REALITY CHECK
MLB SHUTS ALL CAMPS TO CLEAN /
MLB ordered all 30 spring training camps closed for a deep cleaning and disinfecting and that all personnel who want to continue unofficial workouts when the sites reopen will have to undergo a COVID-19 screening.
The league was reacting Friday night to both the rising number of cases in Arizona and Florida — the states that house all 30 spring sites — but also that at least four teams reported either coronavirus cases or symptoms in their camps. Three — the Phillies, Blue Jays and Giants — closed their camps on their own before MLB’s decision. The Phillies, who train in Clearwater, Fla., acknowledged that eight employees had come down with coronavirus since Tuesday, including five players.
Players had been allowed to return to spring facilities or home stadiums in recent weeks to work out with the help of limited support staff. Each team created protocols. But without an agreement between MLB and the players association on health and safety, there was no singular policy overseeing these informal workouts. So players were coming and going without a testing regimen.
MLB hopes it can reopen camps early next week after the cleansing. The rule the sport is establishing is that personnel must have a negative test for the virus to be allowed to resume their workouts. MLB would additionally like to continue testing every two days.
These are the first known cases to surface since teams began to let players back into facilities. Even before the outbreak, the Phillies had been planning to hold their spring training in Philadelphia. The Blue Jays, though, were likely going to be in Dunedin, Fla.
Phillies managing partner John Middleton said in a statement that as a result of the confirmed cases, “All facilities in Clearwater have been closed indefinitely to all players, coaches and staff and will remain closed until medical authorities are confident that the virus is under control and our facilities are disinfected.”
The team added, “In terms of the implications of this outbreak on the Phillies’ 2020 season, the club declines comment, believing that it is too early to know.”
Like all other teams around MLB, the Phillies shuttered their facility when spring training was shut down in March due to COVID-19.
After the facility was cleaned, players rehabbing from injuries could return and more recently, other players were also allowed to work out at Spectrum Field. The Phillies are expected to resume spring training — if baseball gets that far — in Philadelphia.
As MLB and the MLBPA haggle over economic matters, there has been thought spring training could resume as soon as the end of next week, provided they strike an agreement soon.
Though none of the people who tested positive needed to be hospitalized, according to NBC Sports Philadelphia, the development would obviously be concerning.
“I’m not trying to scare anyone, but this is real and it spreads quickly and easily and people need to know,” one person who knows some of the Phillies personnel who came down with the virus told NBC Sports.
The Yankees had a pair of minor leaguers test positive for COVID-19 at their facility in Tampa in March and quarantined their minor leaguers as a result. The two players have since recovered. The team has not determined where it would resume spring training.
Tampa mayor Jane Castor said Thursday she would order Tampa residents to wear masks while indoors and unable to maintain a 6-foot separation from others beginning Friday, and TSN reported Friday the Tampa Bay Lightning just shut down their facility because of positive coronavirus tests.