Yankees 2021 schedule conspiracy hints at limited attendance to start

The Yankees have a 2021 schedule quirk that makes you think MLB is trying to protect against large crowds early.

As many of the most nervous among us suspected as we waited through an interminable delay in the start of the 2020 MLB season, the ’21 Yankees season seems likely to be extremely abnormal, too.

Will there be an Opening Day delay? That’s less likely than it seemed back in early summer 2020, when it felt like there was no way the players and ownership would ever agree on the parameters for a fan-less season.

But now, despite cries of poverty from all corners of the MLB landscape, it’s become clear that both parties were willing to sacrifice somewhat for the greater good in 2020. Would they be willing to do so for even a portion of 2021, too? Well, that’s a different story.

The league’s coping mechanism in ’20 was to stuff the stands at the neutral site World Series, sponsor anything and everything, and drop bizarre tiny commercial breaks in between pitches during pivotal at-bats. And while it will be hard for the moneymakers to justify completely empty stands in 2021, seeing as the NFL and NCAA have crammed rooters into their stadiums during arguably the hottest peak of the pandemic, they may be preparing for attendance to be capped at the start of next season.

How do I know this? The Yankees and Red Sox, generally the hottest rivalry ticket in baseball, do not match up until June of 2021.

Yes, that means 19 matchups between the two teams, entirely situated in the season’s final four months.

While the league always likes to cluster Yankees-Sox battles in primetime and during the stretch run, there’s always an April series between the two baked in, at the very least, and late May is usually a hotspot, too. This year, not so much.

Does it mean anything? It certainly feels like a hint, or an insurance policy at the very least.

Major League Baseball has not been shy about releasing schedules far ahead of, um, schedule this season, dropping a full Spring Training slate in mid-September. Unfortunately, that event feels like it could be very much private again next year — why bother, right?

One counterpoint to this theory? Take it with a grain of salt, but the Yankees’ home dates with the Astros are May 4-6.

Fairly confident Rob Manfred would like a packed house for those games, too.

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