Good morning, all and happy Monday!
The first proposals have been exchanged between MLB owners and the MLBPA, regarding a new labor agreement, but regardless of what transpires the owners have already made a major concession among themselves. I break it down in the video/audio commentary.
32 innings of baseball
Imagine the first game of a doubleheader starting at 1:05 pm and the second game not concluding until 11:25 that night. That is just what happened on May 31, 1964, when the New York Mets hosted the San Francisco Giants - themselves seven years removed from New York, the place they called home - in brand new Shea Stadium. After a pedestrian first game, won by the Giants, 5-3 in nine innings, the two clubs proceeded to play a 23-inning game, again won by the Giants, 8-6. At one point Willie Mays, the Giants center fielder, played four innings at shortstop.
Coincidentally the 1964 calendar year coincides with 2026. People who went to bed before the second game was completed, awakened on Monday morning, June 1 to the above headlines in the New York Daily News.
Alan Cohen, who works along side me in the press box at Hartford Yard Goats games, saw every inning of both games at Shea Stadium that day. He wrote about the experience for the Society of American Baseball Research.
Such a dramatic day would not have occurred in the baseball of 2026, what with the automatic runner starting at second base in every extra inning, but 62 years ago today, the Mets-Giants doubleheader was the talk of the baseball world and beyond.
So much for that
Well, another one of my predictions goes down the drain. I had the Oklahoma City Thunder repeating as NBA champions, beating the New York Knicks in the finals. The Knicks made it, but the injury-riddled Thunder did not, losing in the seventh game of the Western Conference Finals Saturday night to San Antonio.
The Knicks and Thunder open the finals Wednesday night in San Antonio. The Spurs are overwhelming favorites to win the series and are 4.5-point favorites to win Game 1.
And yes, for you hockey fans, those are the former Hartford Whalers, the Carolina Hurricanes, in yet another Stanley Cup Final, taking on the Vegas Golden Knights. Carolina is the overwhelming favorite. Game 1 is tomorrow night.
That is going to do it for today’s newsletter. As always, thank you for subscribing and have a marvelous Monday!
DAN
