Last November, the Canadian government announced that professional athletes who had not been vaccinated against COVID-19 would not be permitted to enter the country to participate in games hosted there. That’s obviously of some import to Major League Baseball, which has one Canadian-based team.
Unvaccinated players won’t be able to travel to Toronto, and they obviously won’t be able to participate in any games at the Rogers Centre. They’ll apparently not be compensated for those missed contests. Duke Castiglione of WCVB reports (on Twitter) that the league and Players Association agreed in today’s CBA that players won’t receive either salary or service time for any games missed on account of vaccination status.
MLB does not have a vaccination mandate for players. It did, however, take steps to encourage vaccination last season, loosening health and safety protocols for teams with at least an 85% vaccination rate of Tier 1 personnel (a group that includes players, coaches, training staff, etc.). 24 of the league’s 30 clubs eventually hit that 85% threshold last year.
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What if an unvaxxed player is on the IL … would they get paid if their team travels to Toronto during an IL stint?
I wondered the same. I don’t think a team would put a guy on the shelf for 10 days, with the sole intention of paying him for a few games that he will miss. That’s just my guess.
I would think they would get paid. Players on IL don’t have to travel with the team and often do not. They currently get paid while on the IL as well and I think the union would object to not paying guys on the IL.
I’m just here for the comments.
I’m just here so I don’t get fined.
It won’t be that way for the whole season I don’t think. Most the world has begun normalizing life again. Rollback on vaccine law will be part of that, it’s only March. I’d be surprised come July this is still a thing, it might be it is Canada and they been strict….
Have you seen the news about Canada and the mandates? It’s is horrible!
Mandates are finally being lifted gradually through Canada. It depends on the province. I live in Saskatchewan and we were the 2nd province to lift all mandates. Our prime minister is not liked here.
Continue to vote that party and it won’t improve.
I’d never vote for them.
@tenten Such ignorance about Canada.
tents,
infowars? AONN? Newsmax?
“Nooooooooooooooooo, mandate me harder!!!”
Lol!!
Why is this still a thing? COVID is over, it’s been over for a little while now but I think it’s about time to get rid of these things, I admit they were “useful” when we were in the pandemic but they serve no purpose anymore.
Covid isn’t over, people are dying every day from it still. Nearly all of them are unvaccinated.
Then all the vaccinated are fine. People have had a year to get it, they’re aware of the risks, time to move on
Not your judgment, it is up to Canada to decide how they want to handle it
Because they have been totally and completely reasonable in their handling of it…
The Blue Jays should play outside Canada, until the mandate goes away. 29 American teams should not be made to conform to a Canadian mandate, because of one team.
Especially since a similar mandate was judged as government over-reach and thrown out by the US Supreme Court.
The reason why MLB is choosing to enforce the Canadian stance rather than embrace the SCOTUS ruling, is political. They consistently promote a left wing, over-reaching ideology that goes against the principles of a free, individualistic American republic.
And, in the face of their continued support of that ideology, each American has a responsibility to stand up for what they believe in. If you’re okay with the ideology they’re promoting, that’s fine. But if you’re not, you should take steps to stop supporting the MLB. Because good people standing by and doing nothing is what has lead to the current state of the world. If you’re going to keep prioritizing your comfort over taking a stand, it will only get worse. The world isn’t going to fix itself.
Umm no.
In what world would this ever happen? It cant be good business for the Blue Jays or MLB to do that.
And MLB isn’t choosing to enforce any stance – they’re an international business abiding by the laws they’re subject to.
@stan I am almost with you, but there are plenty of things more important to stand up for. Whether or not a person gets three days of pay when he leaves the US is not high on my list.
@fivepound
I agree that this specific issue is not particularly important. But it’s part of a pattern. They are acting in support of an ideology. And I think standing up to THAT is very important, because I view that ideology as very dangerous.
Again: if you don’t, that’s fine. I’m not asking you to view the modern Left the same way I do. But, if you do view them the same way, I’m asking you to act on it. Consistently. On small issues, and on big ones.
What you say is true. Sadly people won’t take a stand because it doesn’t affect their everyday life.
Really? I guess you haven’t been paying attention. The MLB is ultra left and have proven it on multiple occasions.
MLB took a political stance when they moved the all-star game. They should be taking a stance here.
Opposite is true
Thats untrue. Triple jabbed now have the highest death rate and it’s trending further that way each week.
my mother in law was in the ICU for 5 weeks with COVID. if she would not have chosen vaccination then she’d be DEAD. I don’t like when the government gets overly involved. But, in this case it’s their job to protect MORONS from NOT getting vaccinated and killing innocent people that ACTUALLY can’t be vaccinated.
