MLB to greet limited fans back to its fold

Article posted by Coliseum, October 2^nd, 2020

Image: Texas Rangers

Fans will be able to grace Major League Baseball (MLB) games for the first time this season after a comprehensive plan was revealed by the league which would enable a limited number of spectators at this month’s National League Championship Series (NLCS) (October 12^th -18^th, 2020) and World Series (October 20^th-28^th) at Globe Life Field in Texas, United States, the new home of the Texas Rangers.

Major League Baseball (MLB) is an American professional baseball organization and the oldest of the major professional sports leagues in the United States and Canada. A total of 30 teams play in MLB: 15 teams in the National League and 15 in the American League.

The Texas Rangers are an American professional baseball team based in Arlington, Texas, located in the Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex. They compete in MLB as a member club of the American League West division.

MLB will work in harmony with the Rangers to make around 11,500 tickets available for each game, with 10,550 fans to be spread throughout the ballpark and 950 in suites. Tickets for all seven games of each series will go on sale next Tuesday.

The first game of the National League Championship Series (NLCS) on October 12^th will mark the first time fans have attended games this season, the start of which was postponed due to COVID-19 pandemic throwing the whole world into disarray and making mincemeat of US. The World Series begins on October 20^th and will mark the first time that MLB’s flagship fixture has been held entirely at one site since 1944.

The National League Championship Series (NLCS) is a best-of-seven playoff and one of two League Championship Series comprising the penultimate round of MLB’s postseason. It is contested by the winners of the two National League (NL) Division Series.

The World Series is the annual championship series of MLB in the United States and Canada, contested since 1903 between the American League champion team and the National League champion team.

MLB has received the necessary approvals to let fans in at Globe Life Field, which boasts capacity of 40,300. Tickets in the seating bowl will be sold in groups of four contiguous seats, called pods, with individuals restricted to purchasing one pod per game.

Seats within each pod cannot be broken apart for sale and the pods will be at a distance of at least six feet from each other. No seats will be sold within 20 feet of where a player can be located on the field, in the dugouts or in the bullpen.

Masks are a ‘must’ for fans at all times, except when they are indulging in epicurean delight. Hand sanitizing stations will also be set up throughout the length and breadth of the brand new facility.

Globe Life Field is fitted with a roof but Rob Matwick, the Rangers’ Executive Vice-President, Business Operations, is hopeful that as many games as possible will be played without the roof.

Matwick told mediapersons, “I do think it would be safer and better for air circulation. If we had storms, rain, obviously we would play with the roof closed, and that’s where the masks and distancing and good hygiene practices all come into play.”

The State of Texas is presently allowing up to 50 percent capacity for sporting events but Globe Life Field will be around 28 percent full for the games this month. The venue sits at a shouting distance from the AT&T Stadium, home of the Dallas Cowboys National Football League (NFL) team, which last month welcomed a crowd of 21,708 for their home game against the Atlanta Falcons.

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