Fans skeptical of baseball’s safe return
Possibility that teams will travel to Toronto sparks virus concerns
As Mark Shapiro announced the return of professional baseball to Toronto, at least for summer training camp, on Thursday afternoon, the Blue Jays president and CEO hoped the upside of bringing the game back amid the coronavirus pandemic would offer a lift, a distraction and some enjoyment for fans.
But it’s consternation that even diehard Jays fans are feeling as they contemplate Toronto’s return to Rogers Centre for a three-week training camp, as well as the possibility that the Canadian government may approve the city as a home base for Major League Baseball’s shortened 60-game regular season. That would mean the Jays and visiting teams regularly crossing the border between Canada and the United States, which set a record on Thursday with 54,879 new cases in a single day, to play.
In an open letter to Shapiro posted on Twitter on Thursday night, Jays fan Jordan Glicksman, a Toronto native who currently practises medicine in Boston and Newton, Mass., and lectures at Harvard Medical School, said as much as he would love to see baseball being played, he is “absolutely baffled that a season is being planned, let alone contemplated.” Glicksman called on Shapiro to advocate for the cancellation of cross border travel for sport and for the cancellation of the MLB season as a whole in order to help save lives. Glicksman believes the amount of travel in the proposed season is too extensive.
“The notion that international travel will now be involved is reprehensible,” Glicksman wrote. “It is reprehensible that Toronto and Canada may be seeded with (Covid-19) as a result of travel from hot sports in order to facilitate an MLB season. Whether the city, province, an country assign the sport essential status or another public health exemption or not does not make it right. We have seen elected officials on both sides of the border make poor public health decisions that have perpetuated the spread of this disease.”
He is not the only Jays fan with concerns. As Opening Day nears, more and more fans, particularly Canadians, are expressing their unease on social media and to each other.
“Baseball should not be played right now,” said Lesley Mak, who calls the WestJet Flight Deck in the Rogers Centre outfield a second home during a regular baseball season. “If the States were in the same space as Canada right now, where Ontario is the worst … we could see that being possibly possible but right now it’s so bad in many of the States, it’s so dangerous right now that it’s really, really scary.”
When Emily Martin shares her last name she says, “Martin, like Russell,” as in the former Jays catcher. As badly as she would miss baseball if the league couldn’t make it work, the health of everyone involved is not something she’s comfortable gambling with.
“Even if we have the most optimistic point of view that every single Blue Jays player, coach, staff has the best interest of Toronto at heart and they are not going to do anything to put anyone in danger … I’m really not sure I’m comfortable extending that to however many teams are going to end up coming up here, especially with two of those teams coming from Florida, especially with nobody being in quarantine before they get here,” Martin said.
“All it takes is for one guy to get bored and stir crazy and leave the hotel and then the whole thing is shot.”
The Jays are expected to arrive in Toronto on a private charter from their spring training complex in Dunedin, Fla., over the weekend. Players and staff will undergo an intake screening, including multiple COVID-19 tests, which must come back negative in order to board the flight. Once in Toronto, the Jays cohort will not be allowed to the Rogers Centre and the adjoined Toronto Marriott City Centre Hotel, one of many health and safety protocols the club has put in place.
Brendan Panikkar, co-host of the Jay Bird Watching podcast, is not so worried about training camp compared to the regular season but he, Mak and Martin all wonder how players and staff will be held accountable for staying inside. Shapiro said on Thursday there will be consequences for anyone who breaks quarantine. Panikkar and Martin wonder if there will be police or security guards at entrances to the stadium, while Mak hopes each team appoints “accountability ambassadors” with the organizations to constantly remind players and staff to stay inside.
“I’m not sure I trust every single player that are on these visiting teams,” Panikkar said. “You hear it all the time. You heard it when Josh Donaldson was a visitor with Oakland, and other players, that they love coming to Toronto because it’s a city where there’s people out all the time, there’s a lot to do and patios are open here now. I don’t trust the individual players, old or young, to police themselves enough to just stay in the hotel and not go out in a beautiful city like Toronto.”
All three worry that because baseball players are generally young and healthy they may feel invincible in the face of Covid-19. They are all quick to point out that while the virus affects fewer people in their 20s and 30s, those age groups are not immune. They hope any outbreak would lead to MLB immediately shutting down play.
“I’m just sort of wondering which athlete is going to get very, very sick and when that happens … how will the league react? Will the league actually shut down?,” Mak said.
Still, the idea of banishing their favourite team to Florida for the regular season, the team’s back up plan, does not sit well with fans, either. The Sunshine State is seeing a surge of coronavirus cases at the moment, setting a daily record on Thursday with10,109 new cases. Mak, Martin and Panikkar would all feel more comfortable if Toronto was able to play in Buffalo, New York, home to their Triple-A team, but the stadium, Sahlen Field, is reportedly not up to major league standards.
“I think the government’s priorities should be the greater good here and so they should be saying no,” Mak said. “From my perspective, I think if I’m going to cheer for them it’s hard for me to say, ‘Absolutely no way.’ But I also don’t really want them here.”
It’s that conflict that is causing internal turmoil for staunch Jays fans. Mak, Martin and Panikkar all still plan to watch Jays games, no matter where the team calls home. Mak said she’ll be happy to be watching baseball again, but “petrified” any time two people get close. Martin said the more she thinks about it, the more things she realizes could go wrong. Panikkar calls himself “pretty torn” particularly because he knows players and staff are putting themselves at risk.
“I love baseball and I want to watch it but it doesn’t feel morally right to be happy that it’s on,” Panikkar said.
Shapiro said on Thursday he expects more clarity on where Toronto will play it regular season home games in the next seven to 10 days. Panikkar is skeptical baseball is general will even make it’s opening day, with many hurdles still to clear.
“I’ll believe it when I see it.”