The Rays will be playing in front of fans for the first time this season in the World SeriesGETTY IMAGES
The Rays and Dodgers begin the World Series tonight in Arlington, and it marks the "most unique" in history, played on a "neutral site, with sparse attendance, mixed in with canned crowd noise, between two teams who didn't play a regular-season game in the Central Time zone all season," according to Bob Nightengale of USA TODAY. There were times it looked like this MLB season "was doomed." Yet, the games "went on," and the 60-game season was completed. Players were "separated from the families and quarantined beginning the final week of the season, and they couldn’t return to home until their teams were eliminated." This season was the first with no fans in the stands until the NLCS, making the World Series the "first time the Rays will see fans all year, and with the capacity limited to less than 11,500, it may feel like a home game at Tropicana Field." The environment will be "like no other, but it will be a real World Series" (USA TODAY, 10/20). In L.A., Helene Elliott writes the MLB season "came out right, after all." MLB "almost doesn’t deserve the appropriate finale" of the NL champion Dodgers and AL champion Rays. A season that "required an extraordinary effort to pull off is about to crown a credible champion" (L.A. TIMES, 10/20).
ENJOY IT WHILE IT LASTS: In N.Y., Ken Davidoff writes, "Much suspense lingers over whether the Dodgers can end their title drought at 32 years or whether the Rays can slay one last giant to secure their first-ever championship." And "another question looms: Can Major League Baseball stick the landing to its turbulently wonderful 2020 season?" A good or bad World Series "won’t impact the industry dramatically in the short term." But either way, "winter is coming, not a good development." MLB "figures to be strongly compromised by the financial realities of teams selling zero tickets this year due to the novel coronavirus and, for the same reason, possessing no clue of how many they can sell for 2021." The "latent animosity" between the MLBPA and owners, "largely put aside as the two sides worked together to pull off this minor miracle of a mini-season, can be expected to return with a vengeance as the prospect of a work stoppage for 2022, after the conclusion of this current collective bargaining agreement, looms." For "history’s sake, though, it would boost MLB’s standing to smoothly complete the narrative it has earned to this point" (N.Y. POST, 10/20).
THEY PULLED IT OFF: THE ATHLETIC's Peter Gammons wrote from the time players returned in July -- some "dressing in clubhouses, some in luxury suites, some showering at home -- it seemed that there was one daily question: 'Do you really think baseball can pull this off?'” Getting here "wasn’t easy." Rob Manfred and the Commissioner’s Office "listened to doctors and the science." Gammons: "Let’s remember what baseball did when management and players worked together to reboot the sport" (THEATHLETIC.com, 10/20).
