For those that know me well, I love sports. I use them as an escape from distractions ranging from tough life situations and, ironically, schoolwork. It’s bizarre to not hear myself talking about sabermetric statistics during baseball season, who should be the starting quarterback for an NFL team or if a certain player should be benched on an NBA team for vastly underperforming.
But even with the coronavirus pandemic changing the world forever as we know it, Major League Baseball has been trying desperately to come up with an 82 game season to ultimately save baseball. The lynchpin of the plan includes the 82 game season, with a 14 team postseason format rather than the standard 10 teams and the following: Socially distanced locker rooms, which is obviously acceptable, players being isolated on the road, no exchanging of lineup cards and even no spitting, something that, in baseball lore, is inescapable.
Tampa Bay Rays starting pitcher Blake Snell had expressed his concern over taking a massive pay cut, as well as Washington Nationals pitcher Sean Doolittle earlier this week, in which he outlines not just the players and umpires taking pay cuts but also raised questions about whether there is enough testing for stadium workers and team employees as well.
With news coming out everyday regarding new, previously unknown, symptoms of COVID-19 and uncertainty about when a vaccine is arriving, fans that disagree may say “well, these players are getting paid millions of dollars…they can take a pay cut and play 82 games while being away from their families If I was paid that amount—.” Stop right there.
Baseball seasons have been cancelled or shortened in the past. Most famously, the 1994 season ended in a player’s strike over the collective bargaining agreement, in which no World Series was held. The 1917 season was shortened due to World War I. Ditto to 1981, where a radical realignment of the season had been implemented, with the Dodgers beating the Yankees in the World Series.
But almost two months into what was supposed to be the regular season and more uncertainty about when the U.S and the rest of the world will be back to normal, it should be imperative not to have a season.
In the midst of a public health crisis that has racked up 90,000 deaths and rising along with reports of hospital systems crashing at the peak of the virus, baseball is the last thing I’m thinking about. Heck, I’m graduating from college this year and I won’t have a graduation until further notice, which could be next year. I’d rather have my graduation ceremony right now than an 82 game shortened season.
Doolittle is absolutely correct on this one. People need to remember that the team doesn’t just include the players, it also includes coaching staff, like the manager, who, last time I checked, is very important, and the aforementioned team workers and employees that Doolittle was talking about.
The coronavirus pandemic is a unique situation for baseball and the world itself in the worst way possible. We can afford to put a DNP-COVID-19 on the 2020 MLB season. The famous saying in baseball lore goes “we’ll get em’ next season.” Let’s all, as a baseball collective, follow that cliche.
