NEW YORK — Former All-Star CC Sabathia was hired Wednesday as a special assistant to baseball Commissioner Rob Manfred.

The 41-year-old, who retired after the 2019 season, is tasked with addressing player relations, diversity, equity and inclusion, social responsibility, youth participation and broadcasting.

Sabathia will work with The Players Alliance. He is a vice president of that group’s board and is working to increase Blacks in the major leagues.

He was a six-time All-Star who went 251-161 with 3,093 strikeouts for Cleveland (2001-08), Milwaukee (2008) and the New York Yankees (2009-19).

GUARDIANS: Jose Ramirez forced the Guardians to go deep into their pockets.

The All-Star third baseman agreed to a $124 million, five-year contract on the eve of Opening Day with Cleveland, a record-setting deal for a franchise that hasn’t been able to swing with baseball’s big spenders over the years.

Ramirez’s deal runs through the 2028 season, a person familiar with the negotiations told The Associated Press. Ramirez still must take a physical and numerous other details need to be finalized before the contract is official, said the person who spoke on condition of anonymity.

The deal includes a full no-trade clause and is the biggest in team history, more than doubling the $60 million committed to slugger Edwin Encarnacion five years ago.

It will be baseball’s 16th contract of $100 million or more since the end of the World Series.

The Guardians open the 2022 season – their first game since changing their name from Indians – in Kansas City on Thursday.

METS: With Cy Young Award winners Jacob deGrom and Max Scherzer unavailable for Opening Day, second-year right-hander Tylor Megill was given the Game 1 starting assignment for the New York Mets against the Washington Nationals on Thursday.

The Nationals, who are without Stephen Strasburg as he continues to return from surgery, will send left-hander Patrick Corbin to the mound.

DeGrom, the 2018 and 2019 NL Cy Young Award recipient, is expected to miss several weeks because of a problem with his right shoulder blade. Scherzer, a three-time Cy Young honoree who joined the Mets on a three-year, $130 million deal as a free agent this offseason, has been dealing with a right hamstring issue that arose late in spring training.

• The scheduled starting time for the Opening Day matchup between the New York Mets and Washington Nationals on Thursday was pushed back three hours because of rain in the forecast.

Washington, which is hosting the four-game season-starting series between the clubs, announced that the teams agreed to play the next day at 7:05 p.m.  instead of 4:05 p.m.

TV: Major League Baseball and NBC agreed to a new Sunday morning package of broadcast streams that will start at 11:30 a.m. and noon.

The deal that requires all other big league games on those days to be scheduled to start no earlier than 1:30 p.m.

The package starts May 8, with the Chicago White Sox at the Boston Red Sox. That game will be broadcast by NBC in addition to being streamed on Peacock. All other games will be available only on Peacock.

The first six games are to start at 11:30 a.m. and the remainder of the package at noon.

The scheduling appears to take into account the collective bargaining agreement between MLB and the players’ association, which states “not more than four games per league per year may be scheduled or rescheduled to start between 10:30 a.m. and noon.”

There already is one prenoon game on each season’s schedule, a Patriots Day game at Boston’s Fenway Park on the third Monday of April that starts just after 11 a.m.

Peacock also will televise the All-Star Futures Game.

NBC televised MLB from 1957 to 2000.

HALL OF FAME: Alex Rodriguez hopes to rebound in Hall of Fame voting after falling far short in his first try on the ballot.

The three-time MVP appeared on 34.3% of ballots in January, receiving 135 of 394 votes. A player needed to receive at least 296 votes for the 75% needed for election.

“I hope I get in one day. It would be an incredible honor,” Rodriguez said during an online session with reporters ahead of his first ESPN broadcast of the baseball season. “I’d be terribly disappointed if I don’t get in, but if I don’t get in I have no one to blame but myself.”

Rodriguez is fourth on the career home run list with 696. He was suspended for the 2014 season for violations of baseball’s joint drug program and collective bargaining agreement.

After four seasons as a broadcaster on ESPN’s Sunday night telecasts, Rodriguez will shift to eight Sunday night alternate telecasts on ESPN2 with Michael Kay, a mainstay on New York Yankees’ broadcasts since 1992.

MARINERS-TWINS: The Minnesota Twins postponed their season opener against the Seattle Mariners by a day until Friday because of expected bad weather.

The forecast for Thursday at Target Field called for a mix of rain and snow.

DODGERS: The Los Angeles Dodgers and veteran right-hander Dellin Betances agreed to a minor league contract, according to a person with knowledge of the deal.

The 34-year-old Betances made four All-Star teams in eight seasons with the New York Yankees but hasn’t been a reliable contributor since 2018. He’s only appeared in 17 games over the past three seasons and pitched just once for the Mets last year due to shoulder surgery.

TRADE: The Milwaukee Brewers acquired Victor Caratini from the San Diego Padres  to address their catching depth, a day after Pedro Severino was suspended for the first 80 games following a positive drug test.

Milwaukee sent minor league outfielder Korry Howell and catcher Brett Sullivan to the Padres in the trade.

ROYALS: All-Star outfielder Whit Merrifield and the Kansas City Royals agreed to a restructured contract in which the club exercised its option for next season and the two sides added a mutual option for the 2024 season.

Merrifield, who made his second All-Star team last season, will make $7 million this season with $2.75 million with up to $4 million in escalators. The mutual option is for $18 million with a $500,000 buyout.

Merrifield, 33, hit .277 with an American League-leading 40 stolen bases and 42 doubles last season, becoming the first player since Charlie Gehringer in 1929 to lead the AL in both categories. Merrifield also had 40-plus doubles and 40-plus steals in 2018, making him one of seven players in big league history with at least two such seasons.

POLL: About 1 in 4 fans of Major League Baseball feel at least some anger toward the sport after its first work stoppage in a generation, according to a new poll, but the vast majority are still excited about the new season.

Only 27% of Americans say they are currently a fan of MLB, according to the poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research.

The poll also finds 32% of Americans 45 and older say they currently are fans, but only 22% of younger adults say they are, a trend MLB management says it is working to reverse.

Even among fans, few were very attuned to the 99-day lockout that delayed the start of the season from March 31 until Thursday or say that it had a major impact on their views of MLB.

The poll shows three-quarters of fans say they’re at least somewhat excited about the upcoming season, and even more say they’re at least somewhat interested.

Still, 28% of fans are at least somewhat angry and 39% are at least somewhat frustrated following the dispute, in which management and players vented their criticism of each other during weeks when the start of spring training was delayed.