DETROIT, MI – JULY 01: A detailed view of an official Major League Baseball with a surgical mask placed on it sitting outdie of Comerica Park on July 1, 2020 in Detroit, Michigan. (Photo by Mark Cunningham/MLB Photos via Getty Images)
The MLB is going to ditch its current way of doing things when the postseason rolls around, hosting playoff games in bubble cities.
After a week of zero positive COVID-19 tests, it appears that MLB is finally getting its act together. With the season now no longer in jeopardy, plans for the postseason are starting to take form and it’s a pretty familiar idea.
It’s an idea that has been floated around recently but it seems like the rumor has more truth to it than initially thought. Jess Passan went on the Pat McAfee show and casually talked about the MLB playoff bubble as though it’s an already agreed-upon thing.
The plan, according to Passan, would be for Texas to host the National League California to host the American League. Specifically, Houston and Arlington would be the NL bubble while Los Angeles and San Diego would be where the AL bubble is located.
The final piece of the bubble puzzle is hosting the World Series in a central location, which would be Arlington — essentially giving the National League home-field advantage.
This is an idea first pioneered by the NBA, which announced it would be using one single location to create a bubble for teams that would compete for the NBA Finals. It was a resounding success, one punctuated by similar success by the NHL which took the NBA’s idea and morphed it into two locations.