NEWSLETTER
As part of our effort to do the best we can as the sports media space gets hammered, I’ve been doing some tweaking to site functionality under the hood – basically, I’m trying to find every little bit I can to improve user experience.
Tiny speed improvements. Tiny visual improvements (which may take a little time to show up fully on your end). Tiny ad improvements. Well, and one pretty big ad improvement: we reduced the total ad volume at the site (most notably removing the recent posts player that featured video ads). Consider that another enticement to please not use an adblocker, or at least please whitelist BN. The ads that we show are critical to our survival, and if you block them, we don’t get paid. That means not only are you enjoying the content without “paying” us for it, you’re also using server load that we pay for. Thank you very much for whitelisting BN. This place stays free because of kind folks like you.
• Let’s imagine that baseball wants to return to action this year, but for one reason or another, cannot make something like The Arizona Plan (quarantining teams in a single location to play for TV) work. We’ve heard that such a plan might be the league’s only hope for return, but we also know that players are highly unlikely to participate in such a plan if it means they cannot have their families with them in Arizona (or, alternatively, if they can’t be guaranteed that the quarantined part of the season would *not* last the entire season). So again, let’s imagine for some reason those caveats cannot be met – or some other logistical hurdle presents too steep a climb – and The Arizona Plan is tossed out. Is that truly it for the baseball season?
• I’ve been thinking more about this after the President’s phasing guidelines for an opening of the economy came out. Specifically, I’ve been thinking about how Phase Two explicitly states that “large … sporting venues” can reopen with “moderate physical distancing” in place. Moreover, “non-essential travel” can resume. So that means, *IF* states were following these guidelines, and *IF* every state where an MLB team operated had reached Phase Two, then you could actually play out the remainder of the normal MLB schedule at home parks with normal travel and family situations. You still wouldn’t be able to play with fans, but it’s really clear that these guidelines were written in a way to permit fan-less sports to be played wherever once the relevant states are in Phase Two. (Recall, though, that getting to Phase Two requires first getting to Phase One and then through Phase One – 14 days of diminishing COVID-19 cases, widespread testing, medical facilities in good shape, and then no rebound in cases during Phase One.)
• That is all to say, The Arizona Plan actually might NOT be the only hope for a baseball season, but if you wanted to play at regular parks across the country (normal family life), a whole lot has to happen between now and July or August. (Meanwhile, you might be able to pull off The Arizona Plan before you get to Phase Two in most states, whether by special exception since it’s just one state, or because the venues are small – or because Arizona gets to Phase Two long before most other states do.)
• Speaking of avoiding The Arizona Plan, Paul Sullivan has a different geographic idea, diving the country into four sections and playing out the season that way:
There doesn’t seem to be a perfect solution to the problem of how to restart the baseball season when it’s deemed safe to do so.@PWSullivan has an idea to make it work.https://t.co/Aq3t2uB1Vv
— Chicago Tribune Sports (@ChicagoSports) April 18, 2020
• Folks, we got a rumble-ish in Taiwan:
We have our first bench-clearing incident in the 2020 #CPBL season. pic.twitter.com/Jwwo0oxMIi
— CPBL STATS (@GOCPBL) April 19, 2020
• Supporting Kerry Wood’s Pitch In program:
Chicago! Hope you’re all safe and healthy! Our Pitch In program is moving to e-learning & we need your help for our students to complete their school work and Pitch In programming. Please help us provide laptops and supplies at https://t.co/I8NnvhALeo #WeAreInThisTogether
— Kerry Wood (@KerryWood) April 16, 2020
• Anthony Rizzo and his foundation keep on keeping on in this time of widespread need:
More on all Rizzo and his foundation are doing in here: https://t.co/qz32Cn1sh0 https://t.co/K9llFjjkKe
— Jordan Bastian (@MLBastian) April 16, 2020
• Jason Heyward is making the most of quarantine:
Per his Insta (@ jheylove22), it appears Jason Heyward now has TWO adorable puppies! pic.twitter.com/wWp7jiHhut
— Cubs Insider (@realcubsinsider) April 19, 2020
• Missing baseball:
Homer took to the streets of Downtown #Knoxville to find out if people miss @MiLB and @MLB. It seems pretty apparent. @ESPNAssignDesk pic.twitter.com/Fal13zeiB3
— Tennessee Smokies (@smokiesbaseball) April 18, 2020
