Dr. Fauci: Advice would be to avoid playing baseball into October

How long should baseball’s short season extend?

The players say November. The owners say October.

But if the sole factor is minimizing risk for the novel coronavirus, Dr. Anthony Fauci said the major leagues would be wise to wrap up the postseason in September.

“If the question is time, I would try to keep it in the core summer months and end it not with the way we play the World Series, until the end of October when it’s cold,” Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said in a telephone interview on Tuesday. “I would avoid that.”

Owners have expressed concern about an increase in coronavirus cases, notably in the home states of nine of the 10 teams that would be grouped in the Western region. Those outbreaks have “increased the risks associated with commencing spring training in the next few weeks,” MLB Deputy Commissioner Dan Halem wrote to players union negotiator Bruce Meyer on Monday.

Nonetheless, Fauci said, playing in July likely would be less risky than playing in October.

“Even in warm weather, like in Arizona and California, we’re starting to see resurgences as we open up,”Fauci said.“But I think the chances of there being less of an issue in the end of July and all of August and September are much, much better than if you go into October.”

In the U.S., deaths from the coronavirus are projected to rise steadily in July and August, then sharply through September, according to projections Monday from the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation.