The Braves have pledged to continue paying their employees—both full-time and part-time—through May 31, according to Kiley McDaniel of ESPN. Several teams extended a stipend to employees through March, but the Braves are the first team that will compensate its staff through the end of this month, let alone the end of May. McDaniel would go on to clarify in a later Tweet that gameday employees, whose pay is normally tied to games, will be paid in accordance with the $1MM fund established last month. However, workers whose earnings aren’t attached to games will be paid as usual. It’s encouraging that teams are willing to offer a helpful hand to their staff, and it’s possible that more teams will follow in the Braves’ footsteps. And while there are plenty of problems that still need solving, this kind of decision can go a long way towards relieving the stress that comes with these circumstances.
- The Rays, meanwhile, have a plan for how they’ll divvy up the $1MM fund established by all 30 MLB teams in March, as explained by Marc Topkin of the Tampa Bay Times. Some 1,200 Rays gameday staffers will receive a one-time payment to help support them during the delayed season: Team employees (ushers, guest services, etc.) will receive $1,000 and concessions workers, security, and others will receive $500.
- Similarly, Chicago’s Cubs and White Sox have offered grants of $500 to their part-time ballpark employees as their means of allocating the aforementioned $1MM fund, writes The Athletic’s Jon Greenberg. Importantly, Cubs VP of Communication tells Greenberg that the Cubs’ fund “will go way beyond a million,” but at the same time is uncertain whether there will be a second round of payouts to employees. It’s notable that the referenced $1MM figure was established merely as a baseline, and it’s possible—perhaps even likely—that many teams will go above and beyond that threshold, especially depending on the length of the season delay, which can have a profound impact on the livelihood of the thousands of employees who make MLB games possible.
Why’s Ted Cruz the photo…
Shows class Braves!
Lmao
no that’s kevin malone
Same politics
The president has been kidnapped by ninjas. Are you a bad enough dude to rescue the president?
What kind of ninjas.
Japanese ninjas
Chinese ninjas
North Korean ninjas
South Korean ninjas
I’d like to know where these ninjas originate from before deciding.
China. They have ninjas, but they have lied about it for so long that they have been able to fool the world into thinking they don’t.
Id bad enough to rescue him for any ninja except Japanese … those guys are for real and legit … true bad asses lol
Japanese ninjas are actually the worst, because they’re the ones we know the most about, making them crap at being ninjas. It’s British ninjas that are really a pressing concern.
Which president? President of the Braves? The president of France? POTUS? Important info for my decision
I’m smart enough to pay the ninjas to look the other way.
Open for business and people could get PAID to work! I know that concept is novel to many but let’s open the USA back up on May 1st! The curve is FLAT. Do it!
If you told me 40,000,000+ people would have to lose their livelihood in just the USA, due people in retirement communities dying, I could show you a way, sans a stay-at-home order, to make things function by May 1st. Pure insanity to continue down this path beyond April.
She got that Thunder Pumpkin.
It’s getting harder to distinguish COVID-19 mitigation and fascism.
Given your obvious lack of any intellectual firepower whatsoever, there’s no real surprise that you are unable to discern the difference. Thankfully, folks as willfully dumb as you generally don’t have jobs with much responsibility, so there is at least some limit to your influence. You are a dangerous moron whose actions may well be killing people.
He’s probably that guy at Publix who wasn’t wearing a mask and standing two feet behind me.
@agentp
Wow you really have no clue
I see we may be headed back to “Comments Turned Off For This Post” land.
Agreed. Nice story about the Braves until the trolls hijacked it.
Once again TR. Anything directly or indirectly related to the pandemic needs to be shut down for comments. Tired of these ridiculous arguments. If you guys want to argue about all this go to Fox News.
Or maybe you can just stop reading the comments.
Why should he stop reading the comments? He is looking for relevant baseball related comments.
Priggs maybe you prefer all this political crap. The rest of us come for baseball talk.
Hey Priggs why don’t you stop posting and go find some politcal site and spew you political theories there?
Hey, I thought this was a baseball site.
What’s all this crap about politics. You guys are something else. In case you numskulls forgot, the post is about Major League Baseball teams paying their game employees so they can survive. Take the politics to another forum please.
Too bad world leaders don’t visit this site. Looks like some of you have it all figured out.
If they need to I hope they pay the workers. Can we just keep it to baseball if I wanted to read about political stuff I would go to Facebook or Twitter. I understand it’s part of the game right now but I can care less let’s just keep it on baseball please.
God, please bring baseball back ASAP to fill the void in all these bickering seam heads. This pandemic has everyone acting like a bunch of John Rockers. Kenny Powers does not approve.
I’ve read some of the comments pertaininng to the virus & I wish people were better informed. The more informative name for it is SARS-CoV-2. I wish the media was calling it SARS-V2 instead of COVID-19 because the real threat is the severe respiratory disease that can occur while the body fights the virus. There are now
1.7M cases world wide with the USA becoming the leader in deaths & growth in cases now. Some 20% of those or 350K suffer a lot with the virus. Some 6.1% of those infected die during that suffering. SARS related diseases can cause inflammation in
the respiratory system & if it doesn’t kill you that can make it difficult to swallow food & breath the rest of your life. Will all of the 20% die in 10 or 20 years? Why is no one in the media asking that question & why aren’t the experts pondering it?
It is not just people who were already sick that are dying. It’s anybody that is already
experiencing respiratory problems before getting infected. Some 50M Americans fight the typical flu every year & many of those experience respiratory problems when they do. If they get this SARS virus then they are likely to be part of the 20% group.
The worst news to come out on this virus is that there is a “don’t suffer at all” sub group in the large 80% “suffer a little” group. Experts don’t know the size of the “don’t suffer” group but these cases fail the eye test. Only a blood test reveals they have the virus. What does “flattening the curve” really mean? It means slowing the growth
to where the healthcare system here has the capacity to treat the “suffer a lot” group
without having to add more beds. This group means live events can not re-open without 1) living with potential new cases & deaths OR 2) mandatory blood tests for access to the event.
There are test kits out there that deliver a + result as quickly as 2 min. Attending live events & cinemas again will take considerably more time. Healthcare workers have
to be on spot for a + result & social distancing needs to be enforced until people have been cleared after testing. The next time you go out to shop wear eye/sun glasses.
You live in the windy city. Someone with the virus parked next you just needs to cough, spit, or in the coming months sweat on your car. Depending on how the wind blows it could lift some of that right into your eye. You’re infected then. This virus can live up to 5 days on the hard surface of your car.
I think MLB in the AZ ST parks can be a leader in showing Americans how this can work. First prove to Americans that the game can be played in the parks for 2 months
without fans & then open the parks to some fans in early Aug. Ban adjacent parking. Put plenty of space between cars. They can partner with blood bank non-profits like LifeSource to both perform testing & collect blood donations. MLB can offer discount tickets for those who donate blood.
A MLB banner can be simple & positive:
Come to the parks, get tested, give blood, enjoy the game, & save a life.
Blood transfusions can be the difference between life & death for those who “suffer a lot.” It holds back the growth of the virus in the body while heathcare workers try to jump start the person’s immune system to fight off the respiratory disease.