MLB players to wear tracers, face discipline

Major League Baseball players, on-field staff and non-playing personnel who require access to them at ballparks must wear electronic tracing wristbands from the start of spring training and face discipline for violations.

Players will be encouraged to get vaccines but are not required to get them.

That was part of upgraded health protocols agreed to by Major League Baseball and the players’ association to deal with the novel coronavirus pandemic.

The 108-page operations manual, agreed to Feb. 8 and obtained by The Associated Press, expands on the 101-page version used during the shortened 2020 season.

“Every covered Individual must wear a Kinexon contact tracing device at all times while in club facilities and during club directed travel and while engaged in team activities, including group workouts and practices,” the manual says. “Repeated failure to wear the devices or repeated failure to return the devices to the Kinexon device docking station may be a basis for discipline,” the manual says.

The manual states violations of the MLB or club codes of conduct or of spring training home quarantine “are subject to potential discipline, including but not limited to suspension or forfeiture of salary for days spent away from the club while in mandatory self-isolation or quarantine resulting from the violation.”

Olympic sports

LAMOREUX SISTERS RETIRE » Though they didn’t know it at the time three years ago, USA Hockey’s Lamoureux twin sisters played a major role in perfectly scripting their retirement Feb. 9.

Had it not been for their clutch contributions in the United States’ 3-2 shootout victory over Canada in the gold-medal game at the 2018 Pyeongchang Olympics, Jocelyne Lamoureux-Davidson and Monique Lamoureux-Morando might have been back on the ice practicing rather than announcing an end to their illustrious 14-year international careers.

“My husband asked me that question two weeks ago,” Lamoureux-Davidson said, as to whether the decision to retire would have been harder had the U.S. lost. “My initial reaction was, ‘Yeah, we would be able to.’ And then I really thought about it, and I think it would’ve been much more difficult,” she added.