Sometimes when I’m hit by a late-night stroke of genius, I’ll use the Note function on my iPhone or text myself a one or two-word reminder to keep the idea from escaping. But Bryce Harper’s bedtime brainstorm Friday night was too good not to share with his 1.7 million Instagram followers. View this post on Instagram Baseball Season:⠀ Beyond the health and safety which comes first for all players, staff, workers, fans, and families. ⠀ ⠀ Just an idea I have been thinking about. ⠀ ⠀ East/West like NBA. ⠀ ⠀ July 31 days⠀ August 31 days ⠀ September 30 days ⠀ October 31 days ⠀ November 15 days ⠀ 135 games. ⠀ Off day every 2 weeks on a Monday and Sunday double header 7 innings. ⠀ ⠀ 30 players. 6 man rotation. Save arms. IF pitchers wanted this. If not no big deal. DH and any other ideas possible.⠀ ⠀ Playoffs ⠀ 2 week World Series. Like Super bowl week. ⠀ ⠀ 10 teams round robin format College World Series kinda style at the new Texas Stadium or whatever stadium/ stadiums are best. 3 game series. You win the series you move on. You lose you play the other loser in a 1 game wildcard. Winner of that moves on. Other team is out. ⠀ Or you could play it in Vegas so you have the Strip Hotels and could use one hotel for all the guys and contain possibly? ⠀ ⠀ 2 teams left 7 game World Series. They get 2 days off before the series. With those 2 days off you do a All Star Game and homerun derby. Could do the MLB awards as well at that time. ⠀ ⠀ Open this up on all platforms. No blackouts. Open it for everybody to watch. ⠀ Then you back up season the next 2 years. May 1st 2021. April 1st 2022. Maybe I’m crazy. Just fun to think about and throw around ideas🤪 A post shared by Bryce Harper (@bryceharper3) on May 15, 2020 at 10:27pm PDTHarper heard the league’s proposed 82-game mini-season and did them one better. The Phillies outfielder laid out an ambitious 135-game schedule for the upcoming 2020 campaign featuring a number of new wrinkles including an East/West alignment reminiscent of the NBA’s two-conference structure and expanded 30-man rosters. Harper also advocates for six-man starting rotations, a necessary measure in a highly condensed regular season. The six-time All-Star’s plan doesn’t call for much rest, though it does allow for a reprieve every other Monday. Borrowing a page from the minor leagues’ playbook, Harper suggested Sunday double-headers with each game lasting a mere seven innings. Some baseball purists aren’t in favor of the National League’s plan to adopt a designated hitter in 2020, but Harper (who will probably do a fair amount of DHing for the Phillies this season) doesn’t put himself in that category. Harper’s hypothetical 135-game slate would run from July to mid-November with 10 teams qualifying for postseason play. The playoffs would have a twist as well with a round-robin format (conceptually similar to the College World Series) consisting of best-of-three rounds with losers facing off in a one-game Wild Card. Harper sees all this playing out in a single location, with Las Vegas (players could shack up on the Strip) and Arlington, Texas (home of newly-built Globe Life Field) floated as potential host cities. To give the remaining teams a breather, Harper suggested the league stage an All-Star Game and Home Run Derby before the World Series. MLB could also hold its annual awards ceremony during that two-day window. One of the biggest hurdles MLB faces, beyond the obvious safety concerns amid COVID-19, is how subsequent seasons would be affected given the league’s unusually late start to 2020. Well Harper has a fix for that too. He favors a gradual approach to restoring normalcy, calling for a May 1st start to the 2021 campaign and an April 1st opening the following year with the league reverting to its usual start time (typically late March) in 2023. To make the action more accessible to fans, Harper thinks games should be available on all platforms with no television blackouts. Harper’s idea is quite thorough and the star right-fielder deserves plenty of credit for his creative call to action. Squeezing in 135 games in just over four months would be a tall order and Harper’s plan doesn’t address the elephant in the room, which is ownership and players’ ongoing tug-of-war over revenue sharing. But even if it never comes to fruition, the 27-year-old’s eye-opening proposal is at least fun to envision. LISTEN NOW on the RADIO.COM AppFollow RADIO.COM SportsTwitter | Facebook I Instagram

