With the coronavirus ravaging the Marlins, who haven’t played this week and won’t do so again until at least Monday, Major League Baseball is changing its COVID-19 protocols in an effort to keep the season running, Jeff Passan of ESPN.com reports.
The league still won’t force players or staff to quarantine when they’re on the road, but it is encouraging them to stay in their hotel rooms and socially distance from one another when they’re not at the ballpark. Additionally, they’ll have to wear surgical masks – not cloth masks – and each team must bring a compliance officer on the road. That individual’s purpose will be to make sure that teams follow the league’s coronavirus protocols, including arranging seating charts on team buses, according to Passan.
Less than a week into the season, it’s up in the air whether the Marlins will even play a 60-game schedule (or, for that matter, whether any other team will). The Marlins have seen a combined 18 players and staff test positive, knocking their season off the rails in the early going, and their health issues have affected other clubs’ schedules. The Phillies, who hosted the Marlins last weekend, had been slated to play a four-game home-and-home set versus the Yankees, but that was postponed. Additionally, their game against the Blue Jays on Friday was pushed to Saturday.
Despite a less-than-ideal start to the season, commissioner Rob Manfred said Tuesday, “We think we can keep people safe and continue to play.” Clearly, the league’s hope is that the changes to its protocols will increase the chances of that happening.
Offer = Officer
Good catch. Thanks.
Universal Law: Somehow someone or something from Florida will always throw a wrench into the best laid plans. Doesn’t mean it’s always only Florida. But it’s never not Florida.
They are who we thought they were!
If you’re here to tell me energy drink body spray is a bad idea, I’ve heard it before, from a bank and some doctors.
congrats, dodgers! i may never again root for the team but great job beating the cheaters down!
They didn’t really do anything
they beat the cheaters.
After acquiring a guy who had his best statistical season during a year which his team cheated and paid a reliever who was on that team that cheated.
that, i agree. however, they still beat the a.l. west cheaters.
This was Handled and expected .. not end of the world ..
these are the facts..
There have been more than 6,400 tests conducted since Friday, July 24, and the #Marlins have been the ONLY team with positive cases, #MLB announces. Since the start of spring training through July 23, 99 of the 32,640 samples – 0.3% – have been positive. We are playing.. …
And how many of those 99 positives were dupes. From what i understand every positive test is a new case.
Plus didn’t the Marlines play player/players who tested positive?
No
They absolutely played players they knew had been exposed.
Wow! Usually when I read- “here are the facts” on this site a ridiculous opinion follows. Those are actually the facts though. Well said.
And out of the 99 cases- how many actually got sick ? When this whole thing started a positive test w no symptoms was called a false positive. Now your asymptomatic w a positive test w no symptoms.
I applaud mlb for the way they are handling the season. Surely the models they ran prior were worse than .3%. I’m also grateful for baseball.
Agree. Great job
If all personnel from all 30 teams have to wear disposable surgical masks, you’re talking about in the neighborhood of half a million masks for MLB alone. It’s absurd for the league to mandate that. Medical professionals continue and are likely to continue facing shortages of PPE.
Man I work retail and we have 1500+ masks at my location to cater to our 8 employees. They are readily available from my online shopping and apparently in bulk by the company I work for which has a couple thousand retail stores.
Going to be a lot of fun trying to explain to future generations why our oceans are filled with more masks than plastic.
As someone who does a lot of work in hospitals – they are not facing a PPE shortage, just like they aren’t at 99% ICU capacity.
Manfred=
a mutt?
That is correct. In terms of the negative effects he has had on the game we know and love, Manfred has no equal.
Who hires the commissioner?
The entire season and the arrogant way MLB is approaching it is a beautiful tribute to how America has handled the Covid crisis. Let’s bury our head in the dirt and hope it goes away. That ought to work! The NFL will be worse.
Maybe it’s time we give people the green light to simply make their own choices for better or worse
Ya know, kind of how we let 20% of the country pick up the addicting habit of smoking and voluntarily go out of their way to wreck their lungs.
For those that want to isolate, then isolate. I’d say you’re fully capable of distancing yourself with remote working and grocery deliveries as options if that’s your choice.
Green light to make their own choices haha oh my.
Yes Americans were given that green light and the rest of the world installed bright red lights saying NOT AMERICANS. So sure go ahead with your green light theory. The rest of the world will have to wait for your, unfortunate, demise. No one is happy or cheering over this; people are weeping.
What are you talking about?
All great but the effects of smoking are NOT contagious. That is the part people seem to forget. “I have my rights!” But, does that include the right to infect others. That is going to be the issue with the NFL. Those linemen swap spit on every play.
And whether the effects are contagious or not, please remember there are MANY “no smoking” laws in effect (airplanes, restaurants, etc) to protect those who do NOT have the habit/addiction. So in effect, rules have been put in place to help protect those who are not yet infected…
Maybe not contagious, per se, but the city where where I live,prohibits smoking smoking is prohibited in bars, restaurants, stores, and the like, so when you walk down the sidewalks you walk through clouds of smoke from the people who step outside and linger in the doorways to have the smokes.
Voluntary rules are never going to work. Already we see just from watching the games that players high-five and they spit when they aren’t supposed to be doing either one. This for the TV cameras, and nobody seems to say anything. If MLB tells players that they are being “encouraged” to remain in their hotel rooms when on the road many of them simply will not, and it only takes one.
The league still won’t force players or staff to quarantine when they’re on the road, but it is encouraging them to stay in their hotel rooms and socially distance from one another when they’re not at the ballpark
What about the cities that they travel to where the city/state has told INCOMING TRAVELERS to quarantine for like 7 or 10 days? Is MLB saying “Nah, We’ll just let our players break local health measures and go out and do what they want?”
I don’t think that is what they are saying. Any local rules they will have to follow. But yea, I don’t get why quarantining on the road is not mandatory. If reports are correct, the reason this got going in the Miami clubhouse is because players didn’t quarantine and went out and partied while in Atlanta.
Nobody has to go out and party, they only need to go out. They could be infected nearly as easily by spending time with their own families.
“Ravaging”? Is it really “ravaging” the clubhouse? Or, is it making its way through the clubhouse? Getting the virus is not a good thing. This is very serious, but let’s let the virus be serious on its own without hyperbole taking it to another level.
So, are we going to do this for every flu epidemic moving forward?
For every one that kills hundred of thousands of people in a single season, yes.
Just like every other flu season that kills hundreds of thousands of people that we’ve never once shut down for. We have immune systems for a reason.
Like this happens every year? These types of epidemics are generational. What a stupid, uneducated comment.
This happens every year. New strains. Every. Single. Year. Some are worse and some aren’t.
All we can do is take care of those at risk, but otherwise we have to live our lives like normal.
Watch enough baseball games — and it’s almost every game now — there’s virtually nothing going on in a baseball dugout that seems to look like ballplayers are taking this seriously at all.
It’s 50/50 at best players and coaches are wearing masks. Forget social distancing. In a dugout. Those canopy tents sent up by the dugouts were put up specifically for use as extensions of the dugout. Last night was the first night I saw players using them.
MLB just has to be smarter than they’ve been about it. Im not holding my breath.
Or what? What happens when the coronofficer sees someone not following prorocols? He get a fingerwagging and an air spanking? Major league adults can’t follow rules, sit apart or keep their hands to themselves so they need timeouts and a babysitter?
Come on…