For a minors guy, this means the end of the season. In a good year, there might be another week or two of games, perhaps culminating in a team picture hoisting a “hunk of metal,” to use the parlance of Herr Manfred.
But this is not a good year. It’s the worst year in most people’s living memory. (Raise your cane if you remember ’68 or ’39).
The minor-league season was canceled. Sure, there’s the alternative training sites, but for the most part, fans and scouts aren’t allowed in. We’re forced to rely on second-hand accounts – much like the instrux, which were given the go-ahead by MLB to proceed, though it’s not clear how that will work just yet.
And then there’s the elephant of contraction that’s just a little more than three weeks away.
I wish I could be more upbeat about all of this. I wish I could pass along some platitude without sounding like a grab-the-tartar-sauce-we’re-going-after-that-white-whale Pollyanna with a “Live, Laugh, Love” creation from Etsy on her wall.
But if you’ve stuck around this long – and yeah, site traffic and my Twitter following has taken a beating – then you know that’s not who I am. Of course, we’re going to get through this – we’ve survived world wars, economic depressions, civil unrest, and Milli Vanilli.
It’s the not knowing how, why, or when that I can’t ignore or deny. It doesn’t mean I don’t think I’ll break free on a Saturday morning (prolly not tomorrow, though) and head north on Mills Avenue…
https://web.archive.org/web/20230528200740/https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ii6kJaGiRaI