Well…that didn’t take long. I knew it was bound to happen, but even I, who is surprised that we’ve gotten to the point where baseball games are being played at all, thought it might take a little longer than like four days for everyone to start getting Coronavirus.
Two major league games scheduled for Monday night were postponed as the Miami Marlins deal with a coronavirus outbreak that stranded them in Philadelphia.
The Marlins’ home opener against Baltimore was called off, as was the New York Yankees’ game at Philadelphia. The Yankees would have been in the same clubhouse the Marlins used last weekend.
The Marlins postponed their flight home Sunday night after their series finale against the Phillies.
Major League Baseball announced the cancellation of both games about 7 1/2 hours before the scheduled first pitch, saying additional COVID-19 testing was being conducted. “The members of the Marlins’ travelling party are self-quarantining in place while awaiting the outcome of those results,” MLB said in a statement.
Miami pitcher Jose Urena was scratched from his scheduled start in Sunday’s game, and catcher Jorge Alfaro went on the injured list Friday. No reasons were given for the moves, but manager Don Mattingly said those who tested positive would be quarantined in Philadelphia.
The Marlins’ precarious health raised anew doubts about MLB’s ability to finish the season during a pandemic. In Cincinnati, Reds second baseman Mike Moustakas and centre fielder Nick Senzel felt sick Sunday, a day after a teammate went on the injured list because he tested positive for COVID-19.
So when do you guys figure we get our first forfeit because somebody can’t field a healthy team in time? And what are the chances that this season, even though it’s not really a real season, finishes as scheduled? For that matter, what is it going to take for MLB to call it off if things get even more out of hand? If it’s my choice I’d say the moment a team forfeits a game we should probably be done, but knowing how these things work that would only result in executives putting pressure on teams not to sink the year and you’d wind up with unhealthy people being forced to play until they physically couldn’t.
Seriously, I don’t know how you prevent things from getting worse. There’s just too much state to state travel for there not to be problems. The NHL has the right idea with their hub cities and bubbles. It doesn’t mean things will be 100 percent trouble free, but minimizing travel and exposure to outside forces does increase the odds of things being ok.
While we’re talking baseball, what do we think of the fake crowd noise? I don’t like it, but I don’t hate it as much as I thought I would. I was raised on WWE style fake crowd noise, which is awful. This, so far, isn’t nearly so bad. It’s distracting at times, but on the games I’ve checked out so far they’ve done a pretty decent job with it.
But you know what I do hate? This runner on base in extra innings crap. I’ve already said my piece there so I won’t do it again, but it has to go. Just play the game the way the game is meant to be played or go with my overtime idea. Sending a guy half way home without him having to do anything is something you do in a kids league where the score doesn’t matter and the most important thing is that everybody has fun and gets ice cream. It doesn’t belong at the highest levels where you’re supposed to have to earn things.
