The Texas Rangers may have had an abysmal season, but their new stadium, Globe Life Field, will see some glory this year. It鈥檚 the neutral zone where the Tampa Bay Rays and the Los Angeles Dodgers will face off in the 2020 World Series, which starts Tuesday night.
Usually, the two competing teams travel between their home fields for the series, but this year, Major League Baseball chose to play at one neutral site to prevent the spread of COVID-19.
It鈥檚 the first modern World Series to take place at a site unaffiliated with either team, according to John Thorn, MLB鈥檚 official historian.
"On the weirdness scale, 2020 is unprecedented,鈥� he said.
According to Thorn, in 1887, competing teams played in several different cities. That was began in 1903.
This will also be .
Earlier this year, people weren鈥檛 even sure there would be a baseball season. But historically, Thorn said it鈥檚 usually internal conflicts like strikes, not global disasters, that silence baseball. The MLB has soldiered through pandemics and even wars before.
World War I And The 1918 Flu Pandemic
Take 1918, as World War I was winding down. At the same time, the Spanish flu was ravaging the country and the globe; the death toll was estimated at more than
鈥淪omehow, baseball was able to dance through the raindrops and have a full season,鈥� Thorn said.
With the country entrenched in war, . The World Series began on September 5, 1918, the earliest start ever for a contest that usually happens in October. Babe Ruth and his original team, the Boston Red Sox, had won by September 11.
Thorn said holding the series early meant baseball was able to wrap up before a second wave of flu swept the nation.
World War II
After Pearl Harbor attack dragged the U.S. into WWII, the baseball commissioner sent a letter to President Franklin Delano Roosevelt .
In response, FDR said play ball:
鈥淚 honestly feel that it would be best for the country to keep baseball going. There will be fewer people unemployed and everybody will work longer hours and harder than ever before,鈥� he wrote. 鈥淎nd that means that they ought to have a chance for recreation and for taking their minds off their work even more than before.鈥�
Basically, it鈥檚 important to have some fun during hard times. Thorn said that sentiment applies today, too.
鈥淚t鈥檚 precisely because everything else is falling apart that you want the thing you cared about when you were 5 years old. You want the thing that your grandpa took you to see,鈥� he said.
Even though baseball continued through World War II, players were enlisting or getting drafted.
鈥淭he quality of play in 1944 and early 鈥�45 was such that ,鈥� Thorn said.
Sitting on the sidelines 鈥渨ere perfectly capable Negro League players who could not make an appearance in Major League Baseball for reasons unrelated to their ability,鈥� he added. Baseball.
The COVID-19 Pandemic
This year, MLB responded to the pandemic by shortening the season. Teams played to empty ballparks, except for cardboard cutouts of fans. That includes the Texas Rangers, whose new stadium, Globe Life Field, was completed this year.
The MLB didn鈥檛 impose a COVID 鈥渂ubble鈥� like the NBA or NHL. There were several .
But the season made it to the end, and the league held postseason games in Texas and California. Globe Life Field allowed a limited number of fans to attend the National League Championship Series games.
Of course, the pandemic isn't over. COVID-19 infections and hospitalizations are rising again in North Texas.
For this World Series, fans will be socially distanced around Globe Life Field, with ticket sales of about 11,000 per game.
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