Today brought talk of a potential start to the 2020 Major League Baseball season, and with it hopes that it could commence sometime in May. There are a lot of details to be figured out yet to see if it could actually happen, and we’ll get to that in a bit.
If we do get a baseball season, somehow someway amid the coronavirus pandemic, then who will be will the leading contenders to win it all? The betting community seems to be heavily backing the Los Angeles Dodgers. When perusing wagering websites, be sure to check out the biggest Australian gambling guide on the web. It’s an excellent resource for links that cover betting of all types, include sports betting.
The sports books like the Dodgers best of all when it comes to who they believe will win it all. You’ll typically see Los Angeles priced at about +285, with the New York Yankees coming in next best at usually in the neighborhood of +375. Then there’s a drop off to everybody else, with the disgraced team, the Houston Astros the next closest.
As for the plan to salvage a MLB season, well it centers around playing all games within the Phoenix area, and then sequestering the teams in area hotels between games. This plan, which still has to be fleshed out quite a bit, has risen above the other options, and thus stands the best chance of potential implementation. Reportedly it has been embraced by MLB and MLB Players Association leadership, and it includes one criticial caveat- all games must be played with no fans.
A crowdless baseball game has happened before, April 29, 2015 when the Baltimore Orioles hosted, and beat the Chicago White Sox, by a score of 8-2.
Of course, the reasons for that game going behind closed doors are completely different from the situation facing the country and the world right now. Still, the Arizona plan is the only thing that could work because you have so many teams that play their exhibition games in the area during spring training. Thus, you have all those stadiums within a close vicinity of each other, and they can be utilized at the same time.
It remains to be seen if they can pull this off, and even if they can it may not start until June. It’s important to remember when the nation’s leading infectious disease expert, Dr. Anthony Fauci, always says- we don’t make the timeline, the virus does.
Paul M. Banks runs The Sports Bank.net, which is partnered with News Now. Banks, the author of “No, I Can’t Get You Free Tickets: Lessons Learned From a Life in the Sports Media Industry,” regularly appears on WGN CLTV and co-hosts the “Let’s Get Weird, Sports” podcast on SB Nation.
You can follow Banks, a former writer for NBC Chicago.com and Chicago Tribune.com on Twitter here and his cat on Instagram at this link
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