Ballpark Digest Broadcaster Chat for April 1, 2020

Kevin Reichard flies solo in this week’s Ballpark Digest Broadcaster Chat, discussing lessons learned from spring training for the regular season and previewing upcoming book releases and Ballpark Digest coverage.With MLB teams beginning play today, we’re in the midst of season previews on the site, focusing on teams opening the season at home. Most are hewing to the MLB operating guidelines, with some teams, like the New York Yankees, adding more restrictions after discussions with state and local health officials. Many of the MLB operating guidelines were implemented in spring training, and we asked readers of Spring Training Online to provide feedback after seeing them in action. Comments split along two topics: the high price of spring-training tickets (an annual complaint) and mask enforcement, with half the respondents complaining about the lack of mask-usage enforcement and the other half complaining about too much enforcement of mask usage. We expect MLB teams to grapple with mask issues this season. We’ve run many regular-season previews and will continue through the end of the week. In book news: My 1961 is at the printers and will be released at the end of the month. (Easter egg: there’s a book giveaway offer in this podcast.) Andy Strasberg’s fascinating account of the 1961 Roger Maris home-run race, written from his viewpoint as a 13-year-old, covers more than just baseball, but also coming of age at a pivotal time in American history in the midst of the JFK era and the Cold War. Preorder at August Publications and we’ll throw in some exclusive goodies.Kevin Reichard is publisher at August Publications and Ballpark Digest.