🙌 Time To Rejoice: Baseball Is Back

There will be fewer games, no fans, and new rules. But most important, the MLB season is on the horizon. [View in browser]( [FOX SPORTS INSIDER WITH MARTIN ROGERS] In today’s FOX Sports Insider: A giant sigh of relief can finally be released as Major League Baseball is back, with a 60-game schedule set to begin next month ... Alabama appears to have their quarterback of the future ... and a professional rugby club in England gives us a much-needed laugh with their signing of 22-year-old Harry Potter. We want to watch baseball. Personally, I don’t want to think about baseball-related things that aren’t actual baseball. I no longer want to speculate about baseball, or wonder about when it might return. I don’t want baseball news, baseball deals, or baseball scenarios. I just want baseball. And I feel like I’m not alone. Thankfully, we are finally going to get baseball. On Tuesday, an impasse that at times looked like it was going nowhere ended with commissioner Rob Manfred imposing a schedule. Months of frustration closed with the following solution: 60 games, with a start date of either July 23 or 24. Mostly divisional play, with the remainder of the slate being against opponents of close geographical proximity. And though there won’t be fans, there will be baseball. [STORY IMAGE 1] “Major League Baseball is thrilled to announce that the 2020 season is on the horizon,” Manfred said in a statement. “We have provided the Players Association with a schedule to play 60 games and are excited to provide our great fans with baseball again soon.” It means we don’t have to hear any more about the give and take, about offers being made and rejected and countered. Baseball is about to once again take the form of actual games played out on diamonds across America — and the result should be thrilling, in every sense of the word. “We've got a pennant race from jump street, from day one of the season,” FOX Sports MLB reporter Tom Verducci said on Speak For Yourself. “There are no meaningless games now. It's going to be a scramble to see who gets into the playoffs. I think you're talking about a September where virtually every game on any given night has playoff implications. Once baseball gets back on the field, the narrative changes. Players and pennant races become the narrative.” A truncated campaign brings all kinds of things into play. Could we see a .400 hitter? Statistical batting excellence becomes more likely when it only needs to be sustained over a tighter time window, and as ESPN’s David Schoenfield points out, we have seen a player hit. 400 over the first 60 games of a season recently — Chipper Jones, in 2008. (However, bear in mind that any slugger who goes on such a tear will have to do so against pitching arms that are fresher than normal towards the end of summer.) What will it take to win a division, or even make the playoffs? Remember that teams such as the Los Angeles Dodgers and Cleveland Indians have had incredible bursts. In 2017, the Dodgers had a run of 43-7, while Cleveland went 42-8. [STORY IMAGE 2] Can a team get hot and rack up an absurd winning percentage? Will we see a 45 or even 50-game winner? What about on the flip side? The average winning percentage for the worst playoff team in each league in the last five seasons, according to Schoenfield, was .549, which would translate to a 33-27 record in a 60-game season. In a tight race, could a team squeak into the playoffs by winning as few as, say, 31 games? There will be some weird little foibles like that, but forget about the bitter concept that this will all somehow mean less than a normal season. [At FiveThirtyEight, statistics wizard Neil Paine]( estimates that in a 162-game season, the best team has a 22% chance of winning the World Series; in a 60-game campaign, that number is still 15% — less likely, yes, but not markedly so. I have gotten into this before, when talking about other sports. It is a different year, but let’s not hurt ourselves and our own viewing pleasure by attaching an asterisk because the number of games is shorter and there are no fans and because life has changed a lot. Besides, if there was any doubt that the players were up for it, those were swiftly put to rest with an immediate array of social media messages. [STORY IMAGE 3] “Baseball is back baby!” exclaimed the New York Mets’ Pete Alonso, accompanied by an excited mnemonic not appropriate for family viewing. Bryce Harper even interrupted new dad duties – his wife gave birth a day earlier – to voice his pleasure with a simple yet powerful statement – “we’re finally coming home.” It will be a season, a genuine one, fought out by players and teams at full speed. Think of it as a soup being boiled down to optimal thickness, to the point where each taste packs more of a punch. Losing a nail-biter in Game 15 of a normal season wouldn’t seem like much of a deal typically. It will sting more now and each defeat has potential consequences. The stars have had time to rest up and work on things, to get busy getting even better. The quality of play should be first-rate. “A slow start now is basically your season,” Verducci added. “You can’t afford a slow start here. One group of players that it really helps – veteran pitchers. They have been able to rest, regather, and weren’t putting miles on the pitching odometer over the last four months. They can get to the most important months of the year, August and September, relatively fresh.” [STORY IMAGE 4] There are new things to see: Mookie Betts in Dodger blue and Gerrit Cole in Yankees pinstripes, and whether baseballs are going to keep zinging out of ballparks or fly with a little less explosiveness. There are labor issues in the