Now that there's an affirmative answer to the big question -- will the city of Chicago allow fans at ballparks to open the 2021 season? -- a bunch of smaller questions have bubbled up.
Over at The Athletic, Jon Greenberg wrote a helpful FAQ-style explainer for fans rich in money ("I'm rich. Will private clubs be open?") and rich in spirit ("Can I still get drunk?").
Assuming the new biggest question is "How can I get tickets?", the answer is that tickets will be sold for only small chunks of the calendar at a time. Season-ticket holders will have first access, although the reduction to 20-percent capacity means most won't have their original seats.
The Sox are only putting their first homestand (April 8-15) on sale and they will start with their most loyal customers.
“Season-ticket holders, some of which who have had their money in an account with us for 18 months, are going to go first,” Boyer said. “We will offer our season-ticket holders the option to purchase all seven games of our first homestand … Season-ticket holders will have the ability to purchase individual game tickets and then if there’s anything left after that, we will go on sale to the general public.”
The White Sox have a detailed guide answering other topics, like ballpark entry, food service, and promotions. By and large, it's going to be as app-reliant, touchless and line-free as possible in order to reduce congregations outside of seating pods.
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Tony La Russa had a noble point about his aversion to flipping innings. If you're not familiar with the new lingo, with fewer bodies around the facilities during spring training this year, managers have a right to end innings ("flip" them) after a certain pitch count, rather than extend the services of a pitcher beyond his program, or require the services of an extra arm.
It makes sense, prioritizing health during games that don't matter. Also, I've been to a number of spring games where a fringe pitcher is forced to wear it, and the collective misery is palpable -- the embarrassment of the pitcher, the players who want their day of work to be over, the coaching staff that doesn't want to pencil a new name on its scorecard and schedule, the fans who are probably sunburned and can't buy more food and drink.
But those situations tended to arise in later innings with underqualified pitchers, after the outcome of the game was well in hand and the stars had already exited with their bat bags over their shoulders. It's a little different when José Abreu doesn't get a chance to do his thing with the bases loaded. Either way, failure builds character, or failing that, at least a distaste of failure. Sometimes it even creates an opportunity.
Regulation or not, that was the spirit of La Russa's argument when he voiced displeasure at the idea of abbreviating innings last week.
“There’s all kinds of professional reasons why it makes sense,” La Russa said. “But fans are paying to come in games. I know they were disappointed, they voiced it several times, so from the White Sox side, we’re going to do everything we can to avoid doing it. And the way you do it, we’re going to try to get enough protection in an inning where we can maybe bring somebody, maybe from the minicamp, so we can finish the inning and the other team can score as much as they can. It’s purely the correct thing to do for fans.”
La Russa has yet to be rewarded for this integrity. Last Wednesday, Tyler Johnson and Jacob Lindgren walked six consecutive batters with two outs. On Monday, Mike Wright opened his start with a flyout, then had the next five batters reach before La Russa pulled him.
Then again, La Russa might point to Kyle Kubat entering the game with a high number (No. 91) and no name on his back, and retiring the two batters he faced to bring the inning to a miserable end. He probably wouldn't want to point to the White Sox offense going scoreless in each of the last two games and removing the decision from the table for the other dugout.
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Nick Madrigal took the field as a whole person for the first time this spring on Monday, going 0-for-2 over five innings as he finishes recovering from offseason shoulder surgery. His face had already been plenty visible, what with teammates wearing t-shirts with his likeness photoshopped on the movie poster for "Mr. 3000." It's gentle ball-busting for Madrigal saying 3,000 hits was "very reachable" on Chuck Garfien's podcast back in January, even though he's a mere 2,965 hits away.
Tim Anderson, 2019 batting champion and willing t-shirt model pic.twitter.com/8Pjd6z0hd2
— James Fegan (@JRFegan) March 5, 2021
Madrigal took the joshing in stride, adding that he wasn't quite as serious as the viral quote made him sound.
‘‘The whole ‘Mr. 3,000’ and [podcast] interview and stuff kind of got taken out of context a little bit,’’ Madrigal said Monday. ‘‘During the interview, a lot of people thought I was saying it’s easy to do, something like that. But there are a very few amount of people [32] that have reached that milestone. I’m a confident person, but I know that’s out there to even say something like that.’’
As somebody who tries to be in the context game, I went back to the podcast to listen to how it originated, because NBC Sports Chicago's stories only reference this quote:
"I’ve seen a lot of great hitters in this league growing up and watching guys. The 3,000 mark is not easy at all, there’s very few people that do it. But I feel like that’s very reachable," he said. "I know that’s throwing a big statement out there, but I believe in myself and I know what it takes to play this game and I feel confident I can do that.
"I haven’t broke it down exactly by season, but I know it’s going to take a lot of getting on base."
What's left out is that 3,000 hits arose because Chuck Garfien likened Madrigal's game to that of Nellie Fox, and detailed Fox's Hall of Fame accomplishments. Madrigal said it all sounded good, but "I might want some more hits than 2,600." Garfien asked if Madrigal wanted 3,000. Madrigal added "at least."
It initially sounded like Madrigal adding a hint of knowing absurdity to his known brand of extreme confidence, but Garfien encouraged him by saying, "That's just not a throwaway line. You actually believe -- you want to do that," and that's when Madrigal headed down the path of "very reachable."
Madrigal's probably saying Nellie Fox is the context. I'd say the context is that Madrigal was presented with the idea of not achieving something, and he couldn't bring himself to abide it. It's harmless either way.
Imagine two people five beers in discussing their childhoods. Nobody had phones or Netflix, you pretty much had to go to Blockbuster and play mini-golf. Mini-golf was awesome. Or it used to be. Why are so many mini-golf courses lame? How hard can it be to set up a good one? Some carpet, landscaping rocks, a little bit of elevation changes. PVC pipes are cheap and easy to cut to size. Water pumps aren't expensive for small jobs. Keeping the water algae free and mosquitos are the bigger problem with that kind of stuff, but you can probably YouTube it. The equipment's cheap. It's not like they're using Odyssey putters. What if we got Odyssey putters? You could probably go to Play It Again and get a bunch of them used. Not for kids, but if the adults want to work on their short games, you'd get them in there, too. Man, I can totally see it. We could make a ton of money. At least seasonally. You might have to do something else for the winter, like...
Would they be held to the idea of reinventing mini-golf months later? No, but they might be teased about googling the price per square foot of Astroturf and who to email about zoning permits. That's where we're at. For now. Even though it's a good idea and still pretty doable.