It seems like an eternity ago that there was anything about current baseball to talk about. Since the middle of Spring Training when Major League Baseball announced it was following other professional sports in suspending play until the country could get a handle on the COVID-19 pandemic, the only baseball we really had was replays of past games on Fox Sports Arizona or the MLB Network. And while I love an occasional trip down memory lane, there is just so many old games a guy can watch before he begins to go a little stir crazy.

Like many fans I was eager for baseball to start but quite honestly, I wondered whether the safety of the players and team personnel should be jeopardized in order for the games to resume. I watched and listened as the players association and the league negotiated the return of the game so many of us love. And like others I became frustrated when the talks broke down not because of the lack of adequate safety precautions but because of money and which side would get what amount and if that amount would be adequate for them to return to work.

It is hard to find a side to root for during a labor negotiation especially with the dollar amounts that are being discussed is perhaps equivalent to all the people in Arizona who found themselves out of work due to the pandemic. People all around the state are worried whether they will be able to stay in their homes and not sure whether they will have enough money to feed and care for their families while owners and players struggle to come to a financial agreement in a multi-billion dollar business.

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t fault either side wanting to get the best deal possible. The lack of trust between the two sides was what troubled me so much. During times like these I would hope that baseball could have been held up as a shining example of how cooperation can make the best of a difficult situation. Instead baseball seems to be taking its cues from politics and showing more examples of how divisive this country has become.

I watched and listened to both sides and heard the level of frustration from the fans on various social media, print, and radio programs. When many people have been stuck in their homes (if they are lucky enough to have a home) dealing with the uncertainty of whether they will have a job or where they are going to get enough money to pay their monthly bills; their level of patience is greatly reduced especially towards arguments between millionaires and billionaires on who gets how big a slice of the pie. It was becoming more and more evident that neither side really wanted to play this year and it had nothing to do with a virus.

But just when it seemed the darkest, these two parties finally came together on a deal that seemed like it should have been done weeks ago. And just like that it felt as though we would finally see some light at the end of the tunnel.

Today was the beginning of “Summer Camp” or “Spring Training 2.0” depending on who is trying to describe it. Baseball players have begun making their way back to their respective major league cities to open came with an eye towards the season beginning around July 23rd or 24th.

Summer Camp has such an interesting ring to it. I immediately envisioned Bill Murphy’s opening description of Camp Mohawk in the movie Meatballs when he described what the children had in store for them for the summer. No one has said whether the MLB Summer Camp will have Shakespeare in the round or whether Henry Kissinger or Yasir Arafat will be attending. And we will have to be left to our imaginations to determine whether baseball will feature hold their equivalent of the King of Sexual Awareness week.

While I was really hoping Commissioner Rob Manfred would have done his best Bill Murphy impression in announcing the opening of camp, my disappointment will be short lived. Instead I will be watching social media and the local news hoping someone will show baseball activities starting again at Chase Field. And to paraphrase Tripper (Bill Murphy) from Meatballs, “Even if all the rest of the world is struggling to find some semblance of normality during this pandemic and all the other sports on the planet are struggling to figure out what their next steps should be, it just doesn’t matter because baseball camp is opening.” Come on everyone chant with me, “It just doesn’t matter! It just doesn’t matter! It just doesn’t matter!”