Play ball? Baseball is too risky this season.
Marlins coronavirus outbreak is just the start
One of the best things about baseball is that it runs from spring training in mid-February through October and the World Series. That’s over eight glorious months. And from April through September, for die-hard fans, there are multiple games to take in and box scores to devour every day. As Annie Savoy (Susan Sarandon) said in the opening scene of the 1988 baseball classic film “Bull Durham”: “It’s a long season and you gotta trust it. I’ve tried ’em all, I really have, and the only church that truly feeds the soul, day in, day out, is the church of baseball.”
But this year, baseball became a victim of the pandemic. Spring training was shut down and the season delayed. Then after months, Major League Baseball announced that the normal 162game grind would be shortened to just 60 games. For those of us who live and breathe baseball — and desperately needed a diversion from 2020 — we couldn’t wait for the season to begin, even while knowing that epidemiologically and ethically it was problematic.
The Opening Night game on July 23 pitted the New York Yankees, the team I grew up rooting for, against the defending champion Washington Nationals, the team I have become a passionate fan of since it moved to the District of Columbia in 2005. While I couldn’t be at the ballpark — no fans could — I could still put on my Nats jersey with relief pitcher Sean Doolittle’s old No. 62 on the back, cook up a couple of hot dogs, open a cold beer and enjoy baseball. It was great to be back to “normal.”
A little too ‘normal’
Over the rest of the opening weekend, I watched parts of about 10 games from across the country, glad to finally be putting my MLB-TV subscription to use. Almost immediately, I couldn’t help but worry. I had read that MLB and the Major League Baseball Players Association agreed to strict safety protocols, including things like no spitting, no high-fives and no celebrations after home runs. Yet in every game I watched there were blatant violations.
I saw one pitching coach visit the mound with a mask only partially covering his mouth and his nose was fully exposed (coaches are supposed to wear masks in the dugout, though it’s optional on the field), and in every game players were spitting all over (as ballplayers are apt to do) and high-fiving.
Nats’ shortstop Trea Turner leaped into catcher Kurt Suzuki’s arms for a big, prolonged hug after hitting a home run. First baseman Matt Olson clubbed a monster, walk-off, grand slam home run to win Opening Day for the Oakland A’s, then he was mobbed at home plate by his teammates and doused with a cooler. All no-nos.
The violations continued. In a Tuesday game, players for the Los Angeles
Dodgers and Houston Astros almost brawled. So much for social distancing.
And these were the obvious things on the field. What was happening in the clubhouses, on the flights and bus rides, in the hotels and restaurants?
Not even a week into the season, more than 15 Miami Marlin players and two staff members have tested positive for the virus, and the team suspended its schedule. This surprised no one who have watched any games except apparently MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred: “We expected we were going to have positives at some point in time. I remain optimistic that the protocols are strong enough that it will allow us to play even through an outbreak like this and complete our season.”
We don’t deserve baseball
Jordan Barab, a Dodger fan and a former Occupational Safety and Health Administration official , told me, “There will be more outbreaks . ... You’ve got somewhere between 100-150 people comingling, and given the ages and other risk factors of many of the support crew, it’s only a matter of time before some ... are hospitalized or worse.”
Let’s face it, as much as I hate to say it, and as much as I will miss baseball, this season should be canceled. It is too risky to continue. It didn’t have to be this way. Sports are back in many countries that did a better job handling the pandemic. On Sunday, South Korea reported just 58 additional cases of COVID-19 and fans were permitted to attend baseball games again, limited to 10% of the stadium’s capacity.
America continues to take a pounding from the virus and leads the world in cases largely because President Donald Trump has proved to be incompetent in providing a plan to get us on track. It feels like he has surrendered.
Nats pitcher Doolittle said back in early July: “Sports are like the reward for a functioning society. And we’re trying to just bring it back, even though we’ve taken none of the steps to flatten the curve.” Professional baseball is a nearly $11 billion business. If it can’t get its act together and pull this off safely, perhaps canceling the season will serve as a wake-up call that premature openings will only backfire.
It’s heartbreaking for those of us starved for baseball and hoping for a diversion, but until we get the coronavirus under control, America doesn’t deserve baseball.