For New York Yankees fans and New York Met fans, for each day that goes by without baseball they are starting to care less about the details, they just want to watch some baseball. At this point, fans realize that this baseball season will look very different than any season form the past. In fact, many are beginning to fear that there may be no baseball season at all.
Back three weeks ago, MLB shut down all of the remaining spring training games and pushed back opening day two weeks. Events around the world have come to a shutdown, since then the coronavirus had become the only topic occupying the news channels. For many New York Yankee fans, baseball has taken a back seat to their health, and the health of their families as the virus outbreak shows no sign of going away any time soon.
Sports from the NBA, NHL, MBL, and all professional sports to college and high school sports are nowhere to found.  For those that don’t follow sports, they could care less. But for die-hard baseball fans, each week that passes without the “boys of summer,” the want for some kind of season grows exponentially. Fans are starting to care less about the details of what a season would look like, and are little by little coming to the realization, that there may be no season at all.
Weeks ago, when MLB shut down operations all the talk was about the legitimacy of a shortened season and all the details that would have to be ironed out. A season of 140 games was discussed, then 120 and now 80-100 games. No one believes baseball will start at least at the major league level until sometime in July.
MLB and the New York Yankees will have to make some tough decisions. It now seems likely that if we do have baseball, they will try to get as many games in as possible, moving the end of the season deeper into November. Early in the year, MLB was talking about expanding postseason play, that may still happen as it will give teams a better chance to compete for the championship, none the less a shortened season will always carry an asterisk alongside it.
Issues to be solved:
How long will the season be? Probably in the area of 80 games. Will there be an All-star game? Probably not, it would take away from games played. Will players be paid for a full season? Probably not, players and owners will have to share in lost revenue. Will players and owners have to agree to terms? Yes! Could players strike over pay not received? It’s possible. Will there be a draft? Yes, but it might not be until the offseason. What if it snows in November? Games might be held at neutral sites or in domed stadiums. What about free agency and service time? That has pretty well been decided already. Players will be awarded service time. What about the trade deadline? I will be pushed back into August.
But the most significant concern right now is how many games will be played and how long will a mini-spring training be to help avoid injuries during a regular season.  New York Yankee manager Aaron Boone recently said:
“They’re going to want to try to get in as many games as possible, so it’s going to tack on to the end of the season. The season is going to carry on longer, so you’re going to potentially be in warm weather spots or domed situations. That may lend itself to some neutral-site situations. This is an opportunity to be creative; maybe at the end of it all we’ll get to look at it and say, ‘Hey, this worked, this is something we’d like to implement moving forward.'”
The new New York Mets manager Luis Rojas has said:
Whatever the case, with each passing day baseball fans, just want to watch some baseball being played. Things that seemed unthinkable just a few weeks ago are now okay with fans as long as we have baseball. It is this writer’s view that by the end of April, we will know much more as to when a season will start and what it will look like. I guess that it will be in the area of 80 games to be considered legitimate, it may be played in empty stadiums to start, but it will begin at some point.
On the national political level, many are wondering what the balance should be in saving the economy and saving lives. That consideration will not affect sports as the sports world will never endanger fans as exhibited by the Olympics being pushed back a year. It may be a very different baseball season, but it will be one that fans will remember for years to come.