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#Despite recent drama, fans will fall in love with baseball again

#Despite recent drama, fans will fall in love with baseball again

Wait … is the coast clear?

Have the warring parties really retreated to their bunkers at last? Have we actually typed the words “pro rata” into laptops for the last time? Is it really OK to start talking about baseball again?

You remember baseball, don’t you? Pastoral game. Nine to a side (well, 10 for the time being, now that everyone has a DH). Had a nice run as the national pastime, back when the games took two hours, there were lots of afternoon games (some of which included doubleheaders!), the uniforms were flannel and the players played for the love of the game (also known as “whatever scraps their cheapskate owners were willing to part with.”)

Baseball’s owners and its players finally agreed to start the 2020 season — assuming the coronavirus doesn’t overrule them — with a spring training report date of next Wednesday, July 1, with Opening Day scheduled for 23 days later and a 60-game sprint to Sept. 27 thereafter. So it is back to the field they go …

The field! Yes, the Mets and the Yankees will both spend the next week arriving in the city, getting acclimated, getting tested, and they will report to Yankee Stadium and Citi Field and …

(And, well, of course, if you have a gander at the 10-day forecast you see lots and lots of rain predicted for next Wednesday, because in 2020 would you expect anything different?)

Maybe you have decided to take a pass on what’s coming. Maybe the drama of the past month and the odd nature of such a short season have conspired to chisel away at the part of your soul that was devoted to baseball all these years. And maybe you’ll stay committed to that, having found other hobbies in the interim.

But if history tells us anything, that will dissolve. That will fade. If you root for the Mets, if you root for the Yankees, then you will slowly find yourself taking notice of reports of Jacob deGrom’s fastball popping Wilson Ramos’ mitt, of Gleyber Torres taking aim at the fences his first few rounds of batting practice.

These are, after all, two teams with ambitions, with expectations. The Yankees project to be the best team in the American League. The Mets finished strong last year and hope to emulate that 60-game finish this time around. That is where we left off in Florida. That is where we resume in New York.

Aaron Judge and Pete Alonso
Aaron Judge and Pete AlonsoAnthony J. Causi (2)

The games will arrive (we hope), and maybe you won’t watch them. But maybe you will. Baseball is an addiction. It is a Svengali. If you can resist its lure, good for you. If the first four-game Mets winning streak doesn’t get your heart racing, if the first three-game Yankees losing streak doesn’t get your blood boiling … well, congrats. Maybe you have kicked the habit for good.

But if you haven’t, you’ll watch. You’ll find anger replaced by acceptance. Maybe you’ll hate yourself for that. Maybe you’ll kick yourself for that. And yet, see if you can avoid yelling at the screen the first time Pete Alonso or Giancarlo Stanton make baseballs disappear over the sun. See if you can simply ignore the first time Luis Rojas pulls his starter too early against the Phillies, or when Aaron Boone goes to his bullpen too slowly against the Sox.

Maybe you’ll stay away this time.

But I heard plenty of hockey fans insist they’d stay away for good when the NHL threw a brick wall up in front of all the momentum they’d gained in 1994 by spending half the next season in a lockout. But I was also at the Garden on Jan. 20, 1995, the night a Stanley Cup banner was raised to the roof. I was at the Meadowlands five months and four days later when Scott Stevens hoisted the Cup in the air after the Devils swept the Red Wings.

I was there when Larry Johnson’s four-point play nearly sent the Garden into orbit on June 5, 1999, the end of a weird and angry lockout year in the NBA. I was there when Don Mattingly took Andy Benes deep on Oct. 4, 1995, a year after baseball tried to light itself on fire the last time. “Hang onto the roof!” Gary Thorne screamed over the din that night.

I heard all of that, all of those times, after hearing so much anger. I hear it still. And expect to hear it again, starting in the softening hearts of an angry legion of baseball fans. Maybe I’m wrong about that. Let’s see.

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