Baseball Is Almost Back, And Almost Gone

The new baseball season starts tomorrow, and yes, that tall gaunt figure in the black floor-length robe with a sickle where its backpack is supposed to be is standing right next to Aaron Judge, its head tilted meaningfully toward the flagpole in right center. It's all part of the new American tableau that starts with "Here's something you might like" and concludes with "but don't get used to it."

Yes, this is a pre-lockout year, or pre-strike year if you are more inclined to sympathize with the idealized version of Scrooge McDuck, and that pressure will sit on the chests of every one of the 2,430 scheduled games this year. It feels surprising that Major League Baseball hasn't already done a deal with Fanatics for commemorative 2027 uniform patches that read "10TH WORK STOPPAGE." If you're that eager for another labor fight, why not take advantage of jersey completists and market it as vigorously as everything else?

The Yankees play the Giants in San Francisco Wednesday evening in a game that marks the beginning of MLB's brand-new deal with Netflix. As a metaphor for the accessibility problems to come next year, it works perfectly, and not just because it is available only on Netflix, America's most trusted name in bum fights with production issues. That this game is siloed is not a condemnation of Netflix necessarily, but it does make for a tasty juxtaposition that the same people who finally quit the Duke and Duchess of Kent as content providers, the better to pivot to filming Pete Davidson free-associating in his garage, have signed up Barry Bonds to be in the booth Wednesday night. Even for hidebound voters who have contorted their brains to keep Bonds out of the Hall of Fame, this is a fun chance for the streamer to take. It will also irritate the sport's management, and since they're already there temperamentally, hey, let's party down.