Baseball season won’t be the same without Anthony Causi

This promises to be a baseball season like we’ve never seen before. A 60-game sprint rather than our preferred 162-game marathon. Empty stadiums with cardboard cutouts where fans should be and masked managers in the dugouts. That’s the impact of COVID-19 on Major League Baseball. It’s dramatically changed the national pastime, for at least this …

That’s the impact of COVID-19 on Major League Baseball. It’s dramatically changed the national pastime, for at least this season.

For the New York Post family — and for longtime readers of this section — the COVID crush runs deeper. For us, this will be the first time in 25 years that Anthony Causi’s photographs won’t be at the heart of The Post’s baseball coverage.

On April 12, Anthony, 48, lost his long battle with COVID. The Brooklyn native was not just beloved by his co-workers but also by the subjects he so artfully photographed.

The outpouring of love and respect for Anthony and his family continues today.

It was seen Sunday night at Yankee Stadium during a moment of silence for him. On Friday afternoon at Citi Field during the Mets home opener, a cutout of Anthony will be positioned in the photographers’ well next to the team’s dugout, a place Anthony joyfully manned with dignity and excellence for three decades.

The Mets honor the memory of Anthony Causi by posting a cutout photo of him holding his camera in the first base photo box at Citi Field.Robert Sabo)

Today we present to our readers our annual MLB season preview. In this baseball-crazed city of ours, this has always been one of our favorite projects. At the core of these pages are season previews for the Yankees and Mets.

Before he became sick, Anthony spent his February and early March embedded in Port St. Lucie with the Mets, as he has every year since the beginning of this century. It was there that Anthony always did some of his greatest work.

From exclusive pictures of Yoenis Cespedes on his ranch, to Noah Syndergaard on horseback to unique portraits of all the players, nobody took readers inside Mets spring training more than Anthony.

Today, with heavy hearts, we present you with some of Anthony’s final photographs he shot for The Post as part of our preview package. This section, and this great preview package, will never be the same without him.