Is July 1 A Realistic Target Date for the Start of the MLB Season?
SI's Bri Amaranthus and Chris Halicke discuss the likelihood of a realistic MLB season start date.
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00:00 MLB plans for starting play in 2020 are coming into focus.
00:05 First of all, top officials are cautiously optimistic that there will even be a season this year, which is of course great news.
00:13 Depending on how the rest of the country reopens and how that goes, Chris, what are the latest rumblings you're hearing on how, if, and when the MLB season will finally get underway?
00:25 Unfortunately, we still don't know exactly when baseball is coming back. I've been asked by so many different people, different fans, just, you know, when's baseball coming back?
00:36 Unfortunately, we still don't know the answer to that question. Honestly, from everything that I'm hearing, the earliest possible opportunity for baseball to begin their season would be the end of June.
00:50 But one date that continually gets thrown around, or not a specific date, but a time, is the beginning of July, whether that be July 1st, July 2nd, July 4th.
00:59 Beginning of July seems to be the target date right now. Whether Major League Baseball officials want to officially announce that or not, based off of all the different plans that have come out, based on all the different reports from both local and national media,
01:15 it seems like that early July seems to be the time that would be the most realistic for baseball to make a return and to get their season underway.
01:26 That would mean that you're going to have to have baseball players start their spring training sometime in June, preferably closer to the beginning of June, so that they can ramp things back up and pitchers have the opportunity to build themselves back up for the regular season.
01:43 Obviously, the season will look very different. How that looks, we've seen different plans, with the Arizona plan that was reported several weeks ago, to two different realignment plans that USA Today Sports have reported.
01:57 Whatever traction those are gaining or not gaining, obviously remains yet to be seen, but obviously there are a lot of ideas being thrown around, and hopefully we will get baseball soon.
02:13 It's not looking like it's going to be happening anytime soon, but it's looking like beginning of July is becoming the unofficial target date for the beginning of the MLB season.
02:23 season.