Digital Sports Desk

By TERRY LYONS, Editor of Digital Sports Desk

BOSTON – For baseball purists, nothing says “Opening Day” like an interleague Major League Baseball game featuring the New York Yankees at the San Francisco Giants, played at nightime and broadcast on Netflix.

Instead, MLB programmers opted for the big bucks and large market New York and San Francisco (Bay Area) for the 2026 opener, The game is part of a $50m cash grab by MLB with Netflix with a package of three tune-in opportunities.

1. Baseball’s Opening Night
2. The MLB All-Star Home Run Derby
3. MLB “Special Event,” like the Field of Dreams game (Iowa) – Aug 13 (PHI v MINN)

That some $16.6m for each stand-alone broadcast, spread out over the course of the 2026 season. For Netflix, it’s waving a giant business card three times a summer. For MLB, its global exposure with the signing of one deal. It might even draw a few of the younger set along to a sports that skews heavily to the older, male audiences.

If you’re scoring at home:

• Wednesday – One MLB game
• Thursday – 11 games
• Friday – 8 games
• Saturday – Full throttle – 15 MLB games

Baseball was smart to schedule its lone opener on Wednesday night, a full 23 hours ahead of the continuing saga of March Madness. In an era of “alternate facts,” we have a “new tradition” in the works.

No matter the teams, an umpire uttering the words, “Play Ball,” or “Batter-Up” have the true meaning of Opening Day, even if said ump will have his balls and strikes reversed sometime tonight.

Yes, there are some rule changes for 2026, and the “ABS” is atop the list. Let’s take a look:

Automated Ball-Strike (ABS) Challenge System: Each team begins the game with two challenges. Batter, pitcher, or catcher can appeal a ball/strike call. If the appeal is successful, the challenge is retained; if not, it is lost. Challenges are not permitted when position players are pitching.

Base Coach Regulations: Base coaches must remain within their designated boxes while the pitcher is on the rubber to reduce sign-stealing via better angles. It’ll take a but of “getting used to it” for the coaches.

Infield Interference/Obstruction: Runners cannot initiate contact with fielders to draw an obstruction call. Doing so may result in the runner being called out.

Extra Inning Challenges: If a team runs out of challenges, they will receive one, (per inning in extra innings).

There will be some other rule changes in the works, but they’ll be tested in the Minor Leagues throughout 2026. (See rule changes for MiLB – HERE).

What will the fans – baseball purists and newcomers – see when the seasons starts?

We’ll still have Fenway Park – the world’s most beloved ball park – in Boston.

We’ll still have Wrigley Field – the world’s biggest saloon – in Chicago.

Those are the “only” two ballparks remaining.

We’ll still have the Dodgers in Los Angeles and the Yankees in New York both outspending the mere mortals of a league, trying to move forward with the times, but with a Players Association so strong, the words Salary and Cap can not be used in the same sentence, even by the Commissioner of the sport in a Philadelphia clubhouse.

On Opening Day, we’ll still have “hope” in at least 28 of the 30 major league baseball cities, excluding Denver, Colorado and the District of Columbia. That’s pretty good, considering you can slice off the lower third of teams and not a soul would miss them come October.

We’ll still have kids with gloves, hoping to catch a foul ball – an instant, treasured souvenir to be a keepsake until one day, when you really need a baseball, and you play ball with it, or “have a catch.”

You’ll note, some people “have a catch” and others “play catch.” That subtle difference is what baseball is all about and the debate between the use of the two phrases will live in infamy.

This season we’ll watch fast balls thrown at 100 mph. We’ll see four seam fastballs, fastballs, curve balls, wicked curves, sliders, change-ups and rare screwballs and knuckle balls. We’ll tolerate cutters, sinkers, splitters and sweepers.

If you catch a glimpse of the Eephus pitch, it’ll be something special.

As defined by Major League Baseball, an Eephus pitch is “one of the rarest pitches thrown in baseball, and it is known for its exceptionally low speed and ability to catch a hitter off guard.

Typically, an eephus is thrown very high in the air, resembling the trajectory of a slow-pitch softball pitch. Hitters, expecting a fastball that’s nearly ten times the velocity of the eephus, can get over-zealous and swing too early and hard. But for a hitter who is able to keep his weight back and put a normal swing on the pitch, it is the easiest pitch to hit in baseball — one without unexpected movement or excessive velocity.”

Pirates pitcher Rip Sewell was the first pitcher to throw the eephus pitch regularly — although, at the time, the pitch hadn’t yet been named. Sewell’s teammate Maurice Van Robays took care of that. He concocted the name “eephus” and when asked why, he responded by saying, “Eephus ain’t nothing, and that’s a nothing pitch.” In Hebrew, the word “efes” can be loosely translated into “nothing,” and the word “eephus” undoubtedly stems from that.

Zack Greinke was famous for surprising hitters with an eephus on occasion, one of the only modern-day pitchers to use the eephus pitch with any frequency.

There you have it.

Baseball is back.

It’s Opening Day – although it’ll be a night game on Netflix.

Batter up!

Everyone’s in first place.

Play Ball!