9:32pm: This policy is going into effect immediately, per Bob Nightengale of USA Today (via Twitter). No players or staff members will be allowed into spring facilities until they have had a coronavirus test come back negative.
6:09pm: Major League Baseball is “strongly considering” shuttering all thirty of its member teams’ Spring Training facilities, according to Joel Sherman of the New York Post (Twitter link).
Obviously, that’s startling news to hear when the league is supposed to be readying for Spring Training Part II to get underway. But it certainly seems sensible given the eye-opening reports that emerged today regarding the spread of coronavirus at some facilities.
Per Sherman, the idea would be to close things down, perform a deep clean, and then establish a clear and uniform protocol for accessing these sites. That seems like a wise course of action if a 2020 season is going to be possible at all — regardless of precisely how many games the league and union can agree upon scheduling.
After months of negotiating, there isn’t much wiggle room to work with in squeezing in a campaign. It’s already rather apparent that there will be rolling coronavirus hot spots even over the summer, with real concern that things could get worse in the fall.
The avoidance of major disruptions to the schedule will be as important as it will be difficult. It’s frankly surprising that greater attention wasn’t paid to that effort in the first place.
No baseball this year.
Anybody think this “second wave” has something to do with them chemtrials the flat earthers go on about?
Think I called it a few days ago, maybe Guy Fawkes will play us some music?
Yep, no baseball. Oh well, I don’t miss it at this point, there is plenty of other sports to watch.
There is a potential for other sports to watch, nothing is guaranteed at this point.
plenty of other sports that cant play?
They can do it, but the players have to live in a bubble for three months.
We can’t get people to wear masks when they go to the store. Do people believe players are going to live in a bubble for three months? I don’t.
The Union asking for 70 games is a joke.
There’s no substantive difference re: games between owner’s proposal and union’s proposal.
Not with the long-term health of the game at stake, along with a future work stoppage we know is coming. The fallout will last a long time. Gotta wonder about the on-field ramifications, too. Player development, Guys (especially pitchers) coming back after no competitive action for 19 months. For longtime fans like myself, this becomes a convenient time to stop following the game should we choose that route. MLB: a statistics through the 2019 season are final. Too many spectator sports anyway. Life is more than that.
Ab so lutely!
Ten games is two weeks. If you think two weeks is nothing, then we disagree.
Sad, they could had about 40 games in already if the had not screwed around.
Owners want the least amount of games possible, everyday this drags on is another less game the owners have to pay the players which they consider a win right now,
it’s also another day of lost revenue
Another day of lost revenue for the players. The owners are not losing more money by playing the games.
The Cost exceed the revenue coming in, not worth it to the owners until the postseason.
players don’t make revenue, only salary.
Forty games in by now? We just started slowly reopening the country and we are seeing the ramifications.
Nothing like jumping off a cliff and hoping there is water.
Yeah we wouldn’t have been 40 games in. There was never a plan to start before July.
Correct, July 4th was alway the best case which sadly not happening either.
Bye Felicia
Dead
Clemson football has 23 players test positive, which means they can now have the offensive and defensive teams together in quarantine. No i in team, but there is one in Covid.
Should’ve been done long ago. They need new leadership on both sides. Pathetic.
In some weird way I think all this will be good for Mlb moving forward. They know they need to turn over the soil and these failures will help expedite that process quicker.
This season was never going to be a hoot anyways. As we stand today Im more than willing to scrap 20′ if it means some hard reform moving forward for the sport.
bingo. some time off to work on the next CBA and try and make things better. it would be for the better to be honest.
Wow. Maybe instead of the stupid negotiations about a mythical season, they should have focused on getting this part right the first time. Cart then horse. Good job.
Man… I haven’t checked comments for about a month. Still trolling hard I see.
What now? If you’re going to be stupid, at least make sense.
Yep, and let’s be clear. These southern states were always going to get their “turn” with this virus. Those elected officials who thought their states were immune will pay a heavy price. Brace yourselves for the political finger-pointing as both parties vie for Florida’s 29 electoral votes. Ron DeSantis will be getting lots of facetime in the months ahead.
DeSantis is a goner and Florida will be turning blue come fall.
The test is a snapshot in time. You could get sick on the way out of the test and you would show up negative and still get everyone sick. Either play or don’t, testing won’t change anything
Thank you. As a variety of epidimiologists have noted, testing, unless done to very specific demographics (health care workers, at-risk because of age/underlying conditions, e.g.), has the possibility of causing more harm than good (false sense of security, wildly skewed data). At best, it’s a poor response.
You test positive so you then quarantine yourself instead of spreading it to others. You also tell others you’ve been in contact with. They get tested and quarantine. How are sick people staying away from healthy people bad?
You test negative, throw the mask away, attend large gatherings, get infected, build the viral load, infect 25 people……all because you were lured into comfort by a negative test. I suspect that happens A LOT.
Some of us are old enough to remember the AIDS crises (another behaviorally controllable disease), and the deaths that “I got tested; I’m OK” caused. No, the viruses aren’t similar, but human behavior hasn’t changed much.
I don’t think it quite works like that… if you test negative and get the virus 5 min later it hasn’t had time to replicate to the point where there’s enough of a viral load to pass it on to others. They’ll have to test frequently (probably daily) to avoid just what you said from happening (aka a player tests negative once and 3 days later are infectious with nobody knowing it) but testing can definitely slow the spread if done properly. I guess that’s a big if seeing the way they’ve handled everything else related to the virus…
With that said they should probably also test antibodies to see if players have already had exposure. We don’t know for sure that it protects you from reinfection but it can give us a sense of how many may have already had it
They may cancel the season but it won’t be because of money. This virus isn’t done with the first wave, let alone the second in the Fall.
For those who think it will kill baseball, I say it won’t. The crowds may be smaller next year but who’s to say the virus wouldn’t cause that to happen away.
Well well, looks like Zero Hedge isn’t the only one frightening the Ruling establishment.
The truth is too much to handle for this website. Can’t lose those Google ads I see.
Fine, I would not want to threaten anyone’s false beliefs.
Since the season is most likely over, now’s a great time to expand into other interests that don’t involve sports.
What will you choose?
All of the other sports that are playing right now.
Did you miss the part where I stated ‘don’t involve sports’?
Sex?
There never has been a successful coronavirus vaccine, and there won’t be one for COVID-19. It’s here. Deal with it and go on with life.
@ek, what is your profession,
If I may ask? Epidemiologist, virologist, MD, MD-PhD, MPH??????
Because Coronavirus is a large group of viruses so a vaccine against 1 still leaves you vulnerable to the others. We might have more luck aiming a vaccine at one subtype. We might never get a vaccine that’s as effective as the one for small pox for example but we could get something akin to the flu vaccine (which even though you can still get the flu with the vaccine it’s been shown to lower mortality). As the virus mutates the vaccine would have to be changed like with the flu shot.
Games without fans are pointless, come back next year after some real reform, total revenue sharing like football.
Tuning out. Ingested all the news updates and classic game reruns that I can stomach. Hats off to all of you guys at MLBTR for continuing to be creative in generating content. I’m off of baseball until it resumes, at which point I’ll resume being the consummate fan I am. I’ve just had enough of this.
“…the idea would be to close things down, perform a deep clean, and then establish a clear and uniform protocol for accessing these sites.”
Huh.
Too bad they didn’t have several months to do that before now.
Major league baseball owners—- idiots! Since March my company has been working to set protocols in place so that when we fo back into the office next week, we will have a cleaned office and go thru individual testing of employees as they come back, and then each day moving forward. Seems like MLB owners dont give a shot about anything. Sorry, but how can you be more stupid than a high school freshman. Baseball can wither on the vine.
It’s a wrap! Look at the numbers. We could have fixed this thing but nobody likes the truth.
It’s become pretty obvious that MLB can not assure the players’ safety. All it takes is one positive test, and the entire team has to shut down. And the positive doesn’t have to be a player. Could be anyone connected to the team, facility or the hotel where they stay.
Money issues aside, I think we’re about a week or ten days away from the owners cancelling the season if they haven’t already come to that conclusion.
Gonna miss baseball, for sure. But best for all to pass on 2020 and gear up for 2021.
2021, without a boatload of fans.
Why can other industries keep going with some employees testing positive and baseball shutting down without a plan for quarantining, disinfecting, separation when possible, etc. what’s the matter here? Evidence shows that among people under 40 this is NOT a death sentence. Yes it is a serious illness, but mange the circumstances and keep going. Why? Because the players can’t bear to shower alone ?
Because in the activities that professional athletes engage in, there’s a LOT of contact necessary for them to do their jobs. Baseball is likely the lowest-contact sport of what is considered the major sports and there are still plenty of times when players HAVE to make contact with one another to play the game/do their jobs. Most people in offices can perform their job without physical contact. That’s the biggest difference here.
A positive test doesn’t mean much on its own. How many are deathly ill? How many are ill at all? Apparently none, or it would have been blasted all over the airwaves by now. As the old saying goes, “you either get busy livin’or get busy dyin'”. Sounds like our country prefers the latter in 2020.
It’s become obvious to me that the owners don’t want a season. They want to inflict as much pain as possible on the players prior to next year’s CBA negotiations. That’s the end game, and the coronavirus is perfect for them to do just that.
So are the owners going to give back all the money the communities spent on building ball parks so they could have baseball in their towns?…. lets face this basic fact.. the Teams are heavily subsidized by the public to play baseball…if they don’t want to live up to that simple contract.. its time for them to fold their tents and repay the public for their investments in the game..