Outside The Confines: Baseball is back!

Well, friends, it certainly got shaky there for a bit, and I don’t mind telling you I wasn’t sure if we would see baseball at all this year. But as the owners have moved to impose a roughly 60-game season, it looks like we’re all going to get our wish.

As long as we ignore the ill-will this will foster going into the post-2021 CBA negotiations, of course.

But let’s not get ahead of ourselves, and rather dig into some general doubt and enthusiasm in the baseball world surrounding these new events! Craig Goldstein has a great piece on the return of baseball over at Baseball Prospectus to get us started.

• Not sure who the best DH candidates in the NL are? Jay Jaffe explores who would work best on each team.
• Ken Rosenthal points out that while baseball is coming, there are no real winners in this deal. (The Athletic subscription required.)
• Likewise over at SI.com Tom Verducci has a similar sentiment about the shortened season.
• More than that, MLB needs to work on make amends with its fans, in a piece by Chris Halicke.
• Some changes might be coming...

• Tom Verducci looks back at the 1918 season, the last time a pandemic shortened a season.
• Sarah R. Ingber, Davy Andrews, and Roger Cormier continue their minor league series with a feature on the Jackson Generals.
• Joe Posnanski looks back at 100 years of Negro Leagues Baseball. (The Athletic subscription required.)
• Larry Stone shares the story of a couple whose minor league team ownership dreams have been upturned by the coronavirus.
• Want to see a scary damn mascot? Marc Antoine Godin talks about the Expos first nightmare inducing mascot. (The Athletic subscription required.)
• Carl Crawford’s trouble continues with a million dollar lawsuit.
• Larry Doby Jr. talks about his famous father’s career, racial inequality, and more, with Zack Meisel. (The Athletic subscription required.)
• This tweet is my 2020 mood board.

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