In an interview this morning, Major League Baseball commissioner Rob Manfred discussed the enormously complex question of how and when the league can resume play. As Ryan Gaydos of FOX Business reports, the top baseball official expressed a strong commitment to the primacy of public health considerations.
In many ways, the interview represents an acknowledgement of undeniable facts. But it’s good to hear the commissioner address this worrisome situation in a realistic and reasonable manner.
Manfred emphasized that MLB has made only one real decision to this point: “that baseball is not going to return until the public health situation is improved to the point that we’re comfortable that we can play games in a manner that is safe for our players, our employees, our fans and in a way that will not impact the public health situation adversely.”
That last point is a key one. Even if it’s possible to stage games in a manner that isn’t a threat to participants, that might require a major allocation of resources (private and public) to accomplish. There are obviously higher needs that must first be met.
As we’ve discussed at length in recent weeks, any resumption of play is sure to require complicated logistics and come with the threat of interruption. Ensuring that the above-noted conditions are met before attempting a season will surely reduce the risk for negative outcomes.
It’s also undeniably important to do as much legwork as possible now to prepare for a potential return to action. Unfortunately, as Manfred says, “it’s largely a waiting game.” But the league has “engaged in contingency planning” and “thought about how we might be able to return in various scenarios.”
[RELATED: Watch our recent video on why MLB is right to keep working on plans for a 2020 season.]
Ultimately, getting back to action will require creativity, flexibility, and preparation. It’ll also involve waiting to see what is achievable as a fast-moving, highly uncertain situation unfolds before all our eyes.
Accordingly, per Manfred, the league doesn’t “have a plan” so much as “lots of ideas.” He went on:
What ideas come to fruition will depend on what the restrictions are, what the public health situation is. But we are intent on the idea of trying to make baseball part of the recovery – the economic recovery – and sort of a milestone on the return of normalcy.
Innumerable considerations will ultimately shape the outcome. Ken Rosenthal and Evan Drellich of The Athletic discussed the behind-the-scenes activity today (subscription link), including the many logistical factors at play. Jeff Passan of ESPN.com (audio link via Twitter) suggests that the primary importance of TV-viewing (at least initially) could drive the league to innovate in that area.
Even thinking of reopening (like every other business) is a monstrous idea…as long as it’s baseball.
Meanwhile, the NFL, WWE and UFC have gone out of their way to ignore and minimize this stuff, and no one calls them out.
Please don’t return sooner than you should just for a return to normalcy. I miss baseball, wish it was here, but it can wait, there is way too many things that are a lot more important right now.
Opening up businesses is #1
Safety and Health is #1. Unless your business is a funeral home. Not sure how you can talk about opening up business when the daily numbers are increasing, not decreasing.
Actually to be fair your statement isn’t correct. The daily new cases have actually decreased the last 4 days. From 35,000 per day down to 25,300 yesterday. This is per Johns Hopkins. If it continues to trend down (which we all hope of course) the US may be past it’s peak.
Past it’s peak now, in a month, whenever, none of that changes how easily this virus spreads.
This is true but could also be a shortage of tests.
The cases/deaths are diminishing and epidemiologists are predicting that to continue until cases/deaths become negligible by early June. The cases/deaths we have seen and the flattening of the curve have come from drastic measures taken to greatly reduce exposure to the virus. Hundreds of millions of people have not been exposed. By the probabilities, hundreds of thousands of cases/deaths have been averted.
The question is what will happen if activity returns to normal and we have 100% exposure? Would the pandemic recur and require a resumption of self-isolation? I don’t know. I haven’t heard a word about that from virologists, infectious disease specialists, epidemiologists or public health officials. Have you?
I think the US is actually being smart here. Other countries are starting to loosen restrictions like China and Spain. We need to learn to see how the virus spreads (hopefully it doesn’t) with those countries.
Exactly.
Get those serfs back to plowing the fields.
Can always find new serfs to bury the old ones.
Embalming being as dangerous as it is for infected cadavers, the business to go for is the incinerator business. I will know the world has changed when I start seeing advertising selling features/benefits of someone’s incinerator business.
When people stop listening to the idiot media, things will start returning to normal. The media is not helping.
Amen
20/40: so where do you get your information if not from “the media?” Out of thin air? Yes, one has to be discerning and choose media sources that are honest and provide facts. And yes, some think that is “news-source A” while others think that is “news-source B.” Unless you’re an investigative journalist with sources all over the country, how do you know what’s happening in the world without “the media?”
