NO SURE THING

World Series champ Zimmerman lays out difficult call for players

Ryan Zimmerman is a two-time All-Star infielder and World Series champion who has played 15 years in the majors, all with the Nationals. The 35-year-old Zimmerman discusses what’s on his mind now that there is a plan in place for a 2020 season. As told to the Associated Press.

I’M STILL deciding whether to play. When it comes down to it, it’s a decision not just for me, but for my family as well. I have a 3-week-old baby. My mother has multiple sclerosis and is super high-risk; if I end up playing, I can pretty much throw out the idea of seeing her until weeks after the season is over.

There’s a lot of factors that I and others have to consider. I don’t think there’s a right or wrong answer; it’s everybody’s individual choice.

At the end of the day, does a player feel comfortable going to the field every day and — in my case, more importantly — feel comfortable coming home every day and feel like they’re not putting anyone else in danger?

I am by no means someone who thinks we all need to hide in our houses until a vaccine is found. That’s not feasible for anybody. We just need to do things in a sensible, smart way.

I don’t want to be a pessimist about this. I hope that, whatever I decide, the season goes off well, nothing happens, nobody gets seriously sick.

But there are a lot of moving parts and a lot of variables we’re not going to be able to control. That’s what we need to assess.

There’s a lot of talk about rule changes for extra innings and the DH; in my mind, what better year to try some of this stuff out?

With a 60-game season, there’s going to be people who think certain things about this year, anyway. So if you’re thinking about changing things in the game at some point, this is the perfect year to see if people in baseball and fans like it, see if they don’t.

But I’m thinking more about the health and safety perspective — and the toughest part for us is going to be the travel aspect of it.

That includes for “spring training,” when people are going to be flying in from all across the country and from out of the country, as well. It’ll be interesting to see