Sports Time Radio

We’ve waited patiently for sports to return and finally on Sunday we’re going to get one of our sports back. NASCAR returns this Sunday at Darlington Raceway.

Now there will be no fans in the stands for this race or for any race in the foreseeable future, but these races still count in the standings. Now be honest with me; if or when you watch a NASCAR race do you notice the fans?

The NASCAR season was just four weeks old when it was shutdown due to the Covid-19 outbreak; so lets’ recap.

Joey Logano has two wins while Alex Bowman and Denny Hamlin each have a win. You shouldn’t be surprised that Logano was also the points leader with those two early season wins. Kevin Harvick was 2nd in points with Bowman 3rd, Chase Elliott in 4th and Hamlin rounded out the Top 5.

Now I myself am a NASCAR and while I understand that there are a lot of people who don’t enjoy the sport and see it as cars just going around in a circle, but don’t try to say that these drivers aren’t athletes. Now I doubt that any of the drivers I just mentioned in the Top 5 could dunk a basketball, hit a 100 mile per hour fastball, catch or throw a touchdown pass or score a goal on skates and that’s fair. Now just go ahead and flip the script. How many NBA, MLB, NFL or NHL players could drive a car going close to or over 200 miles per hour?

Now if you are a NASCAR fan get ready to have these race come at you fast and furious. Not only will there be a NASCAR race at Darlington on Sunday, but they’ll be back there on Wednesday May 20th for a night race. Then the NASCAR series moves to Charlotte Motor Speedway on Sunday May 24th for the Coca-Cola 600. Then they’ll stay at Charlotte Motor Speedway for another Wednesday race on May 27th. The series gets a little bit back to normal as the series shifts to the Kansas Speedway on Sunday May 31st for the Kansas 400. The races then go back to a week to week event as the next scheduled race is the FireKeepers Casino 400 on June 7th at the Michigan International Speedway.

So we’re going to get five NASCAR races in 15 days and a total of six NASCAR races in 22 days before their season returns to a more normal schedule.

Darlington will be an interesting track for the drivers to come back to. It’s called “the Lady in Black” or the Track too tough to Tame”. What helps give it these nicknames is the shape of the track as it’s more of an oval configuration than any other track on the NASCAR circuit. Humorously the story goes that one of the reasons the track got this shape was it had to be configured around a minnow pond at one end that the owner refused to move. That leads to the track having different banking. It’s 25 degrees in Turn 1 & 2, but it’s 23 degrees in turns 3 & 4. This can make t difficult for teams to set up the car for this track.

Darlington is always a fun race to watch and I’d like to know if you’ll be watching? and do you think that this race will get a better television ratings than it normally would since it’s the first sporting event returning?

Now the other sport that has suggested a plan for starting it’s season has been Major League Baseball. The owners have sent a proposal to the Players Union for approval to get this season in.

Now like you I’m not really interested on if the owners are trying to sneak anything past the players in this proposal. All I want to know is when the season is going to start and how many games are they going to play.

Well what I’ve heard and none of this is official is that the teams would return to spring training in mid-June with the season starting the weekend of July 4th. What I’ve seen is that the season will be 82 games long. There where a couple of other things that I thought where interesting that are suppose to be in this proposal. The playoffs would expand from 10 to 14 teams and the DH would become universal. I didn’t hear how big the major league roster would be, but I wouldn’t be surprised if they ended up being 29 players which was discussed earlier.

Like I mentioned this isn’t official as the players and the players union have to agree on this and I’m sure there will be some bantering back and forth before an actual deal gets done, but I was just happy to hear then talking about the baseball season actually starting.

I’m under the impression that once the National League starts using the DH that it’s going to become a permanent fixture in baseball. There was already a lot of talk about it becoming permanent in the next collective bargaining agreement; so maybe the National League will just get started on using it a couple of seasons earlier than planned.

Let me know what you think of the DH being used in not only this shortened season, but also how or what you think about the DH becoming permanent throughout baseball. Is it or will it be good or bad for the game?

Now I’m not a big fan of just an 82 games schedule. I would’ve liked to seen them try to play over 100 games. I don’t believe that 82 games is going to be enough to find out who the best team actually. Now maybe the expanded playoffs will help that situation play out, but I’m not sure that whoever is crowned World Series champion at the end of this shortened season can actually say they where the best team in baseball.

Please share your thoughts with me about the 82 game season. Do you like it? Or would you have like to see them come up with a different number? Or do you think they should’ve just cancelled this season?

Don’t forget to check on the Sports Time Radio podcast. Sadly we’ve missed quite a few podcasts due to me getting sick, but when we’re on check out BlogTalkRadio.com for the live podcast. The podcast also airs on TuneIn.com; so if you miss it look for us there.

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