MLB should just call the whole thing off
By David Mullen
Stop the 2020 MLB season before it becomes a serious issue. Baseball can wait until 2021
Unfortunately, like so many other businesses, MLB needs to admit that a 60-game season in empty ballparks with a roster that continues to be devoid of key players either opting out or testing positive for COVID-19 causes more potential harm than good.
Let’s call the whole thing off.
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On June 27, FC Dallas headed to a bubble in Orlando to participate in the MLS Back Tournament. Inexplicably, three members of the team got on the plane after a positive test. When the team got off the plane, there were 10 players and one staff member testing positive. This could happen in baseball.
As it is, MLB is showing inadequacies in testing. Some teams get results right away. Others, like the Oakland A’s and Arizona Diamondbacks, have had to wait for days for clearance and other teams have had to suspend workouts until they were certain that their players were safe.
Stars like Freddie Freeman of the Atlanta Braves, Ian Desmond of the Colorado Rockies, Joey Gallo of the Texas Rangers, the New York Yankees DJ LeMahieu, and Kansas City Royals catcher Salvador Perez have tested positive for the coronavirus. They are known despite MLB stating that the names of players testing positive would not be released.
It is pretty easy to figure out if you haven’t seen Freeman on the field in two weeks that something is awry.
Players like the Colorado Rockies Ian Desmond, Braves Nick Markakis and Felix Hernández, Washington Nationals Ryan Zimmerman, Los Angeles Dodgers lefthander David Price and others have decided the risk of coming to the ballpark in 2020 is simply not worth it.
No professional sport is so driven by individual achievements and awards. While giving awards for the shortened season has yet to be decided, is baseball really going to honor a player with 11 home runs? A seven-win campaign? A Rookie of the Year award for a player that may have played in 45 games?
The minor league season has been canceled. The game will be so different, bandaged together with temporary rules like a DH in the National League and a runner placed at second to begin extra innings promises to cheapen an already compromised sport.
Taking a page from Fred and Ginger more than 80 years ago, it is in the best long-term interest of MLB baseball to say “Let’s call the whole thing off!” Or, in Chicago Cubs-speak, “Wait ’til next year.”