What to Watch Until the MLB Season Starts
Posted on April 5, 2022
Image Credit: UPI.com/Yonhap
The MLB lockout may finally be over, but we’re still a few weeks away from the real season starting, and if you’re anything like me, you’re probably looking to scratch that baseball itch before opening day on April 7th. Well, don’t worry, because there’s plenty of baseball to watch before then. Here are your best options.
College baseball is well underway, and as per usual, it’s absolutely electric. If you’ve ever seen any NCAA sports before you’re in for more of the same, but this time it’s baseball, and if you ask me, that’s perfect. The crowds, particularly the student sections, are top-notch and make even the biggest blowouts executing, and there’s more personality in it than most high-level American leagues. Every time you tune in you’re bound to see something fun, whether it be all purple uniforms, blue turf, or some random guy from Texas almost touching triple digits. In Canada, you can stream NCAA D1 baseball on MLB Network through DAZN, and TSN will even have it on sometimes.
KBO (the South Korean professional league) baseball gained a ton of popularity during the Covid delay before the 2020 MLB season, and you should be thankful it did because it might be the most entertaining league on the planet. Being such an American-centric sport, baseball doesn’t innovate as much as maybe it should, but Asian baseball does not lack innovation. By just watching a clip of it, you’ll see the difference. Pitchers have different wind-ups and pitches, batters swing more often, and the crowd gets into the game in a way that American audiences don’t. Add in the mish-mash of homegrown Korean talent to American players just out of MLB and you’ve got the most unique league in baseball. Its Japanese counterpart NPB may have a slightly higher level of competition, but the KBO is far more accessible since streams are incredibly easy to find. Just look them up and you should have no trouble finding one.
Spring training may be a bit of an easy answer, but it still fills that baseball void. It’s also not just more MLB baseball in the way you might think. Since this is the team’s training camp, there’s a huge range of players, so you could end up seeing the best batter on the planet against some guy who will never step foot on an MLB field. It’s unbalanced, it’s a little bit cobbled together, and sometimes it’s downright boring, but baseball is baseball, and if you’re really desperate to watch something this is it. You can find it wherever you normally watch MLB games.
