Vacation is over

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The Hot Corner

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Scurry County, I am back.

My two-week escape ended this past week and I return a married man. 

My wife and I got married last week at Medina Lake in Mico and while the wedding day was stressful, the wedding itself ended up going smoothly. We had to battle some weather and Governor Greg Abbott’s mid-day order on the day of our wedding threw some wrinkles in our catering, it all worked out and ended up being the best day of my life.

Quite a bit has happened in the sports world the past two weeks and it seems I have some catching up to do. 

Snyder ISD had to pause all female summer workouts due to a possible COVID-19 exposure and while the boys pressed on. 

With a scheduled break this week, it will be interesting to see what happens going forward as cases spike in Texas.

Major League Baseball is back. After weeks of negotiations and arguing, the owners and players finally came to terms on a 60-game season, meaning we will get baseball in 2020. 

Opening Day is scheduled for July 23 and 24. The Houston Astros will kick off their season at home versus Seattle on July 24 and the Texas Rangers will open their new stadium with a home series against Colorado.

MLB seems to be taking the COVID-19 situation very seriously. 

In Boston, former Houston pitcher Collin McHugh has been chronicling his experience with baseball’s return on Instagram, giving fans an insight into what baseball looks like in a coronavirus-driven world. 

The Red Sox have given players their own suites in place of the locker room, allowing them to keep their distance more effectively. McHugh also showed the testing the players are required to undergo and described what practice feels like with social distancing measures in place.

Teams are required to test players, coaches and staff every other day and that process has already run into some problems. 

Several teams, including Houston, had to cancel workouts Monday due to delayed test results. Once the season begins, will games be cancelled due to delayed test results? That will be one issue the league will have to figure out.

The NBA is also moving forward with plans to finish its season, but several players are opting out of the return. Games will be played in Orlando with 22 teams pushing for a spot in the playoffs. Play is set to resume July 30.

Things got interesting in the NFL Monday with the Kansas City Chiefs signing quarterback Patrick Mahomes to a 10-year $503 million extension. The former Red Raider is already regarded as one of the top signal-callers in the league and with both an MVP award and Super Bowl championship, the Chiefs had seen enough to keep him around long-term.

The most interesting angle to Mahome’s signing is how it will impact the quarterback market. 

While no other quarterback can realistically expect that type of money, it gives Dak Prescott’s demand for more than $140 million more credibility. 

Let’s hope he doesn’t get any ideas, because Dallas can’t afford to go much higher than where the negotiations already stand.

In a normal summer, we would be knee deep into Little League all-star season right now and football and volleyball would be right around the corner. 

While the UIL has not given any absolute ruling on where the 2020 seasons stand, it seems they are committed to as normal of a season as possible.

I hope that on August 1, I am headed to various two-a-day morning practices, but only time will tell.

 

Reed Graff is the sports editor for The Snyder News. Comments on this article can be made to sports@thesnydernews.com