What to expect from BCB as the MLB lockout continues

With Major League Spring Training and the 2022 regular season on indefinite hold as the owners’ lockout continues, I have begun thinking about a coverage plan for BCB so that you, the Cubs and baseball fan, will have things to read and comment about until MLB returns.

There is some news about negotiations today:

Although:

So, obviously we’ll cover that as it happens.

Beyond that, now that we know there won’t be any spring games until at least Saturday, March 12 (and likely further than that date), I will try to get over to the Sloan Park complex in Mesa a time or two in the next few days to see what’s up with the minor leaguers. I assume there will be games with other teams’ minor leaguers coming up probably next week as well.

Next, as I noted here the other day, the MLBPA has set up a workout facility for locked-out players in east Mesa. I do not know if these workouts are open to the public, though it is a public facility. If I can find out, I might head over there as well to see major league players go through workouts.

The Cubs affiliates in Iowa, Tennessee, South Bend and Myrtle Beach all begin their seasons April 8. In fact, all four teams have been busy reminding fans of that fact:

(As you can see, Myrtle Beach’s season does begin April 8, the 12th is their home opener.)

Josh Timmers will continue his always-excellent coverage of the Cubs farm system. I suppose it’s possible that Marquee Sports Network will carry some live games involving these four teams, particularly Iowa — I know their Iowa coverage last year with Alex Cohen and Elyse Menaker was very well-received. If there’s enough interest we could potentially do some game threads. Josh will also continue BCB After Dark for night owls and movie/jazz fans every Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday night (actually very early Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday mornings). Thus for Josh, he'll basically keep doing what he's been doing here.

Independent league baseball starts, for the most part, around the middle of May. If the lockout goes that long, MLB is in deep trouble. But if it does, we’ll probably cover some indy league ball as well, perhaps the Chicago Dogs and/or some of the other Chicago-area indy league teams.

Tim Huwe will continue his coverage of the ramp-up to the MLB Draft — which I suppose will happen regardless of what happens with the lockout. In fact, we’ll have a Draft update from Tim later this afternoon.

And I’ll have plenty of history articles covering Cubs and Wrigley Field history. I might branch out into historic events involving other teams as well. And I’ll sleuth as many photos as I can find, and once again I’ll ask: If you’ve got old photos of Wrigley Field that you or a family member took when you were there years ago and you’d like me to sleuth them, send them along!

There’s plenty of baseball to write and talk about even if MLB and the Chicago Cubs aren’t playing. And, of course, when there’s news regarding the lockout, we’ll also cover that. Stick around, we can still talk baseball here at Bleed Cubbie Blue.

If you have coverage ideas, leave them in the comments, or drop me an email.