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MLB Bullets has indoor activities for you

How minor leaguers are faring and getting help. A few baseball history notes. And humorous ways to cope with the current situation.

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Photo by Stefano Guidi/Getty Images

Once again, many of the articles in today’s Bullets are from The Athletic. Here’s a great deal they have just offered:

Definitely worth doing, in my view, especially now with so many parts of society shut down, it would give you great reading material.

First, let’s talk financials and baseball schedules:

  • Emily Waldon talked to some minor league players about how they’re going to make it during the shutdown. One of them told her: “We are pros at scraping by.” (The Athletic subscription required)
  • Garrett Broshius, a former minor-league pitcher who is now an attorney, has created a group to advocate for minor league players. Derrick Goold has the story.
  • This is an NBA story, but it could have ramifications in baseball as well. Ben Golliver writes that the NBA could lose up to $1 billion from that league’s shutdown. Salaries will have to adjust as a result. (Yes, MLB doesn’t have a salary cap like the NBA, but you can bet there will be financial effects on baseball.)
  • Japan’s NPB won’t start till at least April 24 and perhaps not till May, per this Nikkan Sports article. (The original is in Japanese, I’m relying on a possibly inaccurate Google Translate of it.)
  • Rockies manager Bud Black says he’d be OK if doubleheaders were scheduled to make up some games after MLB resumes. (You know how I feel about DH. Single-admission? Maybe. Split DH? Nope.)

Some actual baseball news not related to the shutdown:

  • In a court hearing, attorneys for the Red Sox “disagreed” with MLB’s finding that they might have cheated in 2018. Daniel Kaplan has details. (The Athletic subscription required)
  • Mariano Rivera minced no words when talking about the Astros sign-stealing scandal, directly calling it “cheating” on a radio show. Mark Townsend has the story.

Things about the shutdown and what to do during it:

A look back at previous pandemics:

  • Rustin Dodd has the story of a baseball writer during the 1918 flu pandemic who was beloved in his time but has long been forgotten, and also reveals Babe Ruth likely had the illness. (The Athletic subscription required)
  • John Thorn’s article “Baseball in the time of cholera” discusses how the sport, then in its infancy, dealt with a deadly epidemic of that disease in the 1840s.

Lastly, some fun:

And tomorrow will be a better day than today, Buster. Make it so.