Did Sale catch COVID-19?
Knows what it is like playing in an empty stadium
Injured Red Sox lefthander Chris Sale is not unlike so many around the world right now, looking back on the flu-like symptoms he had not so long ago and asking himself: Might I have had COVID-19?
Sale has more reason to wonder than most. Don’t forget, before the condition of his elbow again overshadowed all news about him, he began spring training workouts late because he suffered from what the Red Sox termed a mild case of pneumonia.
“Honestly, yes, no doubt,” Sale said when I asked on a conference call with reporters Tuesday whether he has wondered about it.
As medical experts throughout the world work to refine antibody tests for COVID-19, which would be particularly helpful for medical professionals working with patients who have contracted the virus, Sale at some point would make for an interesting candidate for one.
“I actually want to see. … It’s crazy to look at my symptoms and think about the symptoms of people that have the COVID-19 virus and some of the similarities,” Sale said. “We may never know, but I’m definitely hoping not.”
By that, he meant his hope is that he did not infect anyone.
“As contagious as this virus is, I think that if I’ve had it, somebody in my family and a lot of people at the park would have been infected by it,” Sale said. “I don’t want to make light of it and joke about having something like that, but it definitely crossed my mind. And I asked some people about it. I got tested for the flu and it came back negative. Obviously,
the tests for the virus weren’t out yet. If there is a way to find out, I would love to find out, but I don’t know, I think it might be a stretch.”
As baseball players and owners try to think of ways to get back to work, the sport has in Sale a smart guy who did a nice job of highlighting what games and seasons do for the psyche of those who watch.
“Sports by no means is on as important a level as what’s going on right now,” Sale said. “We’re in a pandemic. This is a worldwide pandemic, 12,000 to 13,000 people have died (in the United States). That’s almost half the capacity of Fenway Park. That’s wild, but I think people have an outlet with sports. That’s a way for them to escape reality sometimes. They kind of decompress.”
He elaborated.
“I think in a way some people enjoy getting away from things that are bothering them, through watching sports, not just baseball, but everything,” Sale said. “The sooner we can get back on the field and bring a little bit of levity for what’s going on for people around the world, obviously in a safe way, you know, we’ve got to dot all the I’s and cross all the T’s, make sure we don’t step on any boundaries and cross any lines. There is a right way to do this, and we definitely need to figure that out, but the sooner we get back out there across all major sports, the better off we’re going to be.”
Unconventional methods of bringing baseball back have been discussed in the media, including playing games in empty ballparks.
Sale knows what it’s like to see a baseball game in an empty stadium. He was with the White Sox, who lost to the Orioles, 8-2, at Baltimore’s Camden Yards on April 29, 2015, in what has come to be known as the Freddie Gray Game. Gray, 25, was arrested for alleged possession of a knife and while being transported in a police van suffered fatal injuries to his spinal cord. An African American living in a community that had a stormy history with the Baltimore Police Department, Gray died on April 19, seven days after being arrested. On April 27, rioting in downtown Baltimore resulted in the governor of Maryland declaring a state of emergency. The first two games of a three-game series were postponed as White Sox players remained in their hotels. The third game was played in an empty stadium. Sale didn’t pitch, but he was there.
“That was actually a really weird experience, not only that, but we had like three or four days off in a row,” Sale said of the game played without a crowd. “It was definitely different. The game was way faster, I can tell you that, but it was different. It was a weird feeling having nobody in the stands, but hey, sometimes you’ve got to adapt for the greater good of what’s going on around you and that’s the situation we were in. Is it ideal? I would say no.”
One dramatic scenario that seems like a bit of a suspension of reality that has been proposed has the season resuming in mid-May and the entire remaining four-and-a-half-month schedule being played in Arizona in empty stadiums. The players essentially would be shut off from the world, including their families.
“I think it’s going to be tough. I don’t know if I could look at my kids just through a screen for four or five months,” Sale said. “Same thing goes with my wife, not being able to be around. That’s a long time.”
He stopped short of ruling it out though.
“I think there’s a lot of figuring out to do,” Sale said. “I think there’s a right way to do it, and I’m confident Major League Baseball, the Players Association, all the owners, all the teams, players, I think that we’re going to be able to come together and iron all this stuff out and figure out a way that’s safe and a way that’s going to please the masses. Whatever that is, I don’t know. I’m glad I’m not the one who has to figure all that out.”
Then Sale uttered a sentence that just as easily could have applied to the 2020 MLB season: “I’m as interested as anybody to see how this all shakes out.”