Would MLB fans view champ, stats as legit in 50-game season?

NEW YORK (AP) — Fresh off a robust round of batting practice in Central Park, softball slugger Todd Montgomery squared up his Mets cap and took a swing at hardball questions involving his favorite team.

Would Jacob deGrom be worthy of a third straight Cy Young Award if he goes 4-2 with a 1.45 ERA?

Does Pete Alonso get on the hallowed MVP list by hitting 19 home runs?

And the big one: If the New York Mets win the World Series in a 50-game season, does that pennant proudly flap alongside the banners from ’69 and ’86?

“Fly it high! It counts. It all counts,” Montgomery said. “DeGrom doesn’t get to have this year back. Whatever you get, it counts.”

With a caveat, of course.

“It’s abnormal,” offered the 60-year-old songwriter who ran the “School of Rock” team in the Broadway Show League. “Everybody 100 years from now will know it was abnormal.”

That’s if there even is a Major League Baseball season, with players and owners currently caught in a bitter dispute over how to start amid the coronavirus pandemic.

Both sides occasionally mention fans, talking about doing right by them. But apart from taking sides, how do the fans feel — would they consider a severely shortened schedule legit?

To some, a limited MLB season would resemble a European soccer round-robin. That’s how Brewers fan Matt Tobin from Wauwatosa, Wisconsin, sees it.

“Frankly, a 50-game season is basically a playoff. I play Strat-O-Matic baseball regularly. If you play a third of a season, the numbers are so skewed,” he said.

Suppose Christian Yelich got off to an incredibly fast start and wound up batting .402 in 48 games. Would that make him baseball’s first .400 hitter since Ted Williams in 1941?

“I think any rate-based stat record — batting average, ERA —...

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