The idea has to be explored.
bingo. the MLB is getting the most flak for no good reason. they have the unfortunate situation of, unlike most other leagues, their season was supposed to begin during all of this. there is no reason to blame them for more wanting to get things underway.
What annoys the crap out of me is that no one is saying anything to the NBA. The NBA season ended in the middle of June last year. All I hear is different ways for the NBA to continue to end it’s season. Like seriously? Your season would usually be ending and things might not even be lifted by then and you think you’re still going to play? By the time you get done, it’ll be time to start the next season. Just cancel the rest of the season and go away.
Fair point, there has been a lot of criticism for baseball while NBA is working on a plan to return
Briffle, you neglected to mention the NHL. Should they just forget their season?
Hardly anyone is talking about the NHL and throwing weekly plans to keep it going or doing all this other lame stuff (horse) to get ratings.
NBA and NHL will almost certainly get cancelled. Can’t have this season lead right into next season. NFL training camps might get pushed back too.
Meh the NFL has months to wait to make a call and really the MLB logistically is probably 10 times harder to map out than UFC just based on the amount of people they’d have to test almost daily
Biden doesn’t even know what year it is.
That’s ridiculous. He knows it’s 2043.
To be fair, in the case of the NFL, they don’t have anything going on right now that requires the same level of face to face contact that a baseball game does. I have no doubt that if there were games scheduled for this time, they’d have been cancelled.
That said, I’m thrilled the nfl is still doing free agency, trades, and a modified draft. It gives some semblance of “normal” and help get through some of this.
I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again. By mid May I think people will be presently surprised to see the cases dropping by the day (now that doesn’t mean go out all at once and make the virus spread again), but by June 1 I expect to see at least spring training games going on in Arizona.
The cases are already dropping. Yesterday was the lowest new cases this month.
Yes and if this virus can hide for two weeks without showing any symptoms, if we have a two weeks stretch with very low new cases we should be at the tail end of it. I like what I’m hearing right now.
People can go out now………they are literally freaking out because the media is telling them to. The flu has killed 140k people this year and coronavirus has killed 126k and we are freaking out because????????
Thanks to social distancing and shelter in place, deaths are already dropping pretty much by the day and will continue to do so until around August 1, at least according to the latest epidemiological projections. We are still running above the daily rate of deaths from cancer, though, running at #2 behind heart disease for greatest cause of daily deaths. We had been at #1, ahead of heart disease, for about a week, up until three days ago.
By about June 7 the death rate is projected to be negligible, though we will have lost upwards of 60K lives, even with drastic measures. The question is not whether the death rate will subside, it is whether public health officials feel it is safe to resume normal activity without inviting a recurring outbreak. I haven’t heard a word on that yet.
Well you’re not paying attention then. Even Cuomo today finally admitted that this can’t go on forever and people need to get back to work (he probably sees that taxes in NY are going to have to go even higher to make basic payroll). We’re starting to see protests in MI and a few other places as well.
The fact remains simple. Half of people under 45 are now unemployed. If we continue on this path an entire generation may be lost economically. While there is probably no best route to take in dealing with such an issue and each state and city is experiencing this virus in different ways, I still think the more prudent path to follow was for high risk individuals (such as myself) to follow current procedures while the healthy TRY to live some form of a normal life.
Obviously you know better than the public health experts how to curb a pandemic. Seems to me they have done very well to flatten the curve. The question is how to resume normal activity in a way that does not undue all the hard work to this point. Fact is the levels we have experienced have been due to low exposure. What would happen if we introduced high exposure now? You’re the expert. Tell us oh wise one.
Ny state deaths are not dropping, they’re staying the same
NY State cases per day are slowing but unfortunately deaths are not. Deaths are a lagging indicator of cases. The people in NY passing away now are the people who went into the hospitals 7-14 days ago when NY was going through it’s major peak.
It’s about the new cases. Since deaths are based on new cases of two and three weeks back, they are not the figure you should be looking at to determine if things are getting better.
It’s this slowing of NY cases that is, IMO, a false indicator for the rest of the country.
We have disease experts giving projections for other states saying the virus there won’t peak until June… but the media tells the lemmings overall cases are declining so the lemmings somehow think this is slowing down or nearing it’s end.
It. Is. Not.
When one state accounts for over 50% of new cases in a day starts to see declines, then, overall numbers obviously will drop. That means nothing for the other 49 jurisdictions.
