Fans' long nightmare is over; time to play ball!

 It took long enough, but there will be a baseball season after the owners and players on Thursday (March 10) reached an agreement on a new five-year collective bargaining agreement (CBA).
The accord paves the way for players to report to spring training as soon as Friday (March 11), it jump-starts the free-agent signing period almost immediately and puts Opening Day on Thursday, April 7, only a week later than the original date of March 31. (MLB is still intending to play an entire 162-game season, with the first six games that were previously canceled being made up later in the season.)
As far as the Red Sox are concerned, the later start to the season means the Sox will open up the 2022 season at Yankee Stadium against the Yanks on April 7.
(For fans of the 1967 Impossible Dream team, that will put the Sox at Yankee Stadium almost 55 years to the date (April 14) when "the kid pitcher from Toronto," southpaw Billy Rohr, took a no-hitter into the 9th-inning before Yankee catcher Elston Howard broke it up with just one out to go after Carl Yastrzemski's historic catch off the bat of Tom Tresh momentarily preserved Rohr's no-hitter.)
What the new agreement means
Among the highlights of the new agreement:
* 49 years after the DH was first introduced to the American League, baseball will finally have a universal DH. That's great news, because the Red Sox will no longer be at a disadvantage when playing National League teams on the road or during the World Series. That used to force AL teams to lose their DH and have pitchers unaccustomed to hitting step to the plate.
* The playoffs will grow from five teams in each league (three division winners and two wild cards) to six teams in each league (three division winners and three wild cards), with the format to be explained.
* The end of the popular (with the fans) 7-inning twin bills that baseball started in 2020 in the COVID-19-shortened season and continued in 2021. Doubleheaders will revert to being nine innings.
* The return of very long extra-inning games as MLB chose not to retain the popular (with fans) method of starting every inning from the 10th on with a runner on second base. MLB borrowed this popular minor league extra-inning device in 2020 and continued it in 2021.
* Delay of the pitch clock until at least 2023.
Many more details of the accord are expected to be released soon, but at least the good news is that baseball is back.
Play ball!

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