Just shy of a year ago I was at Pott’s Sports Café in Fort
Myers, Florida. March 12, 2020 to be exact. I’ll never forget that day as the
night before basketball shut down with the announcement of Rudy Gobert testing
positive for Covid-19. Having just left the freshly roped off back fields at
Hammond Stadium, waiting to catch a flight, news hit that Major League Baseball
was going on hold.
Fast forward to where we are today and hope springing
eternal couldn’t seem more appropriate. Each year around this time fans feel
the rejuvenation of the possibility that their team could win a World Series
come October. Spring Training may bring meaningless ballgames, but the action
being back is more than necessary for even the most casual of baseball fans.
Last year we went through a 60-game blitz that culminated
with a World Series inviting fans into the ballpark. During the regular season
and most of the Postseason, the only things inhabiting ballparks across the
country were cardboard cutouts. Fake crowd noise was pumped into stadiums, and
announcers worked games while sitting at empty fields and staring at television
monitors.
As Spring Training is now underway in 2021 fans have been
invited back into ballparks. Sellouts immediately commenced, and whatever
percentage of capacity was allowed to take place has been maxed out. We still
have social distancing and mask wearing, that likely won’t change for a while.
This season though, there are bodies back in the seats taking in America’s pastime.
There schedule is set up for a complete 162-game run, and the nuance of
baseball should again be on full display.
Minnesota enters the 2021 season as one of the best teams in
baseball, and they’ll have a renewed rivalry in the division thanks to the
youth emergence from the Chicago White Sox. A year ago, it was just a joy to
have baseball save what was otherwise a very gloomy summer. This year, the
sport can be a leader in a return to normalcy and we’ll get closer to that
reality as the calendar draws on.
Get out to a ballpark and go Twins!
