All over spring training, baseball enjoyed a bevy of reassuring signs Sunday on the opening day of Grapefruit and Cactus league play. Including people in the seats, albeit in numbers limited by COVID-19 protocols. The Toronto-Yankees game at Steinbrenner Field in Tampa, Florida, drew 2,637, close to its permitted maximum of 2,800 in a park that holds over 10,000. A little farther south in Sarasota, the Pittsburgh-Baltimore opener crowd of 1,705 was officially listed as a sellout. Orioles slugger Trey Mancini got a socially distanced standing ovation in his first game since surgery for colon cancer.