It remains to be seen when, or if, the NBA will resume the 2019-20 season, but is returning after this long of a layoff a good idea? “I don’t think it is,” Shaquille O’Neal said on The DA Show. “We still have a lot of unanswered questions. One thing I hate seeing and hate hearing is, ‘Oh, it’s going to come back.’ What’s going to come back? I want it to be gone. I want it to be gone forever. There’s still a lot of uncertainty with this thing. I hear a lot of states are opening up. I hate seeing the numbers of the people that pass away. I lost a couple people during this. Whoever is listening, if you lost somebody to COVID-19, my heart goes out to you.” The NBA suspended its season March 11. Almost two months later, the league’s return date remains in limbo. “I think Adam Silver did a great job of being the first commissioner to worry about the safety of the players and the people,” O’Neal said. “I think we should just call it this year and make sure this thing is behind us and come back next year. But I’m not in charge. I hear that they’re talking about Disney or Vegas. We’ll see what happens, but I think you know the old saying: better safe than sorry.” While O’Neal would err on the side of caution now, he likely wouldn’t have during his prime. “I would say come back because I realize that sports do a lot for people,” he said. “Whenever I played, I never worried about me. I worried about the guy that brought his son to a game. I worried about the guy that brought his family to a game. I worried about the corporate guys that’s been sitting in the office all day. You just want to come to the game, grab a beer and relax. So I would say, ‘Yeah, let’s come back – because it’s not about me. It’s about the people.’” LISTEN NOW on the RADIO.COM AppFollow RADIO.COM SportsTwitter | Facebook I Instagram

Golf fans, in search of a way to consume the sport during the stay-at-home coronavirus quarantine, have several tournaments to watch on YouTube and through other streaming services. It's likely that several of the contests they select include one or both of Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson due to their incredible talent. In fact, one of the most fun matches to watch was a face-off between these two stars in 2018, pegged as "The Match." Instead of rewatching "The Match", however, golf lovers may be able to watch "The Rematch" -- an unofficial name that I came up with using a ton of creativity -- after Mickelson hinted at the idea over social media. Chris Yurko, evidently a golf fan, was able to catch the interest of Mickelson on Twitter and start the entire conversation. Working on it— Phil Mickelson (@PhilMickelson) March 30, 2020But "working on it" doesn't seem like an entirely convincing response, does it? I don’t tease. I’m kinda a sure thing— Phil Mickelson (@PhilMickelson) March 30, 2020That's better. The first time around, the match was held at Shadow Creek Golf Course in Las Vegas with a prize fund of $9 million, which are two aspects of the event that will be very difficult to replicate given the circumstances. However, with the appropriate conditions including a very limited audience and proper social distancing tactics, such a match would do more than satisfy the desires of loyal golf viewers. If the match were to occur, it would hopefully play out similarly to how the first go-around went. The two golfers were tied after 18 holes back in 2018, and it wasn't until four extra holes that Mickelson won by a stroke and surprised the golf world. With all PGA events canceled until mid-May for now, such an exciting clash would be a pleasant surprise and a great distraction while the world continues to recover and attempt to flatten the curve of COVID-19. LISTEN NOW on the RADIO.COM AppFollow RADIO.COM SportsTwitter | Facebook I Instagram

The 2020 Olympics will not take place in 2020 after all. Tuesday morning, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe shared that his proposal of a one-year postponement was met with support from the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and that the organization's president, Thomas Bach, agreed "100%" to the concept (via the Associated Press). Soon after, a statement was issued on the official website of the Olympic Games. In the joint statement between the IOC and Japan, it is stated that a conclusion was made that the "Games of the XXXII Olympiad in Tokyo must be rescheduled to a date beyond 2020 but not later than summer 2021, to safeguard the health of the athletes, everybody involved in the Olympic Games and the international community". No date has been announced yet as to an official rescheduling of the games. Abe brought up his proposal on Monday after an outpouring of concern from various countries' Olympic teams. Among those teams were the US Swim and Track and Field teams, speaking to the safety and health of the athletes and the inadequacy of such an environment in providing proper conditions. pic.twitter.com/VMXaTyRcJN— USATF (@usatf) March 21, 2020Countries such as Canada and Australia publicly stated that they would opt not to participate in the 2020 Olympics at all under such difficult circumstances, leading to a feeling that a postponement or cancellation was becoming more and more inevitable by the day. A decision from the IOC was reportedly to come in the next four weeks, but action has been taken more quickly. This goes against what IOC senior member Dick Pound had said late in February, stating that the games were more likely to be canceled entirely than postponed or simply moved. However, as circumstances have rapidly developed and our knowledge of the illness has evolved, a year-long delay may be enough of a postponement to ensure athlete safety barring another decision down the stretch. LISTEN NOW on the RADIO.COM AppFollow RADIO.COM SportsTwitter I Facebook I Instagram