Baseball in the Time of Coronavirus
Well, it’s nearly the end of May, and the only professional baseball going on these days is in the Korean Baseball Organization. I’ve watched a few games, and bless their hearts, they’re out there playing baseball in games that matter. To them.
I’ve just never been a fan of watching lower levels of talent compete. This is why I don’t watch women’s basketball or men’s soccer. I want to see the best of the best out there on the field, or I just can’t get emotionally invested in the way that makes sports fans what they are.
Meanwhile, we are able to watch baseball competitions between Major League Baseball players. Playing video games against each other. But if I want to watch someone play video games, it would probably be me. Or maybe I’d just take a nap. Same amount of productivity.
The Covid-19 lockdowns continue to cast doubt on a viable Major League Baseball season. There is so much uncertainty about the health risks for players, coaches, management, support staff, stadium employees and fans. But there is a lot of money involved, from the bottom of every organization to the very top. I can’t even imagine how the Mets’ owners are taking this.
As Shakespeare once said, “The gameplay’s the thing.”
It seems like every week there’s a new idea floated about how to pull off a season with the most games and highest safety for everyone involved. However, it’s a multi-billion dollar industry with hundreds of thousands of moving parts.
Now it looks like the biggest hurdle will not be Covid-19, but the financial concerns of players and owners. “Financial concerns” is just a fancy pants way of saying “greed,” but I don’t necessarily mean that in a negative way.
We’re probably going to see a lot of hand-wringing in the media about which side is right and which side is wrong. News flash! They’re both right. In any business relationship, it is incumbent upon both sides to extract every lost dollar possible.
In the last week, I’ve seen legitimate proposals for anywhere from 81 to 130 games for the season. Most people seem to believe the season won’t start until July 1. That makes it seem like less than 100 games is what we’re dealing with. The more games that the season is, the later into the year the teams will play. Reggie Jackson was Mr. October but will there be a Mr. December?
Maybe they’ll move the playoffs to neutral sites that are less likely to be covered in snow. This could be very exciting news for San Diego and Miami fans who only have faint memories of seeing postseason games live in their stadiums.
The first few ideas put forth involved having clusters of teams play in localized areas in Arizona, Texas and/or Florida. That would have been bizarre. But MLB baseball is what we want, and we don’t care where they do it.
The most recent word from the Commissioner’s Office is teams will play in their home stadiums. That’s welcome news. With so many states reopening with some safety precautions in place, this removes the need to keep everyone locked down in Arizona. Players and their families should be grateful.
Presumably, teams and the league will be taking extreme health measures to ensure everyone’s safety—especially in places where the coronavirus has had significant outbreaks. Los Angeles, Detroit and New York City seem like riskier places than Denver, Atlanta and Houston—for Covid and, for that matter, violent crime.
I think it’s safe to assume there will be massive testing of players and other personnel as the season goes along. Certainly the league will have to figure out what to do to a team, its players and its personnel if someone tests positive. At this point, it’s unclear if New York’s Governor Cuomo will make any players who test positive stay at nursing homes.
Another adjustment discussed is having teams play a regionally based schedule. West teams to play West teams only. East teams to play East teams only. This would cut down on travel and potential virus exposure. This restricted movement should also cut down on the number of venereal diseases acquired in the season.
With so many different scenarios for the season, it’s hard to tell which teams will benefit the most. Seattle always gets the short end of the travel stick, but this scenario will help. Coincidentally, some teams will benefit from playing more games against bad teams like Seattle.
You have to think most teams will be champing at the bit if they get lumped together with the Marlins and Orioles. (Yeah, I used “champing” and not “chomping” because that’s the right word even though it sounds weird—it gives me a sense of superiority using it correctly even though it makes me sound like a dork.)
At this point, it’s hard to say what an official schedule for 2020 will actually look like, but it may be useful to bookmark this MLB odds page now so you have a quick reference for gameday favorites, after the schedule is available.
And when games come back, you better watch. Live sports is what will bring us all through this together. It’s not going to be the politicians or the latest Netflix binge show. It’s baseball.
