Tuesday, May 19, 2020
Will the Show Come Back Smartly?
Forget for the moment how arduous might become the grapple between owners and players on how to pay whom if the Show returns. More significant will be how to keep more than just the players healthy, a significance that has not escaped the thoughtful eye, ear, and mind of one Washington Nationals relief pitcher.
Sean Doolittle isn't even close to the only major league player with health on his mind. But it isn't every player who's unburdened himself aboard Twitter to lay out the health questions that must be answered if the Show is to come back to give a coronavirus-exhausted nation even a small degree of respite.
"Bear with me," Doolittle (who calls himself Obi-Sean Kenobi Doolittle on Twitter) began his Monday stream, "but it feels like we've zoomed past the most important aspect of any MLB restart plan: health protections for players, families, staff, stadium workers, and the workforce it would require to resume a season."
There are players and other personnel now who may be more vulnerable to the virus than others almost regardless of the health and safety protocols MLB might secure, as Ken Rosenthal observes in The Athletic. Colorado outfielder David Dahl is one. Rosenthal cites the Mayo Clinic saying your vulnerability to life-threatening infections heightens after spleen removal. Dahl's spleen was removed five years ago.
Doolittle's own wife, Eireann Dolan, is vulnerable thanks to being asthmatic. Two Chicago Cubs, pitcher Jon Lester and first baseman Anthony Rizzo, are cancer survivors. Cleveland pitcher Carlos Carrasco has battled leukemia and, six years ago, undergone "non-invasive heart procedure," Rosenthal writes. At least three players are Type 1 diabetics: pitchers Scott Alexander (Los Angeles Dodgers) and Jordan Hicks (St. Louis Cardinals), and outfielder Adam Duvall (Atlanta Braves).
One and all of them plus countless more players are only too willing to play ball this year. "Obviously, this thing is unstoppable if it gets you the right way," said Rizzo, who's worked with and through his charitable group aiding Chicago front-line workers, in April. "But they said I'm cured and as strong as ever and that everything functions the right way. If I was to get it, they're not overly concerned, like they would be with older people who have had conditions before."
Doolittle also knows it's not that simple to work with. "Because this is a novel virus, there is still so much we don't know — including the long-term effects," he said aboard his Twitter stream. "On top of respiratory issues, there's been evidence of kidney, intestinal, and liver damage, as well as neurological malfunctions, blood clots and strokes."
Referencing several research results, the left-handed relief pitcher cited coronavirus patients' vulnerability to scarring in their lungs, "found even in asymptomatic patients, and because the virus often affects both lungs, can cause permanent damage in some cases. Definitely a concern for an athlete."
It's also a concern, and Doolittle knows it, for those who work in close enough proximity, including clubhouse personnel, press personnel, team staffers, and stadium workers. Baseball as a game may work in a kind of social distancing on the field, if you don't count the three-man cluster of batter, catcher, and umpire at the plate, but off the field in the dugout, the clubhouse, and the ballpark is something else.
Even if the Show returns come July with no fans in the stands to begin, it isn't going to be simple. "We know that sharing indoor spaces greatly increases the infection risk," Doolittle continued, "and it's rare that only one person gets sick. Will there be modifications made to clubhouses or other facilities to prevent a spread?" Indeed.
"Even if maybe guys don't realize it right now, it's our job and MLB's job to make sure all those concerns are taken care of," says Cardinals relief pitcher Andrew Miller, who's a member of one of the player's association's executive sub-committees. "Health and safety of our players and our staff is first and foremost before we can even think about getting games off the ground and the logistics of all that."
"Baseball players might not be in close contact during a game the way football players are," Doolittle tweeted, referencing the prospects for an NFL season this fall, "but there is a lot of shared space in a clubhouse among players, coaches, and staff."
That's one reason why it isn't going to be as simplistic as just keeping the owners from using baseball's measured return to try suppressing players' pay, considering the question to be answered as to whether the players will play for a 50-50 revenue split or for the contracted-for pro-rated 2020 salaries to which they agreed in March.
"The risk of exposure to the virus is one reason players are adamant about not accepting a further reduction in pay," Rosenthal writes. "They agreed in March to pro-rate their salaries in a shortened season, but the league will seek additional concessions, sources said, because the games, at least initially, will be played without paying customers."
Doolittle also pondered, not unreasonably, whether baseball could or would consider additional health care benefits for players and staffers "extend[ing] beyond their employment and into retirement to mitigate the unknown risks of putting on a baseball season during a pandemic?"
"We don't have a vaccine yet, and we don't really have any effective anti-viral treatments. What happens if there is a second wave? Hopefully we can come up with BOTH a proactive health plan focused on prevention AND a reactive plan aimed at containment."
Doolittle and other players hope any plan to bring the Show back considers plans to acquire enough real coronavirus tests "ethically," and the best, most feasible protocols if any player, staffer, or ballpark worker contracts the virus.
The owners and the players union have that to think about, as well, even if they also have to ponder concurrent issues. For the players, they know the longevity of given careers isn't guaranteed. For the owners, whose longevity is far more assured, there's the risk that the national economy's eventual recovery doesn't happen before they're forced to furloughs, firings, and bankruptcies.
"We want to play," Doolittle concluded. "And we want everyone to stay safe."
Not once in his Twitter exegesis did Doolittle talk about money. The cynic might reply that that was easy for him not to say, since his full 2020 salary would have been $6.5 million and his pro-rated nut wouldn't exactly be pocket money. Hearing comparable health and safety concern from more players such as Doolittle and Miller would go plenty far enough.
Before this week's return proposal, earlier ideas that meant complete player isolation put several players on edge for having to go to the serious work of play without their families. A normal baseball season provides separation enough. A season played in near-isolation with out-of-the-ordinary health and isolation issues is tricky above and beyond the safety concern.
Mike Trout and his wife, who've been donating quite liberally to front-liners in the region of his native southern New Jersey (including donating food), await the birth of their first son in August. He'd rather hit the deck after taking a hit off the helmet from a headhunting pitcher than be absent when Baby Trout premieres.
Clayton Kershaw, whose third child (and second son) was born three months ago, and who raised money (and matched it dollar-for-dollar out of his own deep pocket) for a Los Angeles group serving 13,000 meals a day during the pandemic, has suggested the balance between playing baseball safely and being isolated from their families didn't exactly thrill himself or his fellow players.
Still, it's always reassuring to know that there are those who actually play the game, who understand that, for all the dollars they earn to play it, the common good of the game isn't always the same thing as just making money for it or dividing the spoils from it.
They also know a coronavirus-exhausted country needs what they do. Colorado Rockies outfielder Charlie Blackmon doesn't want to be ill, doesn't want people making each other ill, but wants a way for the game to return for those who love it and those who depend on it for their living.
"But bigger than that," Blackmon said in a Monday radio interview, "this country needs baseball." This country, and baseball itself, also needs to have it done right.