Major League Baseball returns belatedly

With more than four millions confirmed with COVID-19 across the United States, the Major League Baseball made it to a belated opening on Friday. The defending World Series champion Washington Nationals and the reigning champion New York Yankees with 27 championship titles initiated this year’s season, a mini version of the regular league where each team only has 60 games.

What caught everyone’s attention at the Nationals Park in Washington was the appearance of Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases who threw the first pitch for this year’s opening match between the Nationals and the Yankees. The New York-born man is known as a big fan of the Nationals. U.S. President Donald Trump greeted the opening game of this year by playing catch with Yankees legendary finishing pitcher Mariano Rivera accompanied by a number of Little League youth baseball players at the White House even as he was away from the stadium.

Yankees and Nationals kneeled on the field during the U.S. national anthem in protest against racial discrimination. A stencil of “BLM,” short for “Black Lives Matter,” was written on the mound at the Nationals Park.

The New York Yankees won the first match of this year by four to one, which ended up being called due to rains in the 6th inning, as new star Gerrit Cole threw five innings successfully just allowing one run on one hit and Giancarlo Stanton went two-for-three with a two-run home run included. The L.os Angeles Dodgers defeated the San Francisco Giants by eight to one in the opener.


Bae-Jung Kim wanted@donga.com