Or maybe the vaccine doesnt work?!?
That is not an approved reason to be petrified of the unvaccinated
Maybe you mother in law has other pre existing conditions?
She wouldn’t even have had the need to go to the hospital if she was unjabbed. You are grossly misinformed.
@baseball purist Are you suggesting that vaccine is why people have been going to the hospital, not COVID? If that’s the case, I believe you may be the one who is grossly misinformed, as the overwhelming majority of deaths in recent months have been unvaccinated.
Simply not true. The pharmaceutical companies run the media and they tell the media what to say. How do you make more money, pharma gods? By pretending that unvaxxed are dying faster. It’s simple.
I am a physician on staff at 2 local hospitals and can attest to the fact that virtually all the patients in the ICU with COVID are either unvaccinated or undervaccinated. The vaccine does not effectively protect against getting COVID; it very effectively protects one from DYING from COVID.
Come on man. Anyone can say that. Even if you are telling the truth that you are an actual physician, how do I know you’re not just lying to continue the narrative so you keep your job?
@Captain That’s obviously not true because people ARE dying that have been vaxx’d. No way an actual doctor says that because it’s just not true.
@bigpooky
do you not see the irony in your comment
I am sorry about your mother in law, truly. However, it is not someone else’s responsibility to protect you or anyone else.
COVID is over? Thirteen hundred deaths were reported today in the States. In the last 28 days, 47,859 people have died of COVID in the States — that’s #1 in the world.
Disgusting.
Whoa now swallow that vomit back down.
You’ve had rougher nights, cowboy.
Besides.. everyone can go to Florida still!
Please… stop coming to Florida… my rent keeps going up, but wages are stagnant down here. Stop. Coming. To Florida.
Yea! You can come down and hang out with the senators that closed your states! Hypocritical. Yet people somehow still love Democrats.
no sense in debating Covid and mandates at this point however this won’t help the jays in FA and perhaps even limits trade oppos.
It’s rumoured to already have had implications in free agency with at least Robbie Ray. I’m not too worried about it cutting off opportunities for new acquisitions because there are multiple paths they can take to add. But it could be an issue for current Blue Jays players too.
I’m hopeful we would have heard about that already if there was a Kyrie situation.
I hope so too. The only player I can think of to have stated a disinclination to getting vaccinated is Bichette, but it was a while ago and not stated as a hard stance. But who knows what the private lives and thoughts of the players are.
Bo is vaxxed
Covid is not over. But I don’t want to hear another anti-vaccine person ever again. So this article is lame.
Really? I’m triple vax’d, and I don’t care if the person sitting across from me is zero vax’d. The pandemic is over. Let’s move on.
We can all hope!
Is there a published list of unvaccinated big leaguers anywhere?
HIPPA
You’ll see one soon enough with these inane Canadian policies. Whoever doesn’t travel north, we’ll have a pretty good idea.
Yeah it’s right next to your public accessible prostate exam.
Toronto is gonna have a great home record
Hypothetically, if the ALCS is Toronto vs Angeles and your mega starts like Ohtani and Trout were not vax – would MLB step in and move the game out of Canada?
probably, since the woke MLB moved the AS game out of Atlanta
You say woke, but what actually happened was the MLB said f*** around and find out.
It was woke…and totally wrong. Period. Sports needs to stay an escape from politics/life. Baseball showed a very poor side with that whole situation.
Unbelievable, can you imaginen if Jays going go to a WS?
I’m Canadian, I’m a Jays fan and I’m triple vaxxed but even I believe the Jays should play out of Buffalo until the Govt decides to lift this silly mandate. A lot has changed since Nov when they instituted this. Mask mandates and vaccine passports have or will be lifted within a week so I doubt this will be an issue either by the time the season gets under way. Let’s just play ball already!
I’m in a similar boat but to me they should grant the mlb an exception, it just doesn’t make sense anymore.
The stadium can hold up to 40k people with unknown vax statuses at this point. So someone unvaxxed could be sitting first row beside the dugout. There is no good scientific reason for a player on another team to not be able to travel in and play.
This is not going to affect that many players. Most teams had >85% vaccination rate last season and not every team plays in Toronto.
No player is going to be forced to be vaccinated, they have a choice. They may not like the choice, but they have a choice. Freedom to choose does not mean you will always like your choices.
Yeah they won’t be forced to be vaxx’d just treated and compensated differently…. LOL
and you think a violation of their rights is funny…..Liberals.