Bob Kendrick joins Brother From Another to discuss the MLB integrating Negro League stats to official records, facts, and history about the Negro Leagues, and the impact of this decision for the game of baseball.

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. — Big league managers say Major League Baseball instructed them to prepare for spring training to start on time in mid-February despite uncertainty around the coronavirus.Tampa Bay Rays manager Kevin Cash said Wednesday that Commissioner Rob Manfred had a meeting with managers Tuesday and expressed optimism about opening spring camps as scheduled.
다파벳 “That message has been fairly consistent,” Cash said. “We’ll continue to plan and prepare until if we are told otherwise.”Managers have said this week during digital Winter Meetings press availabilities that they expect health protocols to remain in place to prevent COVID-19 outbreaks. Teams instituted a number of policies during a pandemic-shortened 60-game regular season in 2020 that produced better results as the year went on, largely keeping players and staff safe even as teams traveled around the country.

WHAT WENT RIGHT: Allgaier posted a career-best second-place finish in the standings after making the Xfinity Series Championship 4 for the fourth time in five seasons. He was particularly strong on tracks one mile and shorter. In nine races on those tracks, he posted his three wins on the season and an average finish of 5.9. He also set a new career-high with 1,008 laps led (previous high: 741 laps led in 2018), and his 12 stage wins were second only to Chase Briscoe‘s 13.WHAT WENT WRONG: Allgaier’s quest for his first series championship continues for least another year after a near-miss in November’s title race at Phoenix. When Briscoe’s spin sent the race into overtime, Allgaier was out of fresh tires and stayed on track under yellow to line up on the front row for the restart. When the race resumed, he couldn’t hold off eventual race winner and champion Austin Cindric, and ultimately finished fifth.But despite losing out in the end, it’s worth noting that Allgaier suffered eight DNFs and still made the title race. Those DNFs led to a drop in top-fives (11, down from 16 in 2019) and top-10s (19, down from 24 in 2019), but both driver and team showed tenacity in not letting their setbacks sink them.WHAT TO EXPECT IN 2021: Allgaier will return to JR Motorsports for a sixth season. Also back is his longtime sponsor, agricultural company Brandt, which will be primary sponsor for his No. 7 Chevrolet in 20 races.

Two visits to Irwindale Speedway outside Los Angeles also are set for July 3 and Aug. 21.Jesse Love won the 2020 West series championship, becoming the series’ youngest-ever champion at 15 years, 9 months, 24 days.

After running his rookie Cup Series season with now-defunct Leavine Family Racing, Christopher Bell has moved on to Joe Gibbs Racing, where he’ll drive the No. 20 Toyota and team with Kyle Busch, Martin Truex Jr., and Denny Hamlin.Bell has interacted with the latter trio on many occasions. Now, they’re side-by-side under the same banner, and he wants to prove himself as a valuable ally to them and JGR as a whole.“I don’t want to be the one that’s taking all the time,” Bell said during a Thursday video teleconference. “I want to provide and help the group grow. That’s difficult, but I feel like the better I run, the more valuable my information gets.“You look at races where I didn’t run good. People aren’t gonna look at my notes. They’re not gonna look at what I was fighting (with the car) or how my car was. But all of a sudden, Texas (in October) – I arguably had one of the fastest cars there … They’re gonna look at (my) car and see what set-up I ran, what my comments were, stuff like that.“The better that I run, the more valuable my input will be and our notes as a group will be.”