The World Series has added to MLB's strong run of playoff drama and entertainment so farGETTY IMAGES
The Dodgers and Rays "have put on a show" during the World Series, a championship round that "arguably has been the most entertaining of the big three professional sports this season," according to Rob Longley of the TORONTO SUN. Given how and where MLB began this year, that "in itself is a stunner." It was MLB that "alienated almost everyone who cared about the game with a protracted labour shutdown that eliminated the possibility of a more credible 100-game season that reduced the 2020 schedule to a 60-game affair." Then the season was "almost over before it started with COVID-19 shutdowns" on the Marlins and Cardinals. But a "terrific run of playoff drama and entertainment allowed baseball to rise above it all with classic seven-game series" in both the ALCS and NLCS and a World Series that "has given so much through the first five." The World Series "has delivered and, unique among the other sports, is doing so at a time of year we’re accustomed to seeing it go down" (TORONTO SUN, 10/27).
GRATEFUL FOR FANS: The AP's Schuyler Dixon notes the World Series is seeing its "smallest crowds in more than 100 years" amid the pandemic and "being held at a neutral site" in Globe Life Field. Only roughly 11,000 fans are being allowed inside the 40,518-seat ballpark for games, but given the lack of fans this season, Globe Life Field "might as well be full" as far as the Rays are concerned. Rays manager Kevin Cash said of the atmosphere, "It certainly sounds like there's 40,000 people in there. Now, they might be 35,000 Dodgers fans, which is OK. Any type of loudness and energy, that creates a lot in the dugout. That creates intensity. It's loud and it's been really refreshing to get to play with fans." Dixon writes there is "plenty of elbow room on the concourses, and fans in clusters of four are separated by at least one row above and below them." Mask compliance on the concourses is "close to 100%, while in the seats about one in four can be seen either without a mask on, or with the covering pulled down around the neck" (AP, 10/27).
SALVAGING THE SEASON: In DC, Thomas Boswell writes MLB this season "showed it grasped two intertwined concepts that are part of a functioning society: accountability to each other and the strength of character to wear our mistakes, own up and then change our behavior." MLB has had "countless advantages in resources and virus testing, but the bedrock reason that a season, complete with a full World Series, is about to go into the books is because -- it appears -- 99.9 percent of MLB 'wore' their early carelessness and irresponsibility toward covid-19, changed their behavior to follow what experts advised and vowed not to cause the next team to go the way" of the Marlins and Cardinals. MLB "got the biggest thing right -- and in a way that should serve as an example as we face what may be our meanest medical winter in a century." The league "learned its lessons in a hurry, wore its early blunders like an adult, changed its careless ways and now is about to bring a long, satisfying October -- with five series that already have gone the limit -- to a worthy crescendo" (WASHINGTON POST, 10/27).
