First and foremost, baseball faced a pandemic problem. Major League Baseball felt it needed to have a season for revenues, for interest, for the relationship between sports and the national psyche.
It was deemed impossible to create campuses like the NBA and NHL have, especially since three of the states most devastated by the coronavirus are Florida, Arizona and Texas. The resulting solution was red-flagged as soon as they asked players to be ready to open the season with less than three weeks of preparation.
1. I think it was Harvey Haddix who told me as a cub reporter that “the difference between the last outings in spring training and the first of the regular season is the last three-to-five percent of adrenaline and effort when you go from palm trees to three-decker stadiums.” The pitchers know...