Steve Stone: "MLB Spring Training Will Start On Time"
Steve Stone and I have had our beefs. Most people that follow Chicago sports know that by now, but I will ALWAYS hold his baseball opinions in high regard. He's the smartest man in the room; I know that, you know that, and you better believe he knows that. That's my one peeve with him, is that he can kinda be a jerk off if you disagree with him. Whatever though. He's a baseball lifer who knows the game as well as anyone on the planet. I truly mean that.
And that's why it's awesome to hear him say that MLB will start on time. He doesn't have any agenda whatsoever - if he did, he'd have been managing baseball teams a long time ago or in a front office somewhere. Instead, he just likes to stick to himself and spit the best baseball knowledge on earth at you through a microphone then recede into the night at season's end. To each their own. My point in saying this is because he wouldn't say it if it weren't as definitive as can be at the moment, and I say "at the moment" because who knows how the coronavirus landscape will change a month from now. As we sit though, you can take it to the bank that pitchers are catchers will be reporting a month or so from now. Stone wouldn't say that unless he was positive at this time.
Manfred came out and said teams should prepare to start their seasons on time earlier this week.
And I thought that was fishy. We heard owners say that they don't want to start the season until the players have been vaccinated:
No no no no no. Nice try, Jerry. Good one Dolan. You don't give a single flying fuck about the players being vaccinated or not, you care about one thing and one thing only: having fans in the stands. Now, that's absolutely their prerogative. They're running their businesses as they see fit and want to maximize the bottom line. I don't give a shit though and neither do the players. MLB (and every other pro sports league) has proven that they can have seasons that coexist with the pandemic. You played last summer when far less was known about the virus, you can play this spring and summer when you know how to better handle the logistics of playing and we know far more about the virus as a whole. Not to mention the vaccine is being rolled out more and more. I mean shit, Yankee Stadium and Citi Field, among other stadiums, are going not be mass inoculation sites soon:
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So nice try owners. 162 games and that is FINAL. There is no weaseling your ways out of this one. We'll see everyone in the stands come May, hopefully.
We'll talk about this more on Red Line Radio this week. Until then, here is a 2021 White Sox hype video: