The Athletic writers Jason Stark & Ken Rosenthal ask…
“Why did the Marlins play on Sunday?”
The Miami Marlins had 3 players learn of a positive COVID-19 test on Sunday just two days after a fourth player learned of a positive test on Friday. Two infectious-disease specialists said those positive tests fit the definition of a “clear outbreak” of the virus within their team. But sources said those tests were not enough for either Major League Baseball or the club itself to give serious consideration to postponing this game.
Now, both the Yankees at Phillies and the Orioles at Marlins games have been postponed as the league and the teams involved figure out how to control this situation.
Do they need to shut down the whole league? Our initial reaction is No but if the Marlins and any other team in their 10-team schedule (AL & NL East Divisions) have to be shut down for any period of time, how would that work for the rest of the league?
A lot of people are saying shut it down immediately which is an understandable reaction but the MLB put safety protocols in for a reason. Why they didn’t have anything in place to stop a game from being played after 3 positive tests on one team on the day of a game is mind-boggling but now, they need to figure out what they can do about those 2 games. The rest of the schedule for today should be able to go on as scheduled and go from there.
Did the Marlins do something wrong? Did they not obey the protocols put in place? How many players on any given team have the opinion that this virus isn’t a big deal? Anyone? Is this changing their mind?
From the article (& the quote in the pic shared below):
In the three weeks between the arrival of players in camp for intake testing and Opening Day, baseball was highly encouraged by its low rate of infected players. As of last Friday, only 29 of 28,888 tests in that period had come back positive – a rate of just 0.1 percent. And according to MLB, 13 teams reported zero positive tests in that period. One of those 13 teams was the Marlins.
It makes you wonder how this happened. Were the Marlins careless? Has the league been too careless with players not always wearing masks maybe when they should be (in the dugout, clubhouse, etc…)?
The league needs to find that out and go from there. Should an outbreak mean an immediate shutdown? That is a big question. In our opinion, they need more information but they are doing the right thing in postponing the 2 games with the teams from yesterday’s game between the Marlins & the Phillies. The more info they find out will tell them how to proceed from here.
Part of the reason it’s good to have sports back is we/they can see/show us how if things are done the right/safe way, we can manage to live with this and work around it. If we’re careless and don’t think this is real, we’ll find out pretty quickly how well that works and we’ve already seen how that has worked in some states that have tried to re-open too quickly. They are having to go back to Stay-At-Home orders and close up shop.
If the league has to shut down for 2 weeks then do that and go from there as well. Players can still opt-out if they aren’t comfortable.
What are your ‘Takes, #TwinsTakers?
We’ll keep you updated on this situation.
You can read more here:https://theathletic.com/1954316/2020/07/26/why-did-the-marlins-play-baseball-on-sunday/
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