Baseball’s plan not done deal

Playing solely in Arizona has flaws

Acknowledging there are significantly larger fish to fry — like combatting a global COVID-19 pandemic — let’s start with a simple scenario.

Seventh inning. Tight game. Mound visit required. Happens all the time. Probably too much. But what if Major League Baseball presses forward with this quirky and potentially quixotic plan of potentially moving inside an Arizona-based bubble?

Here, as baseball looks to salvage its season amid the COVID-19 outbreak, mound visits by the catcher or pitching coach would be disallowed.

Struggling with your command? Perhaps there’s an iPhone next to the rosin bag, and it dings with

instruction from the dugout. There’s also Google. Or maybe Pirates pitching coach Oscar Marin can scribble handwritten notes like Annie Savoy in “Bull Durham.”

It’s an interesting thing to ponder because it’s one of the more innocuous details included in this apparent plan, which ESPN’s Jeff Passan first reported late Monday night, one that could have baseball back by mid-May and apparently has the support of high-ranking health officials.

Let’s first acknowledge why we’re even talking about this: Baseball is America’s Pastime, marking time as the country’s steady heartbeat during times of trouble. It’s also a $10.7 billion industry.

No word on which is winning the fight here.

It’s also not the dumbest idea ever, if we’re being honest.

The logistics of playing a regular baseball schedule are incredibly daunting, primarily because of the travel. This scraps that. It would confine the entire league to 10 springtraining sites, Chase Field (home of the Arizona Diamondbacks) and perhaps a few other ballparks. All could be regularly sanitized and controlled, perhaps with the help of the Pirates, who were ahead of the curve when it came to deep-cleaning and sanitizing their spring training facility.

And to get really nuts, let’s say this works.

At that point, your biggest concern becomes the sizzling Phoenix-area heat, especially as MLB rolls out a compressed schedule that could include twice-a-week doubleheaders. You’d have to significantly expand rosters, not only to account for fatigue and/or fresh arms, but what if someone shows symptoms of COVID-19?

While the ability to monitor, disinfect and limit passage through these designated facilities would be a major selling point, it also might provide the biggest downside to the entire plan.

Those participating in the bubble, which you’d have to think means players, coaches, team personnel and media, would basically be restricted to living/eating quarters and the ballpark, nothing more. It’s also sound reasoning that each team would look to keep the entirety of this group under 50 people per team.

If MLB and the MLB Players Association agree and this plan comes to fruition — still a long shot — everyone involved would have to leave their families for four months or more.

What if you have an elderly and/or sick parent?

What if your wife is pregnant?

Sense of duty might be a valid reason for soldiers during a war, but we’re talking about baseball here. Not everyone signed up to live apart from loved ones during uncertain, scary times. This plan will not receive total support among players.

Secondarily, what if something happens? Like all great ideas, it looks fine on paper: Players getting paid for their work, TV ratings sure to soar with American thirsting for live sports, the fact that baseball — baseball! — is leading our nation’s return-to-play efforts … it’s so darn patriotic that someone should plan a (virtual) parade.

But remember that even the most dramatic march off a cliff still ends with a thud.

If baseball fails, there’s no way that doesn’t make the NFL think twice about starting its season on time. Furthermore, is needing a sport to play right now proper justification for potentially further stressing hospitals, especially when Arizona’s COVID-19 boom isn’t expected until

May?

Being part of the baseball bubble would tamp down some risk — players would sit 6 feet apart in the stands, and an electronic strike zone would replace umpires hunched over catchers — but it wouldn’t completely eliminate it.

There are still a large number of men around baseball who aren’t young, and being inside that bubble doesn’t make them any less susceptible to COVID-19; figure that in 2020, eight of MLB’s 30 managers will be at least 60 years old, led by Houston’s Dusty Baker (70).

There’s also the idea of testing. To pull off a plan like this, baseball would need repeated and rigorous COVID-19 testing, something many would agree is not yet prevalent enough in our society.

Does baseball get special treatment because it’s a billion-dollar business?

Should it because it might affect our national psyche?

It’s an interesting debate and one that will make for good quarantine conversation, but what baseball is broaching here is bigger, the sort of thing that’s not yet ready for a fine-tooth logistical comb.

Baseball is selling to its players an actual salary in 2020 as opposed to their $170 million group advance and nothing more. Baseball is selling to its owners a way to snatch needed national attention and probably some serious advertising dollars.

Meanwhile, the American public gets hope, something to rally around and a way to divert our attention.

But the biggest sales pitch has to be to public health officials, those in charge of steering us out of this mess. That part must be done with prudence, discretion and common sense, and there’s certainly no app for any of that.