Our Long National Nightmare is Over: BASEBALL IS BACK TOMORROW

Read on for all The Long Game's big plans for this week and mark your calendars!

A photograph of Bobby Witt Jr’s glove resting on a dugout railing, taken earlier this week. (Photo by Ron Jenkins/Getty Images)

Hi friends-

I’m back from Japan and ready to talk baseball on this side of the International Date Line!

In case you missed any of my coverage while I was in Tokyo, I’m putting it all here:

The Tokyo Baseball Experience

Tokyo Dome Food Tour

Mookie Betts Has the Flu

What it Was Like to Watch Shohei Ohtani Come Home

The Dazzling, Wild Debut of Roki Sasaki

Thank you so much for your continued support and your participation in our chats!

Your overwhelmingly positive feedback on my reporting from Tokyo has put several springs in my step, so thank you. :)

The reality is this trip was…not cheap. The best way to support me and my work so I can continue to travel to bring you this kind of coverage going forward is by taking out a paid subscription now:

You can also support me (and become my best friend!) by gifting a paid subscription to friends or family members as a “Happy Opening Day” treat, as tomorrow is a national holiday in my house!

Thank you again for helping make my trip of a lifetime possible. <3

So here’s what to expect from me this week:

• Thursday the 27th (tomorrow) I’ll have my 10 Bold Predictions for the 2025 season for paid subscribers. Let’s all hope I do better than uh….my predictions for 2024 lol.

What I Got Right and What I Got Wrong about 2024

• Thursday the 27th (tomorrow): Opening day begins at 3 PM ET/Noon PT with the Yankees and Brewers. We will chat over in the app until the final pitch is thrown on the west coast probably 10 hours later. This chat will be open to all free and paid subscribers. I received overwhelming feedback that you guys would like to continue receiving email alerts when chats begin. If receiving these emails is annoying for you because you use the app, you can always toggle off receiving emails and just get the alerts through push notifications.

• Thursday the 27th (tomorrow): I’ll be at Dodger Stadium following Tigers ace and reigning Cy Young winner Tarik Skubal around like a baby duck, I think. And I hope to have a piece on him for you guys on Friday, assuming he does well, is healthy, and Shohei Ohtani doesn’t hit three balls out of Dodger Stadium to steal the spotlight again. Fingers crossed for Skub!

• Friday the 28th: Free Friday newsletter for all readers about Skubal and everything else happening around the league this week.

• Friday the 28th: Our popular Friday chats are back! This is where we do what we do on Opening Day, but all year long: talk about every game as they are happening. The Rockies and Rays will kick us off at George M. Steinbrenner Field in Tampa at 4 PM ET/ 1 PM PT, so that oughta be a hoot.

  If you are new to our community, the difference between Long Game chats and every other place to talk sports on the Internet is I don’t allow bullying, harassment, swearing, politics, or anything else that makes people feel like s—t. You guys know where I stand on basically everything. Life is hard, and I am hellbent on creating a space where people can relax and forget about their problems for a few hours a day. I think it’s important for our physical and mental health, and also you would not believe how nice it is to talk with strangers on the Internet and not have to assume a defense crouch to protect yourself!

• Saturday the 29th: Zoom at 12 PM PT from 1 PM PT talking all the baseball news of the week for paid subscribers.

• Sunday the 30th: Our Sunday Night Baseball Chat is back! This week we’ve got the Braves vs the Padres (or, the Jurickson Profar Bowl). This chat will be open to free and paid subscribers beginning at 7 PM ET/4 PM PT

OK! Whew! You are going to be seeing a lot of me in your inboxes tomorrow. I may even try to go live from Dodger Stadium tomorrow if the wifi works better than it does at the Tokyo Dome! If I do, you will get an alert about it (like an Instagram live). I don’t know how to edit videos, so we are all going to hold hands and jump off the deep end together lol.

I love you guys, and I think you so much for your continued support as I try to make my way as an independent journalist in this collapsing media landscape.

We did it! We made it through one of the longest winters of any of our lives!

Now it’s time to play ball!