Isolation ball destined to strike out
Major League Baseball has started discussing a radical proposal that would allow its upcoming regular season to begin at some point in May or June despite the continued presence of the coronavirus, which has become a global pandemic.
According to a report from ESPN, MLBand its players association are currently debating a plan that would see the league play games at empty stadiums in Arizona. Players would be required to go into isolation for upwards of 4 1⁄ 2 months while following social distancing procedures.
The ambitious idea comes just a few days after MLB commissioner Rob Manfred took part in a conference call with United States President Donald Trump and other highranking government officials. It is believed Trump emphasized a need for all sports to resume play as soon as possible to jump-start the economy and provide a sense of normalcy to the public.
“MLB has been actively considering numerous contingency plans that would allow play to commence once the public health situation has improved to the point that it is safe to do so,” MLB said in a statement Tuesday morning. “While we have discussed the idea of staging games at one location as one potential option, we have not settled on that option or developed a detailed plan.
“While we continue to interact regularly with governmental and public health officials, we have not sought or received approval of any plan from federal, state and local officials, or the players’ association. The health and safety of our employees, players, fans and the public at large are paramount, and we are not ready at this time to endorse any particular format for staging games in light of the rapidly changing public health situation caused by the coronavirus.” Nobody should blame MLB for trying. During this period of uncertainty, teams and league executives don’t have a whole lot to do outside of coming up with contingency plans. At some point, sports will resume and, when they do, baseball wants to be ready to host as many games as possible. The league must be prepared for any scenario, but the latest proposal creates more questions than answers.
According to ESPN, MLB is considering hosting its entire regular season in Arizona, where teams would use the Diamondbacks’ Chase Field and upwards of 10 spring training stadiums nearby. Fans would not be allowed to attend and instead players would sit in the stands during games, separated by at least six feet.
Players also would be forced into isolation for the duration of the season. They would not be permitted to see family or friends and instead would reside in hotels. Special precautions would be taken for meals, while players could travel to the park on their own. Some players will be more than willing to make those concessions in exchange for paycheques getting cashed every other week. Others, not so much.
“It begins and ends right here,” former Blue Jays starter and current Milwaukee Brewers left-hander Brett Anderson wrote on Twitter after highlighting a paragraph from the ESPN story that said players would be forced into isolation.
The issues with this proposal, however, run deeper than a player’s quality of life. Rudy Gobert of the Utah Jazz showed earlier this year that all it takes is one positive test for multiple teams to be placed into quarantine. Gobert was one of the first prominent names to test positive in North America and his diagnosis resulted in the NBA shutting its doors within hours.
MLB believes it has some ideas to get around those issues. Players would sit far apart from each other in the stands. Mound visits between catchers and pitchers would be banned. An electronic strike zone could be used instead of an umpire to limit exposure. Teams would carry expanded rosters for additional protection in case a player does test positive.
Manfred said earlier this month the league has been consulting with infectious disease officials at several prominent universities in the U.S. MLB also has been working with the Centers for Disease Control and any proposal will have to be approved by the experts, who know a lot more about this pandemic and its implications than anyone in the sporting world.
Yet it’s hard to see this proposal as anything but farfetched. Keeping people in isolation might work for a bit, but players aren’t going to spend the summer dressed in bubble wrap. There will be risks of exposure no matter how many precautions are taken and, if the outbreak becomes big enough, the league would be forced to once again abandon its season.
The desire to reach an agreement is understandable. Even if the league doesn’t sell tickets, it can recoup large sums of cash through television deals. Players would have to make some uncomfortable sacrifices, but most will sign on if it means they start getting paid again. From the U.S. government’s perspective, a return to action would provide a sense of much-needed normalcy to the general population.
There are reasons to be optimistic about baseball’s proposed return and just as many to think it will become an unmitigated disaster. As things currently stand, there is no vaccine and there are widespread problems with the lack of tests. So much remains unknown about this disease that projecting two or three months down the road amounts to guesswork and not much else.
Everyone wants to see baseball back in action. If nothing else, the latest proposal gives everyone associated with the game something to fantasize about again. That’s positive enough on its own, but believing all this will come together in 2020 requires a giant leap of faith.
Baseball will be back at some point but, until there is a vaccine, or at least widespread testing, the sport will always be one positive diagnosis away from another crisis and yet another shutdown.