadcast lusty booing when the players mess up – and use video and other technology to replicate a ballgame’s sounds. It’s kind of like what espn does when it tries to make its highlights more exciting. Now, if someone could figure out how to make baseball more exciting…

            Wild and Crazy Guys: In a 60-game season, nothing is certain. That’s right, Tigers fans, your heroes might just win it all. Think about how many teams have looked great in May and June during previous seasons, only to collapse spectacularly as the season reached its arduous, 162-game conclusion. The temptation is to look at the Yankees and Dodgers and pencil them in for a TV-friendly bi-coastal World Series, but with such a short season, just about all of the teams can qualify for the expanded post-season, and those who stay free of serious injury will be most likely to prevail. 

            Which leads El Hombre to…

            Super-Size Me: Sixteen playoff teams? What in the name of the NHL is going on here? This means Kansas City might get in. And the Giants, even with Gabe Kapler managing them. And even…Baltimore. Okay, okay. El Hombre is sorry for losing his mind (shaddup!) momentarily. This actually works – for one year. The shortened season will create a playoff race that will involve every MLB team, except Detroit. Not even a 28-team playoff scenario could help the Tigers. Let’s have a full-on tournament. That ought to keep people’s interest, although once the NFL gets started, it’s tough to imagine a first-round matchup between Colorado and the Reds is going to draw eyeballs in any other city. So, EH provides his imprimatur: Sixteen teams for one time only. The whole world is on its ear. Why not get crazy? 

            And The Winner Is: It’s pretty tempting to pencil in the Dodgers and Yankees into the World Series. After all, they paid for it. Were this a normal, 162-game season, that would be the call. But a 60-game, pandemic-threatened sprint requires drastic measures. Let’s give the NL to the Dodgers, who will bump off Atlanta in the NLCS. As for the Junior Circuit, El Hombre is going with Tampa Bay. Nobody does more with less than the Rays, and in this setting, they have enough to reach the Big Show. However, they will lose in five to L.A., which takes its first Series title since Tommy LaSorda was in charge and chasing the Phillie Phanatic around the stadium.

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            EL HOMBRE SEZ: The NBA announced Monday that none of the 300-plus people in its Orlando “Bubble” had tested positive for coronavirus, quite an accomplishment given the level of contact players have during practices and scrimmages. Guess the threat of that “Snitch Line” has scared some people into behaving themselves. It also means there isn’t any right swiping going on. Let’s see how everything plays out when some team members need a little “consoling” after a loss…Meanwhile, the NHL is set to resume play in a little over a week, with all games played in Canada. That’s a good thing, because given the state of the teams in that country, it’s the only way the Stanley Cup will be won in up in North Minnesota for a long time…Let’s hear it for Washington NFL franchise owner Little Danny Snyder, who is changing the name of his team after being reminded by sponsors that they can take away their millions just as easily they can give them. This has nothing to do with helping to rid the landscape of racist terms; it’s all about the chicken, as the kids say, and Snyder remains a contemptible individual, no matter how hard the NFL’s propaganda partners try to make him out to be upstanding…Let’s hear it for Bryson DeChambeau, who in between swallowing entire cannisters of protein powder and swatting 400-yard drives has managed to alienate a good chunk of the golfing community with his complaining about how the PGA’s TV apologizers are supposed to help him build his brand, rather than showing the tantrums he throws on the course. That’s why it was particularly gratifying to see him try to calculate how many shots he hit on the 15^th at Muirfield last week. The final tally was 10 and could have been a message from the golfing gods to stop the moaning.

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            YOU GOT A PROBLEM WITH THAT? So, now Ben Simmons is a four man, eh? The Sixers have seemingly ended their experiment with Simmons at the point and have given him a numeric promotion (one to four in the roundball lexicon) to a spot where shooting the three-pointer isn’t so important in the job description. The only problem is that the modern power forward is supposed to shoot the ball, too. He doesn’t always have to crank it up from behind the arc, but he should be able to hit a 15-footer. Simmons still can’t do that, and everybody who is any good the Sixers will play knows that. Simmons may be able to get away with his one-dimensional offensive game against the NBA’s chumps – of which there are many – but once a good defensive team lines up against him, Simmons will be exposed. There are always reports that he is working on his shot, that he will be taking jumpers and that he will become the complete player the Sixers need him to be. Until then, he can play every position on the court, but he will never be a first-rate star. 

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            AND ANOTHER THING: It was amusing to hear some of the NBA players in the league’s Mousetown “bubble” complaining about their accommodations. It turns out the food wasn’t to their gourmet standards, and the thread count on the sheets wasn’t high enough. Athletes are constantly reminding us how tough they are, but it seems more likely that the bravado-filled talk doesn’t refer to any interruption in their five-star lifestyles or criticism from the media. They will huff and puff on the court and then whine when someone has the temerity to mention that their on-field/court/ice performance isn’t quite commensurate with the Fort Knox-level paychecks they have been receiving. It was left to Oklahoma City center Steven Adams to provide a little perspective about the brutal conditions the players were enduring. “This is not Syria,” he said. “It’s not that hard.” Thank you, Steven. Let’s hope your peers took a little time away from their pedicures to pay attention. 

-EH-