“Can I kick you in the shins?”
Strange questions have come my way during this pandemic, so I decided to play along. I told the veteran player agent who asked, “No, you may not kick me in the shins.”
“Great,” he said. “Now, here is the choice, I am either going to kick you in the shins or in the head [he didn’t say ‘head’] and it is your choice, but it has to be one or the other.”
If I had no choice, I told him I would pick the shins.
He said: “That is the Arizona plan. It is terrible, but it is better than being kicked in the head [again, he didn’t say ‘head’].”
Another veteran player rep described the Arizona proposal as “the second-worst plan.” But the worst plan is not playing major league baseball in 2020, in which case second-worst — like being kicked in the shins — is preferable.
What becomes obvious from conversations with those involved in trying to get a season underway or those who have been briefed is that familiar and normal are gone for 2020. Think of the Arizona plan — all teams housed in one metropolitan area, limited contact with the outside world, no spectators for games, constant monitoring of health for all involved — as an overriding example of what could be coming. Maybe it is what MLB decides to go with if the green light is received to play this year, but only one locale is deemed possible. Or maybe it starts in Arizona and slowly spreads to multiple cities. Or maybe this is just a template to begin in two, three or five locales, including Arizona.
The gist is baseball, like any non-essential business that is going to try to reopen in the coming weeks and months, will have to answer — in the words of another veteran player rep: “Are you going to be healthy doing the job, and if healthy, can you technically do the job? Everything else we will figure out.” And that everything else will mean many alterations from the way it was always done — and in this environment, that goes for reopening a dry-cleaning business, a restaurant or the major leagues.
Because the information is fluid, MLB officials insist plans on where to play, how to play and which of myriad schedule possibilities to employ have been mulled. But without more information about testing, antibodies, death rates and which elected officials are going to give their blessings, it is all theory and, thus, not yet worth proposing to the union or chiseling in stone. MLB has mainly stayed silent and publicly unaligned to any plan — trying to avoid looking publicly insensitive while there is such medical and economic hardship in the country, and to acknowledge that if the green light comes, the commissioner’s office will have to sell a flawed plan (think: kick in the shin) to teams, players and fans. Because any plan is going to be flawed by what is possible in the current realities.
Before any sports league can finalize those plans and play, five major questions must be answered:
- Has the country moved through the crisis phase in which large numbers of people are dying daily from the coronavirus and hospitals are overwhelmed?
- Can a pro sports league be run without being a drain on testing kits, medical equipment and medical personnel in need elsewhere?
- Can risk of contracting the virus be mitigated for those participating in a season — from players to umpires, coaches and the people who will provide food, transportation, et cetera?
- Can a person housed within the environment of the sport receive first-class medical treatment if that person were to contract the virus?
- Can a full outbreak be stemmed if someone within the environment contracts the virus?
- It seemed in the last week greater optimism has arisen within the game that those questions can be answered positively. Some of that had to do with Dr. Anthony Fauci, the director or the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, saying in a Snapchat interview released Wednesday that a season could be played while describing conditions akin to the Arizona plan.
But some general thoughts about a restart:
— Many who had concerns about the Arizona-only plan worried that what makes it attractive for a bubble-like atmosphere — 11-13 potential fields and 5-8 large hotels in a roughly 50-mile radius — could be a problem if someone within the universe tests positive. Could the infection rate be greater? If there were more segregation, if, say, all or part of Florida and California could open, too, would those places continue to be able to have games while a quarantine occurred in a compromised area?
But one person involved in planning said this is why waiting for more information is so vital. What if, for example, on May 15, even New York gives the blessing that offices can have 50 people return at a time? That could provide the Mets and Yankees — who currently would be in a hot zone — an opportunity to begin training in their home ballparks if they were able to stagger times for groups.
— An open mind is going to be necessary. Normal is not returning before there is a vaccine, which is not expected before next year. If there is going to be a 2020 season, it will begin without spectators and it might stay that way all year. Personnel allowed in dugouts will be limited and likely will have to wear masks and gloves, just like the umpires. Pitching coaches won’t be able to visit the mound. But no matter how many rules are established, as one personnel man said, “You can’t think of everything, especially when it is going to be so different from usual at the start. So we will have to adapt as we go along to what was not anticipated.”
Some lessons will come from Taiwan, which has begun play, and South Korea, which is to begin spring training this week. South Korea, for example, has infrared scanners that take the body temperature of every person who comes in the stadium and is instituting a no spitting rule. But a major league official said the biggest lessons will come from hearing about what behaviors and practices work the best in clubhouses and trainer’s rooms when there are groups together.
— The schedule can take many different forms. One agent said he could see six locations of five teams each with 10-game series, then move to the next opponent, etc. So after that portion was done, 40 games would have been played (10 against each of four opponents in your pod) and a month-plus of more information gathered about travel and opening other locations. A few people contacted said if the season begins in just a few locations, they could imagine a completed master schedule of whatever number of games are possible, but that locations would only be provided, say, a month in advance. So the schedule might read Yankees-Red Sox for Aug. 3-5, but if it becomes learned on June 20 that games could be played safely in New York or Boston, the series would be moved there.
But the length of a schedule and where games are played remain part of ideas being spitballed and in need of more information before getting close to presentable.