Blue Jays homeward bound
Team cleared to hold summer training camp in Toronto in preparation for shortened season,
The Blue Jays are returning to Toronto for a summer training camp ahead of Major League Baseball’s shortened season, with the hopes of settling on a venue for its regular season games within the next week.
The Jays hope to host the home half of the modified 60game regular season schedule at Rogers Centre, with president and CEO Mark Shapiro telling reporters on a conference call Thursday that it is “pretty important to get some clarity on where they will be playing their games in the next seven to 10 days.”
Planning for a regular season in Toronto began around the same time the club began working through a plan for spring training in their home city, with a similar intent: to protect the public in every way possible,
Shapiro said. But the regular season comes with a different set of circumstances, in that both Jays players and staff and the visiting team’s personnel will be crossing the border in and out of the United States.
“We have made significant progress on the public health areas of that plan but we still do have some areas to address,” Shapiro said. “I would say we’re 80 per cent of the way there on pure public health issues but then there are travel-related issues, there are a host of travelrelated and logistical issues that create complexities that we still need to work through to satisfy particularly (the Public Health Agency of Canada).”
Federal, provincial and municipal governments had to jointly approve the Jays’ application to host their summer training camp in Toronto, which club officials announced
Thursday afternoon. Players and staff travelling from the U.S., as well as essential Toronto-based staff approved to interact with the travelling party, must undergo an intake screening that includes two coronavirus tests, antibody testing and a quarantine period of 24 to 48 hours while awaiting test results. Players and staff must test negative twice during the intake screening to be able to travel to Toronto on a private charter this weekend.
During training camp, they will be tested every other day, with additional testing administered during their first week in Toronto. If a player or staff member tests positive, they will be required to isolate until they can produce two negative tests.
Rogers Centre and the adjoining Toronto Marriott City Centre Hotel will be the home of the Jays’ modified quarantine.
Players and staff will travel to the stadium by private, sterilized bus and will not be allowed to leave the premises throughout camp. The Jays cohort will be assigned a dedicated room block and using the elevators will be discouraged. Contactless check in, check out and food delivery aims to minimize interaction with hotel staff, who will be subjected to daily health checks and temperature screenings and will be required to wear masks at all times while within the building.
Visiting teams would be expected to adhere to a similar bubble, should the Jays’ plan to host regular season games be approved by the government.
Shapiro said Jays players were part of the process of deciding where to hold camp and understand there will be penalties in place if anyone were to violate the rules of the modified quarantine.
Conversations on what will happen beyond spring training continue. Toronto’s likely backup plan is to play at TD Ballpark at the Jays’ spring training complex in Dunedin, Fla., though Shapiro said the club will look at other alternatives over the next week. Florida’s Department of Health confirmed 10,109 additional cases of COVID-19 on Thursday, breaking another single-day record and pushing the state’s total confirmed cases to 169,106.
The schedule is close to being set now, Shapiro said, and is not dependant on the Jays settling on a home venue. Bringing baseball back is not without risks, but Shapiro understood that coming in.
“I’m still optimistic, I’m still hopeful … I don’t think we could do it any more safely than we’re doing it.”