sport that have been put on hold, not solved, but that is for another time. There are future deals to be cut, there are moves to be made. But for now — there is, well, “summer training" to soon be had. There are predictions to be made, theories about a shorter season to be tested, bets to be placed, reputations to be dented or upheld. But, most important of all, there is baseball to be played, and because of it, a sigh of relief to be finally released. [STORY IMAGE 5] Here's what others have said... Colin Cowherd, FOX Sports: “A 60 game MLB season will give the game a sense of urgency that it desperately needs... This is going to be great for baseball. Sometimes, people, even smart successful people, have to be forced into change. That’s what’s happening in baseball, and I can’t wait.” Mike Axisa, CBS Sports: “Fans of contending teams are the big winners because they'll get to see their team make a run at the World Series. The Yankees have Gerrit Cole! The Dodgers have Mookie Betts! The Nationals will try to defend their title! That's all fun and good. We're not going to lose Cole's age-29 season or Mookie's age-27 season to the pandemic, among other things. Contending teams won't lose a year from their championship window now that baseball is set to return.” Mark Townsend, Yahoo Sports: “Things have to be different in 2020. MLB has to make itself more available if it hopes to complete with simultaneous action in the NBA, NHL and eventually the NFL. It has to embrace the circumstances and provide an outlet for everyone who is craving baseball’s return. How the league handles both the opportunity and the challenges could breathe new life into baseball.” [IN OTHER WORDS] - Cole Anthony is projected to be a lottery pick in the upcoming 2020 NBA Draft. The former North Carolina guard is oozing with potential, but as [Sports Illustrated’s Kevin Armstrong writes]( Anthony must keep his feistiness in check in order to reach that potential. - Fans can rejoice as Major League Baseball is back. With a 60-game season on tap, [ESPN senior writer Buster Olney explains]( what to love, look forward to and wonder about MLB this season, and beyond. - The top quarterback recruit in the class of 2020, Bryce Young is expected to be Alabama’s next great signal caller. [Bleacher Report’s Adam Kramer provides an inside look]( into Young’s transformation from an undersized youngster learning the game, to the future of Alabama football. [THE INTERNET IS UNDEFEATED] [THE INTERNET IS UNDEFEATED]( Harry Potter is set to make his professional sports debut, but it won’t be in quidditch. The Leicester Tigers, a professional rugby club in England, officially announced the signing of 22-year-old Harry Potter. Of course it’s not THE Harry Potter, but that didn’t stop the team’s social media accounts from having some fun with it. Check out this outstanding edit the team put together, which features the Sorting Hat scene from the first Harry Potter movie, but with an outstanding twist at the end. Make sure to pay extra attention at the 1:15 mark, where some perfectly-placed audio is dubbed over, as well as a shot of the Leicester Tigers’ fans cheering at the end of the video. Give yourselves a pat on the back, Leicester Tigers’ social media team. Well played! [VIEWER'S GUIDE] WWE NXT (USA, 8 p.m. ET) The WWE NXT North American Title is on the line as Keith Lee, Johnny Gargano and Finn Balor battle in a much-anticipated Triple Threat Match. PGA Tour Golf: Travelers Championship (Thursday, Golf Channel, 3 p.m. ET) Tune in for the opening day of the Travelers Championship live from TPC River Highlands in Cromwell, Connecticut, where six of the top seven players in the world are in action. Big Noon Kickoff (FOX Sports digital platforms) Urban, Reggie, Matt, Joel and Rob rank their top 5 defensive players heading into the 2020 college football season, and Penn State head coach James Franklin joins the show. [BET OF THE DAY] [BET OF THE DAY] Odds provided by [FOX Bet]( MLB World Series winner New York Yankees: +350 Los Angeles Dodgers: +375 Houston Astros: +600 Atlanta Braves: +1100 Washington Nationals: +1600 With the news that Major League Baseball is returning to action, we figured there was no better time to look at some World Series futures. [As our Jason McIntyre points out]( the Yankees and Dodgers are the clear favorites to get to the World Series, and appear to offer some value at +350 and +375, respectively. However, McIntyre also explains that a shorter season should help the Washington Nationals’ repeat chances. With arguably the best pitching staff in baseball, taking the Nationals at 16-1 sure seems tempting. A new FOX Sports app and website is coming. [Click here]( to be notified when the reimagined app is available. [WHAT THEY SAID] “Baseball is a lot like life. It’s a day-to-day existence, full of ups and downs. You make the most of your opportunities in baseball, as you do in life." — Ernie Harwell [FOLLOW FOX SPORTS] [Twitter]( [Facebook]( [YouTube]( [Instagram]( Download FOX Sports App: [Fire TV]( [Roku]( [Google Play]( [App Store]( [Fire TV]( [Roku]( [App Store]( [Google Play]( Also available on these devices: [fireTV | AppleTV | ROKU | Google Chromecast | XBOX ONE | SAMSUNG Smart TV] [fireTV | AppleTV | ROKU | Google Chromecast | XBOX ONE | SAMSUNG Smart TV] Trademark & Copyright Notice: ™ and © 2020 FOX Media LLC and Fox Sports Interactive Media, LLC. All rights reserved. Please do not reply to this message. If you do not wish to receive emails like this in the future, please [unsubscribe](. FOX Sports respects your privacy. Click [here]( to view our Privacy Policy. Fox.com Business & Legal Affairs - Manager Digital Media P.O. Box 900 Beverly Hills, California 90213-0900