Connect with us

MLB

MLB’s Plan To Play Baseball In May Is Dangerous and Greedy

The geniuses at the MLB are focusing on a plan that would start the baseball season in May and have all 30 teams play in Arizona without fans, according to Jeff Passan of ESPN. Amidst the COVID-19 pandemic sweeping the globe, it would be incredibly dangerous, irresponsible, greedy, and downright stupid to begin the baseball season next month.

The plan entails that the league would play all of their games in various stadiums around the Phoenix, Arizona area without fans in attendance. Players, coaching staff, and team personnel would stay at local hotels and live in isolation, only traveling to and from the stadium.

The MLB needs to read the room on the whole “pandemic” thing taking place right now. While we’re all desperate to be able to watch some live baseball on TV, the “Arizona Plan” is a weak and dangerous attempt to prematurely bring back baseball.

Let’s start with the players. Is it fair to separate them from their families in the midst of a pandemic? In such a scary and dangerous time, it is more humane for the players to be able to be at home safe with their families as opposed to living in a hotel in Arizona.

Milwaukee Brewers pitcher Brett Anderson highlighted the section of Passan’s article that spoke of players being separated from their families for over four months and tweeted: “It begins and ends right here.”

Why would players agree to a plan that isolates them from their family for an extended period of time? I’m sure the children of MLB players would feel more comfortable having their father at home with them. I’m sure the player’s spouses would rather have their husbands home with them.

Kaycee Sogard, the wife of Brewers’ second basemen Eric Sogard, in response to the Arizona plan, tweeted: “If it means my kids will not get to see their dad for months, no. Absolutely 100% no.”

Who could blame her? It would be incredibly inhumane and cruel to separate baseball players from their family during a global pandemic. While these players would have normally been separated from them during away games had the season started as normal, the world is currently not normal right now, and they should be home with their families instead.

Being away from their families and isolated in a hotel room for over four months does not sound like a mentally healthy environment for athletes to be in. The proposal sounds like jail with daily baseball breaks. Players shouldn’t be stuck in hotel rooms with only their teammates for four months. Like Brett Anderson, I can’t imagine that the majority of MLB players would support such an isolating and dehumanizing environment to play baseball in.

As for coaches and team personnel who aren’t young men in the best physical shape of their lives, the league is blatantly putting them in harm’s way. They are at a much higher risk of catching the virus and it is insane to think that in a month it will be safe for them to participate in the baseball season.

While baseball players are in elite physical health and are not at high risk at all from dying of COVID-19, the plan could perpetuate the spread of the disease in a time where the entire globe is trying to stop the spread. It would be impossible to play and practice baseball without sharing equipment and baseballs and spreading the disease.

Let’s say a groundball is hit to the shortstop and he scoops up the baseball and throws it to first. As a result, the pitcher who threw the baseball would have his germs on the baseball, the bat used by the hitter to hit the ball, the glove of the shortstop, the hand of the shortstop, and the first basemen’s glove. A baseball is a shared object that touches multiple people every time the ball is in play.

Would pitchers have to use a new baseball for every pitch? Wouldn’t catchers gloves and throwing hands be riddled with the germs of the pitcher? There is just no way that baseball can be played without putting the players at risk of spreading the virus.

The Arizona plan is a logistical nightmare that is a desperate and unnecessary attempt to bring back baseball as soon as possible. Amidst a pandemic, it is very clear that the league is only interested in making money again as soon as possible, even at the expense of the labor conditions and safety of their players.

It is incredibly greedy of the MLB to promote this plan while thousands of Americans are dying every day. It is very obviously not appropriate to start the MLB season in May amidst what is happening in the world. The MLB needs to chill and find some patience as the world deals with the impact of the virus.

Of course, I would love to be able to watch some baseball right now to distract myself from the pandemic, but it really isn’t important or essential enough to bring it back the way the MLB wants to with the Arizona plan. It is not important in the grand scheme of everything.

The MLB is used to making money in April and May, which is the only reason this plan is being proposed. They are willing to put their players in isolating labor conditions just so they can continue to make money.

When baseball comes back, they need to do it right and not the way of the Arizona plan. Baseball shouldn’t return until the country has completely recovered from the pandemic. I love baseball but nobody should lose their life over it. If the Arizona plan potentially puts their players and coaches at harm’s way, it should not be considered.

For more information about COVID-19, visit the CDC’s website or the website for your state’s Department of Health.

For more MLB content, check out Zachary’s author page or Twitter.

Click to comment

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Featured Articles

Featured Writers

More in MLB