Heading into Spring Training, baseball had been afflicted by the low-grade malaise that has been seeping into the sport for the past few years: there was the lingering effects of the Houston Astros sign-stealing scandal, questions about the juiced ball that baseball handled with a series of increasingly half-hearted denials and obfuscations, and an increasingly bold stance by owners that they didn’t get into the baseball business to pay baseball players that signals impending labor strife. But it is also clear that in a year that saw baseball heading into a season that was going to be defined by reporters repeatedly asking Astros players "did you bang the cans," that all of these concerns are muted by the possibility that Major League Baseball will literally kill someone.
It's Over, We're Cyberpunk Now: A Reivew of Baseball's Opening Weekend
