It’s been a long March.
The month is usually reserved for hope and optimism for baseball followers because the air fills the sound of cleats on dust and the crack of wood bats as winter thaws into spring in MLB camps round Arizona and Florida. However, this yr has been a lot much less satisfying for not simply Colorado Rockies followers, however followers of the game of baseball.
Colorado’s efficiency and outlook just isn’t the explanation for this pessimism. Expectations are low after an abysmal 2023 marketing campaign and the workforce has largely prevented the catastrophic harm this Cactus League season. If something, spirits are raised after the seven-year extension of SS Ezequiel Tovar late in camp.
No, it’s the league the Rockies play in that’s the greater drawback.
Do you keep in mind the controversy surrounding the quality of the new Fanatics uniforms? It was an apparent difficulty that arose as quickly as we bought our first glimpses of gamers gearing up for the brand new season. The difficulty sparked lots of consideration and opinions whereas firms pointed the finger of blame for the eye-sores. But for the game, it was largely simply an embarrassing second.
That looks like a long time in the past now, as a sprawling sequence of PR black-eyes has been collected since then.
First was the lingering free company of many big-name free brokers – specifically reigning Cy Young winner Blake Snell, former National League MVP Cody Bellinger and up to date postseason demigod Jordan Montgomery. The record of out there free brokers had a widespread theme; agent Scott Boras.
It was clear MLB house owners have been raising the stakes of their fight in opposition to the tremendous agent – a battle that has been occurring for years now. The public bickering grew louder because the weeks handed with marquee names nonetheless out there, creating more rigidity and animosity between gamers and the league.
This bubble of disdain continued to swell till it reached a head with a decry of a mutiny within the MLBPA centered round participant representatives calling for lead labor negotiator Bruce Meyer to be ousted and changed by Harry Marino.
This scenario developed because the game of hen between Boras’ shoppers and the house owners dragged on earlier than mockingly turning into exacerbated by one of his shoppers signing. Matt Chapman’s three-year $54MM deal with the San Francisco Giants had a trickle impact inside the group, resulting in the membership chopping incumbent 3B J.D. Davis and diverting the majority of his $6.9MM salary for the season – a determine he earned by successful his arbitration listening to during the winter.
So the game limped into an worldwide mushy opening of its common season with the San Diego Padres and Los Angeles Dodgers dealing with off in South Korea with a black cloud of labor rigidity, unsigned star gamers and objectively dangerous uniforms hanging overhead.
Then the actual bombshell dropped.
Shohei Ohtani, proprietor of a record-shattering $700MM contract with the Los Angeles Dodgers and simply essentially the most marketable participant within the game and one of the most well-liked athletes on this planet, has now been mired in a major gambling scandal involving his former interpreter Ippei Mizuhara.
At the time of writing, there are nonetheless lots of unknowns to this latest (and largest) controversy and far more to return on the story. The optics are usually not good because the scenario brings legends of the 1919 Black Sox and Pete Rose to thoughts. But, the key phrase is as soon as again “controversy”.
The sport has a proclivity of attracting the time period. A behavior that has appeared to grow more and more with every season to the purpose of basically turning into synonymous to the league’s model. As a fan of the game, it’s turning into tougher to endure the endless adverse highlight of the league and its business.
But it’s lastly Opening Day across the league, the complete launch of the 2024 common season. The Rockies will seemingly battle mightily again this yr and will probably be painful to watch at occasions. But in the present day is an alternative to get back to baseball and embrace one other summer time seeing one of the best gamers on this planet play what many die-hards think about the best game on this planet.
That half by no means will get outdated, no matter how landmined to highway main up to it will get with distractions.
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Solid spring training doesn’t change low expectations for Colorado Rockies from oddsmakers | CBS News
BetMGM has Colorado tied for the worst odds to win the World Series (+50000) with the Oakland A’s and Chicago White Sox. They even have the over/beneath for the Rockies set at 60.5 wins for the 2024 season.
Colorado Rockies announce additional Rockies TV broadcast details | mlb.com
Official particulars on the Rockies broadcast schedule for the 2024 season with all of the groups 162 video games airing both by by national channels like ESPN and TBS or by the brand new Rockies.TV streaming deck. Additionally, all members of the sales space will return this season besides Jenny Cavnar, who joined the Oakland broadcast workforce during the low season.
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