Thursday morning news bullets

Need to know what's going on around the baseball world? I've got you covered with the latest news from this week and the developments around the game. 

MAC gets rid of postseason baseball

In the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, there have been plenty of questions about how college sports will come out of this. They're sure to be hit hard, especially if the college football season is canceled. 

The Mid-American Conference is getting ahead of the possible economic affects, although in a controversial way. Conference commissioner Jon Steinbrecher told WTOL on Wednesday that the MAC would do away with postseason tournaments for eight sports, including baseball. 

"The pandemic and resulting financial issues play into that," Steinbrecher told WTOL. "As the financial situation changes, it will give us a chance to re-evaluate."

Teams in the MAC will no longer play a tournament to determine the conference champion. Instead, the team with the best record at the end of the season will be the champion and receive the conference's automatic bids to NCAA tournaments. 

We could see many more moves like this over the coming weeks as COVID-19 continues to affect sports, but only time will tell what other changes we will see. 

Players criticize MLB's return plan

MLB owners voted on a plan to get the 2020 season under way and have begun negotiations with the Players Association. Those negotiations might be difficult though, as two prominent players have criticized the plan. 

Nationals reliever Sean Doolittle expressed his concerns in a Twitter thread, outlining the safety concerns that are still prevalent with the coronavirus. Reds pitcher Trevor Bauer also voiced his opposition, although he was more concerned with the revenue-sharing aspect of the plan. 

The fact that two players with as much influence as Doolittle and Bauer are speaking out shows that there's a long road ahead to get back to playing baseball. Whatever it takes, both sides should be willing to work it out to get at least part of the 2020 season played. 

CPL team cancels 2020 season

The Florence Redwolves of the Coastal Plain League have announced that they will not be able to play their 2020 season. The CPL made the announcement in a tweet on Wednesday. 

"The Redwolves were concerned because the high incidence of COVID-19 cases in their local area would make protecting their players and fans difficult and felt that playing at the field at Francis Marion University would be inappropriate since the university has announced that it will be closed for the summer term," the league said. 

The Redwolves play their home games in Florence, S.C. The Coastal Plain League is still planning on playing its 2020 season, beginning with a July 1 Opening Day.

CPBL allows more fans at games

The Chinese Professional Baseball League became the first league in the world to allow fans at games last week. Starting on May 8, the league allowed 1,000 fans at each game. 

Now they're prepared to increase that to 2,000 fans per game, according to a statement from the league this morning. The increase will begin with tomorrow's games, and stadiums will also start selling food during the games.