Opening Schools

Oh, Major League Baseball.

Cardinals’ positive tests, postponement create another coronavirus crisis for embattled MLB
By Dave Sheinin, Washington Post
July 31, 2020

The Cardinals’ game Friday in Milwaukee, which was to be the Brewers’ home opener, was postponed, MLB announced, and will be made up as a doubleheader Sunday; the teams’ scheduled game for Saturday remains on at this point.

The rescheduling, MLB’s statement said, “is consistent with protocols to allow enough time for additional testing and contact tracing to be conducted.”

Still, that means six teams, or 20 percent of the league, will sit idle Friday due to coronavirus-related postponements: the Cardinals, Brewers, Marlins, Philadelphia Phillies, Toronto Blue Jays and Washington Nationals. The Cardinals’ cases involve two St. Louis players.

The Cardinals’ samples that produced the positive tests were taken Wednesday in Minneapolis, where St. Louis played the Minnesota Twins (they were off Thursday), according to a statement from the team. The statement said the team’s players and staff have been instructed to “self-isolate in their Milwaukee hotel rooms until further notice.”

The team is “currently conducting rapid testing of the entire traveling party, has implemented contact tracing, and will continue to self-isolate,” the Cardinals said.

As of Friday afternoon, that night’s Twins-Cleveland Indians game was still on as scheduled as of Friday morning; the Indians played at the Twins on Thursday night, using the same visitors’ clubhouse at Target Field that the Cardinals had used the night before.

The Marlins remain baseball’s biggest concern, with 17 players and two coaches having tested positive this week. Both the Marlins and Phillies — who hosted the Marlins for three games last weekend and have seen three staff members test positive in the days since — have been shut down since July 26 and will not play again until at least Monday.
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“We built protocols anticipating that we would have positive tests at some point during the season,” Manfred said. “The protocols were built to allow us to play through those positives. We believe the protocols are adequate to keep our players safe.”

But multiple, separate outbreaks in different regions of the country could test the sport’s collective optimism over finishing the 2020 season. Until Friday, baseball had reported zero positive tests among players — outside of the Marlins — since July 24.
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MLB’s swift postponement of Friday’s Brewers-Cardinals game was also a tacit acknowledgment that the Marlins-Phillies game on July 26 — which went forward despite the Marlins having reported four players testing positive by that point — should never have been played. Absent any guidance from MLB that day, Marlins players and staff discussed the wisdom of playing, but said they never seriously considered not taking the field.

If you think I’ll not be reporting outbreaks and fatalities this Fall you are delusional.

Masks (for others). Wash your Hands, Don’t Touch your Face. Distance. Limit exposure.

That’s it (outside of the Street Riots and Fascist Coup), the new normal.