Opening Day is close, but Major League Baseball’s return hasn’t been easy
It seemed impossible with anxiety related to the coronavirus at its peak in early April, doubtful as MLB and its union argued over finances in May and perilous a few weeks back as new covid-19 hotspots emerged across the country.
But now that MLB has made it to within 48 hours of its 2020 regular season starting, optimism is finally being allowed to creep into the minds of those associated with the game.
“We still have work to do, and we can’t take anything for granted,” Pittsburgh Pirates general manager Ben Cherington said during a virtual roundtable hosted by Pennsylvania U.S. senator Pat Toomey on Tuesday. “As close as we are getting to Opening Day, I think we have to stay disciplined and continue to collaborate and find solutions.
“But we certainly get more optimistic the closer we get, and we’re certainly are excited to see our players out there … and starting to play games.”
The coronavirus-shortened regular season is scheduled to begin Thursday with a pair of nationally televised games. The Pirates are among 26 other teams scheduled to get their seasons under way Friday.
That would be July 24, two days short of four months after baseball’s season was supposed to begin. But those plans were scuttled during the extraordinary series of events in the sports world that began March 11 and culminated the following day when virtually every pro and college sports league in the country halted play.
Philadelphia Phillies first baseman Rhys Hopkins recalled Tuesday that when the season was suspended March 12, he assumed they’d be back playing within “a month or two.”
And it hasn’t only been the long wait that has been unexpected. Who could have imagined then that when MLB did return, it would be in front of no fans and with piped-in crowd noise? Or that players would be eating outdoors (to better socially distance)? Or that players such as Hopkins would be asking their wives to effectively quarantine themselves for the duration of the season — part of an effort to mitigate any risk covid-19 infection could infiltrate clubhouses.
“Lots of things are different. Lots of things are weird,” Hopkins said. “But we knew that was going to be the case. … And we knew going in that we had to accept it.”
Players, Hopkins said, increasingly have done so. Despite reservations upon returning for “summer camp,” Hopkins said as the negative covid tests pile up and Opening Day draws closer, “morale is high” in the Phillies clubhouse.
“Players have gradually become more and more comfortable with what has become the new normal,” Hopkins said.
MLB converted its contracted drug-testing lab into a processing center for covid-19 tests because “it was important for us to not take resources away from the public and (instead) actually add resources to the public,” league senior vice president and deputy general counsel Patrick Houlihan said during the call with Toomey.
Speaking on behalf of MLB, Houlihan said commissioner Rob Manfred would have full authority to accept any club’s request to allow fans in stadiums for games. All teams will begin the season playing in empty ballparks. Houlihan said even if governmental bodies presiding over jurisdiction of a particular MLB team permits gatherings, Manfred would still have to allow it.
“He will consider it on a case-by-case basis,” Houlihan said. “We’re not going to just go based on what’s allowed. We’re going to do it based on what’s safe.”
MLB’s medical director Dr. Gary Green said he believes players are at their safest while in their team’s respective ballparks than they are at home or out in public. He cited the rate of players testing positive has fallen from about 1% when they first reported to team sites to less than 0.1% after more than two weeks of participating in team workouts.
Green also disclosed that of players who have tested positive, about half are asymptomatic, none have been hospitalized, “a few” had significant symptoms and “the rest” just minor symptoms.
MLB has faced questions as to why the NBA and NHL are resuming play in a “bubble” format based in one city or two, while baseball elected to have teams play at their normal home parks. Houlihan cited the logistics of isolating a far greater number of personnel, the realities of oppressively hot summer weather in Arizona, Florida and Texas (the areas floated as “hubs”) and the length of a full season being more untenable for baseball players to be away from their families.
The only way around the hot weather, for example, was to play games in the morning or night. That could have been a problem for TV purposes, and under a no-fans-at-the-ballpark model, the television product is paramount.
Asked by Sen. Pat Toomey his prediction for the season (framed by Toomey noting that Phillies employee Jimmy Rollins predicts a World Series parade for his team), Pirates GM Ben Cherington on his: pic.twitter.com/zcueMHULtd
— Chris Adamski (@C_AdamskiTrib) July 21, 2020
One unexpected perk of the situation is those TV broadcasts could feature innovations viewers could welcome. MLB Players Association chief operating officer Xavier James said players are open to allowing extra access — to a point.
“We have to get creative,” James said, “but we have to ensure that does not increase the risk for the players or is more intrusive.”
Green noted testing is only a small part of the extensive list of MLB health protocols, a document Houlihan said baseball is prepared to alter as conditions relating to the virus change.
Already, the sport had an embarrassment of a delay in receiving test results that happened over the July 4 weekend.
“Anything like an undertaking like this — which is monumental — is not going to come off without hitches,” Cherington said of MLB’s return to play. “It’s not going to be a perfectly smooth road.
“But the effort that’s gone into trying to give us a chance to bring Major League Baseball back and to continue to make adjustments to give us a chance to get to opening day, to me, has been really impressive. It’s something I have been proud to be part of.”
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Chris Adamski is a TribLive reporter who has covered primarily the Pittsburgh Steelers since 2014 following two seasons on the Penn State football beat. A Western Pennsylvania native, he joined the Trib in 2012 after spending a decade covering Pittsburgh sports for other outlets. He can be reached at cadamski@triblive.com.
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