League has extensive health measures in place for return MLB is taking no chances
Eventually this might become second nature, but until then, MLB’s desired protocols for health and safety amidst the coronavirus pandemic look exhausting.
That’s not a bad thing. After the league and the owners discussed best practices this week, a 67-page document was presented to the MLB Players’ Association and obtained by The Athletic.
The takeaway: this isn’t going to be easy, but at least they’ve done their homework.
We’re all adjusting to the “new normal” in our daily lives. It’ll be no different for ballplayers.
The guess here is there are a few areas where the players push back, but it’s hard to think they’ll request any additional procedures. This booklet is thorough. So thorough, in fact, some of these requests will be difficult to enforce.
For example, the league wants teams to fly in and out of small airports as much as possible and hopes airlines will assign fixed crews to each team. Players will not be “officially quarantined” while on the road, but “members of the traveling party are not to leave the hotel unless they receive advance approval from team personnel.”
Good luck with that one.
But if players are to keep the game going, they know they can’t afford to let anyone get sick. And to put themselves at risk is to put the entire game at risk.
They should be duly motivated to adhere to most of these guidelines, especially given they’re allowed to see their families and live at home while the team is in their home city.
The league will provide regular testing for “all players, managers, coaches and umpires, plus a limited number of essential staff members who come into close proximity with players.”
Like in South Korea, players will have their temperatures taken before entering the ballpark, will undergo coronavirus testing multiple times per week and will have dedicated areas for isolation in case anyone develops symptoms or tests positive.
The big public relations battle the league is facing is undoubtedly with the testing. Will the general public really be OK with athletes having access to loads of coronavirus tests if essential workers all over the country don’t have the same access?
The league is trying to get ahead of that, it seems. They’ll provide “free diagnostic and antibody testing to individuals who live in the same household and healthcare workers or other first responders in the clubs’ home cities as a public service.”
Let’s hope by the time baseball returns there’s already access to testing for all healthcare workers.
The game itself should be the same one we’re used to, but players will have to be mindful.
Pitchers will have their own individualized baseballs to use during bullpen sessions. And during games, the baseballs will be changed any time a ball is put in play or touched by multiple players (it stands to reason a catcher and pitcher touching the same ball wouldn’t count, or there’d be hundreds of ball changes in a single game and make the game unwatchable).
Dugout phones are to be disinfected every time somebody makes a call. There will be no communal Gatorade jugs, no group dining, no saunas, no ice baths and showering at the park is discouraged. Lockers must be spaced 6 feet apart.
Essentially, players should arrive at the park, change quickly and get outside to stretch. They’ll also have to stand 6 feet apart while stretching.
There’s no spitting, no smokeless tobacco and no sunflower seeds in “restricted areas.”
Everyone not on the field must wear a mask.
And “players and other on-field personnel should wash or sanitize their hands after each half-inning or the handling of equipment.”
Ballplayers are people who regularly spit into their own hands. Now they have to play like germaphobes running a doctor’s office. Is it going to work?
It just might. It’s going to take a whole lot of attention to detail and some getting used to. We still don’t know the protocol if somebody tests positive — and how players and coaches will react to that happening, especially if it happens multiple times. All the memo says on that is “any individual who tests positive is instructed to self-quarantine and get treated accordingly.”
Will some players pack it up and go home?
Probably. Some might never show up.
But with 50-man rosters (only 30 are expected to be active at a time), teams will make it work.
Let’s see what the players have to say.