Likewise, just because NY sees a drop off doesn’t mean it should be exempt from what they other 49 states have been doing.
49 states took preventative measures while one state blew up, even though they didn’t yet have real risk coming their way. That one state should be expected to hold the line while the remaining 49 go through their paces so it doesn’t become a breeding ground for new cases -just like some of those other 49 had to.
Sorry NY, you should do a little austerity with your massive public works programs and keep things restricted for the sake of the rest of the country, it’s what everyone else has been up to this whole time.
Until there is a vaccine there will be a spike in cases when things slowly start to open back up. That’s inevitable. However, you can’t keep the economy shut down for 12-18 months without sending the US into a depression that might be the worst any of us have seen in our lifetimes. That is what the state and federal governments need to figure out. The balance between opening the economy slowly to keep the spread as low as possible
Well said
Just play the games. Life is boring
I’m gonna guess that death is more boring…
Baseball or no baseball it will not make a difference. The virus will take lives. Just will need to social distance fan and be smart.
It’s here – we need to live our lives.
This has to open up with no fans.
This is going to be a problem until we have a proven treatment and/or a vaccine. That’s months away, not weeks.
Some experts suggest no concerts or sporting events open to the public until September 2021
I think a vaccine will be fast tracked. I think treatments will be found. I think it will be months, but if this drags on until next year, then this is only the beginning.
Which experts?. I haven’t seen anyone so that.
jbrown.. was that to me. You haven’t heard anything about fast tracked vaccines and fast track treatments?
You need to stop getting your news from where you are getting your news.
It took 5 years to develop a vaccine for Ebola, which is literally over 100 times as deadly and more contagious. If we’re waiting for a vaccine we’ll all kill each other fighting off starvation first.
Manfred has yet to realize the game is not relevant anymore. They have killed the sport with 3:30 games. The umpires are involved in ways they shouldn’t be. The hitters who step out every pitch, it has become ridiculous. It used to such an enjoyable game. Now it isn’t watchable on TV and is getting worse at the stadium. Young adults if they are interested are few and far between. You look back and ask what happened? Besides Manfred who doesn’t have a clue.
Then stop watching and go somewhere else.
Yep It Is did bring up some valid points. Not going to hate on him for that.
completely false overgeneralization
When you consider historical data on pace of play, overall viewership and the average age of baseball fans, it’s not completely false.
I will reserve my opinion but offer a take from a different perspective. I think we can all agree it’s quite sad people are dying and the safety of people trumps baseball. Yet, some of the comments in this thread continue to promote the sensationalism of the media. No, that’s not some conspiracy theory but when you have 24 hour news stations that need to fill time and when you get paid based on the number of eyeballs—well you get it, never let the facts get in the way of a good story.
The truth is no one knows with absolute certainty the mortality rate of the virus.
Yet, we do know it’s not 40% a number referenced in this thread. Bottom line tests aren’t available to a single one of us. We have no idea how many people have it. Yet, we do know 80% of cases are mild. In other words, majority of the people getting tested are the sickest and many test have been done post mordem.
Sometimes it helps to create an analogy which offers perspective but not related to Corona.
Let’s say you’re the CEO of a company and you have a meeting with your customer support team. You ask your 10 employees how many customers call in with compliments. They all say 7-8 are compliant oriented.
Would it be accurate for the CEO to state roughly 75% of their customers are dissatisfied?
Fair points.
“If it bleeds it leads”
It’s not 40 percent, but I bet it’s above one percent. And since it is so contagious, without prevention, virtually every person in America would get this flu.
The death rate of the Spanish flu was about 1%. That combined with a high contagion rate led to 50 million dead.
This flu is incredibly contagious, incredibly likely to put you in the hospital and incredibly deadly. It’s a bad combination.
Not to argue, yet it’s very difficult to state contagion levels without sufficient testing.
I’ve heard some universities about to conduct studies to solve for this problem. And that is, taking 1,000 plus individuals at random and look for a positive or antibodies. Until this is done, I’ll hold back on it’s severity.
Antibodies test is going to be key to this whole thing, it will give much more clarity of this situation and where we are actually at in this situation.
Just pay them off like Vince McMahon and the WWE
Some fans may be a bit weary of returning to watch games in staduims. ….So what would be some great promo ideas from MLB to get fans back in the seats?
I see middle aged men jogging past my house in the middle of the day. That’s as action filled as a typical baseball game. I don’t need any more entertainment.
