No spitting image
Deadline nearing for MLB and players on starting 2020 season Getting players to keep saliva in their mouths could be a challenge
An early June deadline for baseball owners and players to agree on how to squeeze in a season is closing in.
Yet with a little more than two weeks left, the sides have vast swaths of territory on two key issues to cover before they can even get close to an agreement, according to industry sources.
The issues can be boiled down to two things: What will baseball look like in order for it to be played safely during the COVID-19 pandemic? And how much will players get paid for games in a shortened season in front of no fans?
The first question is being hashed out. The second has not even been posed.
As of Wednesday afternoon, Major League Baseball was waiting on the players union to respond to the 67-page, 2020 Operations Manual draft the owners presented last week. The document lays out the medical, health and safety protocols owners are asking players and support staff to follow for games to resume.
Details include extensive testing, social distancing at ballparks, quarantining away from ballparks, and rules about wearing masks, showering (discouraged at the ballpark) and spitting (prohibited at the ballpark). There is a great deal more, and the union is still registering feedback and answering questions from players, who held a video conference Monday to discuss the document.
MLB relied on its medical, health and safety experts to produce the report.
The union has hired its own virologists, epidemiologists, infectious disease specialists and health policy experts. The union is poring over the document, weighing input from consultants and players. Once concerns are addressed and signed off on, answers will be sought on questions regarding players or family members with underlying health concerns and those players' opt-out rights.
No fans? The players will figure it out. A shortened 82-game schedule? The players can adapt to that.
No throwing the ball around the horn between outs? That could be tough to get used to, but players will deal with it.
But the hardest thing for players to adjust to under Major League Baseball's proposed health and safety rules to start the 2020 season after a two-month shutdown due to the coronavirus pandemic will perhaps be the most important to keeping them safe from the infectious disease, former Yankees first baseman Tino Martinez said.
How will baseball players stop spitting during games, Martinez wondered.
“What people don't realize is when you're on the field daily, your mouth gets really dry from the clay and stuff and you always have a sandy-type taste in your month and want to spit it out,” he said Monday on “The Michael Kay Show” on ESPN radio in New York. “You don't want to swallow it. That's why guys spit so much.
“It's not so much that it's a phlegm or something like that. It's dirt in your mouth that you want to get rid of, so that's going to be a little tough to swallow. I don't know how they're going to handle that.”