Baseball On The Brink

[Joe Hass]

Buried in this story on baseball's Covid-19 disaster: Keith Olbermann's reporting that networks have been told to start preparing alternate programming for as soon as Monday.

https://www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/29578360/mlb-commissioner-rob-manfred-says-playing-players-need-better

As a point of reference: the Sunday night game is scheduled for 7:08 PM ET. The first game Monday is scheduled for 6:40 PM ET.

(In case the panel is curious: I have not participated in or supported this farce in any way. And after the Cubs inexplicably floated a trial balloon to have 7,000 fans at Wrigley in September, they're probably dead to me (and yes: joehass.com has already been reserved))

[PGage]

Manfred scolding players as bad boys is really rich. MLB’s handling of this situation has been characteristically greedy and incompetent from the start. If they don’t have a further outbreak and cancel the season it will simply be dumb luck. The NBA has handled things far better, and even their semi-bubble is not guaranteed to allow a safe completion to their season.

I’m not sure how MLB could have approximated a bubble, they have larger rosters and staffs, and no place has as many diamonds as would be needed in one complex. They could have limited play to a smaller number of geographically close stadiums, mandated all personnel to quarantine and then shelter in place together, play multiple games with different teams in the same stadium every day, and played down as quickly as possible to a smaller number of post-season teams. Even so, it would have been very risky. 

I love baseball and have missed it, but I love my daughter even more, and we went ahead and postponed her wedding scheduled for this August three month ago, so I think I could live with cancelling the baseball season. We will see what virus conditions are like this Fall, but hard to imagine risks won’t be much greater for college and pro football.

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[Joe Hass]

I cannot stress these facts enough:

* Rob Manfred is a world-class ass.

* The alleged journalists who ate up the leak as though this was the *players* fault should be ashamed, but won't because they're so in the owner's pockets they should have to be brushed for lint every 30 minutes.

* I have friends I think less of today because they want organized sports back regardless of the cost.

* MLB is going to be worse off because of this farce than they thought they'd be if they'd just scrubbed 2020 and aimed for 2021.

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[Brad Beam]

From: tvor...@googlegroups.com [mailto:tvor...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of PGage

>I’m not sure how MLB could have approximated a bubble, they have larger rosters and staffs, and no place has as many diamonds as would be needed in one complex. They could have limited play to a smaller number of geographically close stadiums, mandated all personnel to quarantine and then shelter in place together, play multiple games with different teams in the same stadium every day, and played down as quickly as possible to a smaller number of post-season teams. Even so, it would have been very risky.

 

For my brother and I, our summer vacations revolve around baseball, so this year we found ourselves in the Dakotas – from which we’ve just returned.

 

Our Monday game was in Bismarck. The Northwoods League (college-eligible) has decentralized for this season, with 22 teams in 7 divisions. The North Dakota Division has three teams - two sponsored in Bismarck and the third in the neighboring town of Mandan – with all games played at Municipal Ballpark (capacity 1,900). Reported attendance was 746 (39.2%), with roped-off aisles and posted rules. The bathrooms were closed during the fifth inning for an extra cleanse, and at the end of the game, patrons were dismissed by section.

 

Tuesday night in Fargo was the first of our two American Association (non-affiliated minor) games. The AA started off with six teams in three hub cities, with minimal road trips to play the other four teams. Chicago and St Paul have since qualified to host their own games; Winnipeg remains stuck on this side of the border. Newman Outdoor Park was at 31.6% capacity (1,430/4,513). Patrons were told to stay in their assigned seats during the game, though children still chased after foul balls. No dismissal by sections, but my brother and I had to share an elevator ride down from the concourse to ground level with an also-masked-up elderly couple.

 

Wednesday was Sioux Falls, and threatened rain showers kept the crowd down to 11.7% (527/4,500) at the Birdcage. The team’s GM recorded a message played on the videoboard several times, encouraging patrons to follow proper protocols.

 

We’ll see in a couple weeks if all that worked….

 

_   _

|_>|_>  Brad Beam- Belle WV

|_>|_>  http://www.facebook.com/74bmw

[PGage]

I hope you and everyone else there are and remain healthy, and maybe that seems like a rational plan in North Dakota. From California, the idea of hundreds of people gathered in one place frankly seems like science fiction (or horror). 

I may be a little hyper-sensitized admittedly, as I just went through a week in which I had to sweat out my COVID test results, after my doctor ordered it for my two weeks of flu like symptoms. Fortunately, as the President would say, I aced the test; my doctor said she had never heard of a COVID test with such a fabulous score. [test came back negative yesterday, and I am relieved].

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[Brad Beam]

From: tvor...@googlegroups.com [mailto:tvor...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of PGage

>I hope you and everyone else there are and remain healthy, and maybe that seems like a rational plan in North Dakota. From California, the idea of hundreds of people gathered in one place frankly seems like science fiction (or horror). 

> 

>I may be a little hyper-sensitized admittedly, as I just went through a week in which I had to sweat out my COVID test results, after my doctor ordered it for my two weeks of flu like symptoms. Fortunately, as the President would say, I aced the test; my doctor said she had never heard of a COVID test with such a fabulous score. [test came back negative yesterday, and I am relieved].

 

No worries. We respect the concern; when we got home, Dad told us that our cousin had been hospitalized earlier in the week, fortunately diagnosed with only a non-Covid lung infection.

 

Of course, we didn’t go to flout current sociomedical protocols. We did everything rationally prescribed to limit exposure during travel. It’s all we could do.

[Greg Diener]

Was Olbermann’s source Louise Mensch?

(rimshot)

Greg