Angels News: Governor to allow baseball to return to Anaheim

The Los Angeles Angels and MLB got good news in regards to when baseball can be played at Angel Stadium.

Fear, not baseball fans. The Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim could return to play at Angels Stadium sooner than you think!

If you are like the rest of us, you have been waiting for word on when baseball can resume. The latest word out of Governor Newsom’s office has made that more definitive, as the Governor is set to allow professional sports teams to begin playing in the state of California during the first week of June, per Jon Passantino of CNN Los Angeles.

Last we heard, there was some concern over whether this would be possible, as Los Angeles County had decided to push its stay at home order into late July. If the rest of the state had followed suit, it could have forced the five teams to potentially relocate to their spring training facilities in Arizona.

However, the new ruling sets the stage for the Angels and others to continue on its desired path to begin its long-delayed regular season during the first week of July. It also means that the Angels, Dodgers, Padres, Athletics, and Giants will presumably be able to open their fields to a shortened spring training as well, likely starting in mid-June.

The biggest caveat to this announcement is that these games will be played without fans. That has long been the assumption, based on the need to continue social distancing until a herd immunity is established for COVID-19, or a vaccine is in place. However, this does allow for the game to return and at least some sense of normalcy for fans that have been waiting anxiously for something concrete.

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Of course, there still remains the matter of the players and owners coming to an agreement on the compensation piece of the puzzle. Owners are seeking a straight revenue share for 2020, whereas players are seeking the pro-rated salaries that they say they already agreed to in March. There is still time for that to come together, and the feeling around baseball is that, while it may get contentious, an agreement will likely be hashed out to allow play to resume.