There’s an armed escaped convict in my town. Am I going to go out for a run? I’ll wait.
A black bear has been spotted in my neighborhood. Should I walk my dog?
There’s a huge sale on canned beans at Shop Rite. Should I buy more toilet paper?
If you can find it, yes! 😉
Considering the crap you spew I’d buy as much toilet paper as you can.
It’s so hard to decide what to do in today’s world. At least there’s baseball.
I am glad to hear Manfred’s comments. But honestly, opening up the economy (and sports are really part of the entertainment economy) does not come without risk. Mitigating and minimizing that risk is important. The hard part will be knowing when the risk becomes low enough to be an acceptable risk.
Many of the contingency plans are based on assuming an acceptable risk. Can return much quicker with an AZ or AZ/FLA plan without fans because it is easier to control the situation and create an acceptable risk situation. But you still have to get to a point where the death and case rates are declining, And we just are not there yet.
So assuming they are only opening cases for the sick and struggling. 200,000+ cases opened in about a week. So far of reported closed cases 40% have ended in death. My only point was it is not the time to be opening up business again. I keep hearing about the flattening of the curve but no mention of the expected 2nd and 3rd waive that the rest of the world is expecting.
Go live in a bubble then. The social conditioning going on right now is the real pandemic. The media blew this way out of proportion. The coronavirus is not an automatic death sentence like most people are creating it to be.
“The media blew this way out of proportion.”
No, they didn’t. We’re going to have 60,000-100,000 dead, and that’s even with all of the shutdowns and social distancing. That’s a lot of people.
If you hate the media’s coverage, then just stop watching. It’s 2020. You can get sterile, no-nonsense facts from any number of sources on the internet without resorting to the media that you seem to hate. Turn off CNN, FOX, MSNBC, the President’s press conferences, and all the other talking heads and look at actual experts and raw facts. It’s not hard to find.
RCT you’re dumb as hell lol. If you’re worried about 60-100k deaths I feel sorry for you. There’s 382 million people in this country if 100k died that’s not really serious.
3,000 or so died on 9/11. We took that pretty seriously.
“100,000 dead Americans is no biggie!” – The same people who spent years talking about 4 being killed in Libya.
Wild.
Just to remind you 80,000 dead in just this country alone is in line with a flu season.
So it’s pretty much cancelled.
The numbers STILL haven’t climbed to the flu death toll. In the end is is going to be fatal for sone thing like .000007 (that is zero point seven millionths) of the work population. We can be cowards in our caves or we can grab our civil liberties and get on with life. If you are scared, stay home. The rest of us have lives snd jobs. You have no life cowering in your cave.
Good luck getting a ventilator or an icu bed on your way home from work. Oh…and pick up milk and bread if you get discharged.
Brassred preach bro. Preach.
“I have the right to hurt myself and others because I’m an American!” -basically what you just said
I didn’t see any mention of prohibiting spitting on the field. I think that is a lead pipe cinch to happen and this will kill off the use of chewing tobacco.
Chew was outlawed a few years back. Saliva spitting, crotch grabs and face touching are alive and well though.
I think the writing on the wall is that if any sports leagues in the US want to have any type of commencement of play or continuance that fans aren’t going to be a part of that. Be ready for empty stadiums even for the
I’m hearing that some restrictions will be lifted by the middle of May. Not going to tell you how I heard this but let’s just say the person I heard it from is briefed daily on COVID-19. Ultimately though this is a state by state decision. So if the plan to go on with ST and start the regular season in Arizona, it’ll be up the governor’s in each state that has an MLB team to decide when restrictions can be lifted.
What of the players that went home – where home is not in the US? Ontario just extended their lockdown to May 28th so no Blue Jays living in Toronto can leave the province until at least May 29th; IF the lockdown is lifted. And then what of the US customs not allowing non-essential workers in – will that also be lifted by May 29th? I am sure a lot of the players left the US to go home to be with their families during the corona virus early onset. What are the rules to exit those countries and will the US allow them in? More things to think about than just “Let’s Play Ball”.
Between the actual health risk and the PR risk, people are missing another huge elephant in the room…the legal risk.
What is MLB’s liability if a bunch of players, team employees or stadium workers and their families are infected?
What is their further PR risk should that happen?
Both seem substantial.
Folks, this country alone has well over 500,000 KNOWN positive Covid-19 cases, yet only 1 % of the population has been tested. Let that sink in.