Baseball Season Hits Memorial Day Marker

By Dan Schlossberg

It’s official: we’re at the Memorial Day weekend milestone in Major League Baseball.

We’ve had two months of surprises and disappointments, with many more to come.

Here are some predictions:

Shohei Ohtani and Mookie Betts are bidding for MVP honors and World Series rings.Photo byWikimedia

• With the National League East settling into a two-team race between the Phillies and Braves, the other three teams will be active traders at the deadline (that means you, Pete Alonso)
• The Mets will promote talented minor-league infielder Luisangel Acuña, who will proceed to have a better year than brother Ronald Acuña Jr., the National League’s defending MVP
• Shohei Ohtani and Dodgers teammate Mookie Betts will bid to succeed the elder Acuña as NL MVP and join Frank Robinson as the only men to win the award in both leagues
• Spurred by the potent bat of newcomer Juan Soto, the veteran Yankees will knock out the youthful Orioles in an AL East title chase that goes down to the last weekend
• With Ohtani out of the league and Mike Trout out for most of the season, Soto will win a tight American League MVP race in the American League to take his first trophy
• The Kansas City Royals will continue their miraculous rags-to-riches performance and reach the 2024 playoffs as a wild-card winner
• The disappointing Chicago White Sox will fire manager Pedro Grifol and trade Eloy Jimenez but keep Luis Robert
• The new White Sox manager will not be new at all but former Cubs pilot Joe Maddon, who’s pushing 70
• Last year’s NL Manager of the Year, Skip Schumaker of the Marlins, will be the first pilot fired in the Senior Circuit
• The Fish will replace him by bringing back Cuban-born Fredi Gonzalez, current bench coach of the Baltimore Orioles
• Atlanta DH Marcell Ozuna, completing the cycle from disaster to delight, will not only make the NL All-Star team but will finish in the Top 5 in the MVP voting
• Max Fried, a Santa Monica native, will sign with the Dodgers after the season but be replaced in the Atlanta rotation by Baltimore’s Corbin Burnes, a fellow free agent
• MLB will come to its senses and end its awful experiment with “the Manfred Man,” the automatic runner that starts every extra inning on second base
• The National League will win the All-Star Game and the World Series

Former AP sportswriter Dan Schlossberg of Fair Lawn, NJ is on a booksigning tour for his newest book, Home Run King: the Remarkable Record of Hank Aaron. To book him, email ballauthor@gmail.com.