Keep MLB fans safe in COVID’s late innings

Baseball yanked its All- Star Game from Georgia. Why so timid on public health during a pandemic?

TGBB: Thank goodness baseball’s back, and not just on the diamonds but in the stands as well. At MLB ballparks, actual people have replaced last season’s paper cutouts. Trouble is, in some stadiums this spring’s fans appear to have cardboard for brains.

I’ve been studying video feeds from all MLB parks, and the difference in masking and distancing is striking. There are few fans and many masks in, say, San Francisco and New York, but packed seating and few masks in Phoenix and Arlington, Texas.

Baseball has long been the Great American Metaphor, so how it handles — or mishandles — this stage of the COVID- 19 pandemic is enlightening. MLB should be doing better, and so should a few owners and many fans.

Here’s how topsy- turvy things have been: The Giants, the Mets and the Yankees are requiring fans to show proof of a negative COVID- 19 test within 72 hours of the game, or of vaccination, in order to enter the ballpark. Capacity is capped at 20%. But at Globe Life Field in Arlington, Texas, a nearcapacity crowd of 38,238 was allowed for the Rangers home opener April 5, with few masks to be seen.

At stadiums such as PNC Park in Pittsburgh and Oriole Park in Baltimore, TV coverage shows cautious, socially distanced seating. At Chase Field in Phoenix, however, 19,385 people attended last Friday’s Diamondbacks game, many without masks, creating a scene that was reminiscent of Florida beaches at spring break.

Yet, while some teams and fans acted as if complete normality had returned, the seriousness of the situation was underscored in Washington, D. C., where the opening series between the Mets and Nationals was postponed after several players tested positive for COVID- 19.

Safety plan is only words

Fans might be reckless, but team owners and MLB are downright hypocritical. MLB’s written policy for ballparks this season calls for social distancing and mandatory masks for fans. The cop- out is that teams can also adhere to “local guidelines.”

In Texas, although Gov. Greg Abbott lifted the state’s mandatory mask policy, Rangers COO Neil Leibman stated: “We will require all those who enter Globe Life Field to wear a mask or face covering, and are working with Major League Baseball on some additional protocols required for player health and safety.” As the TV showed, that is simply not true — or, as we’re now free to say in journalism, a lie.

MLB has not been shy about exerting its power on other matters. It yanked the July All- Star Game from Truist Park in Atlanta because of Georgia’s imposition of controversial voting laws. Bravo. But then why turn timid when it comes to fan safety during the pandemic?

Economic interests shouldn’t be allowed to override health and safety, but often they do. Baseball is happy to make rules about masks while allowing team owners to break them. Owners are willing to issue statements about mask requirements, but few will insist that stadium personnel enforce the rules.

Disappointed in MLB

Anyone who has attended a Major League game knows how difficult it is for ushers to deal with drunken and rowdy fans. The backlash if mask rules were enforced would be daunting. Requiring vaccinations or tests before fans can enter a stadium is the only way to keep the social conflicts as well as the virus out of ballparks. Legally, private businesses are free to make such rules.

The government’s top infectious- disease expert, Dr. Anthony Fauci, says he expects seating capacity at MLB parks to be gradually expanded as the season progresses, but he says spaced seating and masking should be required. In a recent Washington Post- University of Maryland poll, 64% said they’d be comfortable attending events such as baseball games if masks were required.

I’m intrigued by what the Miami Heat tried for this basketball season, using COVID- sniffing dogs to check people as they enter the arena. Why can’t baseball do that? Baseball could also try incentives for masking, without tasking ushers with enforcement. How about: Anyone who’s wearing a mask when they catch a foul ball or home run gets $ 100.

I applaud the teams that are requiring testing and vaccines and limiting attendance. The Giants allowed only 7,390 fans to attend their home opener at Oracle Park, a 41,915- seat venue that routinely sells out on opening day.

Watching video from last weekend’s games, I was disappointed in the MLB for not taking a strong stand on safety; in the teams for not enforcing their own health rules; in the broadcasters for not critcizing those without masks; and in the fans for their misguided notion that endangering others is a show of social or political independence.

The pandemic is entering the late innings. This is no time to take our eyes off the ball.