MLB probes if team’s behavior led to outbreak
With 19 Miami Marlins having tested positive for COVID-19 in the past week, MLB is seeking answers to the cause of the team’s outbreak and is also enhancing its safety protocols for the league to follow.
With 19 Miami Marlins — including 17 players — having tested positive for COVID-19 in the past week, Major League Baseball has launched an investigation into the team’s on-field and off-field behavior in an attempt to determine how the Marlins’ outbreak happened and try to limit the likelihood of a similar outbreak in the future.
MLB also has updated its COVID-19 safety measures in the wake of the Marlins’ issues.
Among the updates to the protocol, as first reported Wednesday night by ESPN: requiring the use of surgical masks instead of cloth masks while traveling, having teams travel with a compliance officer who ensures team members follow the league’s protocol and encouraging players not to leave hotels in road cities except for games.
Another Marlins player returned a positive COVID-19
test result, a source confirmed Thursday. That brings the total to 19 members of the team’s nearly 60-person traveling party who have tested positive since Friday. One of the two coaches who has tested positive, however, has since received a negative test result.
Meanwhile, a Philadelphia Phillies coach and home clubhouse staffer tested positive for COVID-19, the team announced Thursday. The Phillies coach marks MLB’s first known positive test among on-field personnel (coaches and players) outside the Marlins organization since Friday. The Phillies canceled workouts at Citizens Bank Park scheduled for Thursday in light of the new positive tests and said in a release the ballpark is closed until further notice. The Phillies’ series against the Toronto Blue Jays in Philadelphia scheduled for this weekend
team — should be profoundly embarrassed if the cause is proved to be selfinflicted. If a few players’ rule-breaking selfishness caused this outbreak, the Marlins would owe their fans an apology.
Last season’s 57-105 record was bad. This outbreak, no matter its root, is every-way worse.
After winning two of three to open the 60-game season in Philadelphia, the Marlins have had the next seven games postponed by the outbreak, with the still-scheduled restart on Tuesday at Marlins Park far from certain.
Because of the Marlins, MLB and commissioner Rob Manfred have now mandated all teams have a “COVID-19 compliance officer.” Is that someone to remind, “Masks on!” or “Six feet apart!” to grown men careless enough to need a reminder?
Where will the compliance officer be when two or three players are leaving their hotel on a road trip and sneaking to a club at 11 at night?
This is to broadbrush stigmatize those with COVID-19. You can do everything right and still get it, whether via bad luck or the selfishness of others. There is little doubt that most of the Marlins infected are innocent victims.
Be real, though. Some people get it by being careless or just plain ignorant, putting those around them at risk.
The Marlins mess, no matter its cause, should be a warning to every other team in every sport, one pulsing in red neon.
It should especially be a warning to the NFL and college football: The potential for problems is magnified by travel, by flying and airports and hotels and other stadiums.
The trouble is, too many Americans at large, with sports teams a microcosm, have not been very good at heeding warnings or learning lessons regarding the coronavirus.
That is why the United States is last in the global league at handling this. Why cases and deaths are still rising. Why the NBA and NHL are ensconced in a bubble, and stadiums and arenas are empty and even the NFL and college football seasons may be in jeopardy.
What happened to the Marlins, sadly, reflects what we see all around us.
You can’t go a day without new examples of why, nationally, we are struggling to get past this plague.
Like this headline Thursday on ESPN.com: “Report: Rutgers football outbreak linked to party.”
On Wednesday, Donald Trump attended a crowded Texas fundraiser with no social distancing enforced. The president wore no mask. (It was the day U.S. coronavirus deaths topped 150,000).
That reminds me: Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-Texas), staunchly anti-mask, tested positive and now says he will treat it with hydroxychloroquine despite FDA warnings about the drug.
Newsweek headline: “Florida prepares to reopen schools as COVIID-19 child hospitalizations jump 23 percent.”
You heard about those college COVID-19 parties in Alabama, right? Where known carriers were invited?
And the sold-out music concert in New York with no social distancing that Gov. Mario Cuomo called “appalling.”
Then there’s the viral video of the man enraged to be filmed refusing to wear mask in a Fort Myers Costco.
And meet Lou Williams, the Los Angeles Clippers basketball player. He got permission to leave his team’s Orlando bubble to (ostensibly) attend a funeral. He wound up in a strip club. He is now in a 10-day quarantine.
The instances of the breadth and depth of our national mess are everywhere, every day.
On the Marlins as in American life: The vast majority of us are being responsible, trying to do right. But a careless few can mess things up.
Whether it’s a baseball team stricken by this pandemic or a nation, if you are looking for reasons why or for a solution, look first in the mirror.