7pm tonight
on ESPN – 9-21-2001 game pitting the Mets and the Braves. First game back after
9-11 and the game that Mike Piazza made us all
smile again.
Most
of you know who John Sickles is. He is the guy
that used to publish those great Top 30 prospect lists for SB Nation. He’s now
a writer for The Athletic and is a Facebook friend of yours truly.
John
is currently suffering from ‘flu like symptoms’ but has yet to be tested.
He
posted on Twitter yesterday that:
John Sickels @MinorLeagueBall
That's exactly what I think. We will be very lucky if we have
an attenuated 60-game season played in empty stadiums in August and Sept. I doubt the minors resume at all this year
and Covid may do for the minors what Manfred was wanting to do.
It was
so bittersweet seeing that beautiful hospital ship dock in New York Harbor
yesterday afternoon. And then they show pictures of tents in Central Park.
This
is my home you are screwing around with.
Grand Admiral Braun: Maybe a better question for Jay Jaffe,
but do you feel that if a player was essentially one of the best 3 players in
the sport for a half a decade, does it sound Hall of Fame-worthy? Seems like
that could still encourage “large-Hall” thinking. Thinking about Andre Dawson,
Dale Murphy, etc.
Dan Szymborski: I think you can argue that
I’d probably have voted for both Dawson and Murphy. But I’m
also more willing to vote on peak value than the vast majority of the voters
today.
See Johan Santana.
I would have cast a vote for Santana.
Hardball Times shut down due to the coronavirus.
Here’s part of their statement:
An
addition to yesterday’s reported agreement in baseball:
Kendall
Rogers and Shooter Hunt Retweeted a Tweet
from Aaron Fitt
Important distinction here: the extra year of eligibility is
guaranteed, but the roster spot is not. A lot of players are going to have to
find some other school to take advantage of those extra years. And that’s OK. A
roster crunch was unavoidable.
Shooter Hunt - Still a LOT of questions to be answered and
schools apparently not “forced” to keep players, but my understanding is that
the year of eligibility is guaranteed.
Matt Klentak: is it more likely we see a shortened season or
no baseball till 2021
Jay Jaffe: I still think it’s more likely that
we see a shortened season than none at all. It may be an oddly shaped one in
terms of the possibility of starting with empty stadiums, neutral site
postseason stuff with an expanded field, maybe even seven-inning doubleheaders
(but I doubt that), but last week’s agreement between the league and the union,
and the comments by Tony Clark, made it clear that MLB wants to do *something*
rather than nothing, even if things get weird. I’m going to retain hope, and I
think you all should as well. After all, it’s still only March 30, not July.
Unfortunately, we find ourselves in a situation where
continuing to publish THT, at least for now, is impossible. The suspension of
the baseball season, while undeniably the right thing to do for public health,
has resulted in a significant decline in traffic to us, a baseball-related
site. I hope that sometime in the not-so-distant future we’ll be able to return
to publishing insightful, unique baseball commentary and analysis. At the
moment, though, we have to close our virtual doors.
And so it begins…
Nicole
Auerbach @NicoleAuerbach
Source tells @TheAthleticCFB that the NCAA Division I Council
has approved blanket waiver for all spring-sport athletes to get an extra year
of eligibility. Schools will be able to offer less (or zero) aid or match what
they provided this year. Up to each school for each athlete.
In this one scenario, I'm with the students as the suspension of their seasons was not something they caused.
ReplyDeleteReese -
ReplyDeleteYou are 100% correct.
John From Albany said that Albany really hasn't seen much virus yet.
And yet peple still think teams like Syracuse and Binghamton will play ball come June.
Best wishes for John Sickels. Chris Cuomo tested positive.
ReplyDeleteThat is additional sad news.
ReplyDeleteI watched Andy's press conferece today.
I did not realize that his brother came to CNN from FOX.
Mack:
ReplyDeleteThanks for writing yesterday's column. Like you, I haven't been able to focus much on baseball the past week, even as a diversion. I would hope the season would be cancelled. I wouldn't go to a game this year. Anywhere.
I know my wife will say that I am very pessimistic (to which I say that I am realistic, not pessimistic). I have begun to worry that, with corona virus taking younger, healthier people along with the aged and compromised, we may wind up seeing vacancies on some rosters when this is all said and done. And that would be very sad indeed.
Bob W
ReplyDeleteThanks for your comments.
This will be a daily post for all of to express our thoughts on baseball, the Mets, and this miserable pandemic.
I lost two Aunts in the 1918 Spanish Flu pandemic (sorry for identifying what country it came from). They were babies when they died.
We will get through this but the team we love will not be the same as it was when they reported to Florida... Vets with expiring contracts and some filler minor leaguers will never wear this uniform again.
Mack:
ReplyDeleteAn interesting fact: The Spanish Flu was mis-named. History has shown that, it too, probably originated in China.