Not looking good for MLB. Yet the NBA and NHL have gone over a week without a positive test, in their bubbles. I am guessing the NFL is looking hard at the bubble concept right now.
Baseball will face a reckoning around August 15ish… we’re looking at one, two teams, couple series rescheduled, “see me around August 15th” that might be a benchmark where baseball as a league can’t function.
I don’t think they can go on much longer. The most important issue is safety for the players and staff, but at even a trivial level how is it a fair competition when multiple teams have most of their squads wiped out due to something somewhat outside their control?
Mendoza’s spot on about the domino effect here. By the time we’ve realized that a team has positive tests they’ve already played several other teams. The challenge with a season, even an abbreviated one, is that the players keep moving on from place to place and the virus moves with them. The NBA and NHL bubbles at least prevent that scenario. The NFL should consider that scenario or alternatively shorten the schedule, split the league in two and have teams play every 14 days. Half the league is off each alternating week.
Carpe Diem because I wouldn’t put a lot of money on having a full, albeit shortened, season. This is going to keep happening. Been saying this for month. I love baseball, but logic would suggest that this season is doomed.
Not to worry sports fans. High school and middle school traveling teams will play on the front lines. Their parents will send them out to exercise their freedoms. If enough children will just step up, we can have a season. Consolidate any teams with short rosters due to Covid./S
And once again, it’s the Cardinals who are going to ruin the Cubs season.
- lake county democrat - Friday, Jul 31, 20 @ 12:01 pm:
I don’t think the season is absolutely fated to be lost, but they need a radical attitude change - players are still not wearing masks or distancing in duggout, probably even worse behavior in locker room and away from game. If they’re -that- unserious then the only question is whether it’s too late to pivot to a bubble.
I fear the domino effect with team after team having to quarantine till they can’t play any more games.
- Back to the Future - Friday, Jul 31, 20 @ 12:08 pm:
At this point it is really up to the players.
I like my Sox, but not enough to not be worried about the health of all the people that could be affected.
Illinois is an island in a sea of Covid. I can see the tidal wave on the horizon. I also see way too many people waxing their surfboards. I am just not looking forward to having them wash up on my front lawn.
It sure doesn’t look good. Unless Mark Curran’s staff is in charge of setting the schedule.
I think it will end up the last two teams without COVID play the World Series best 2 out of 3 and call it a season.
- lake county democrat - Friday, Jul 31, 20 @ 12:29 pm:
MLB players are non-essential workers with the ability (and, for nearly all, sufficient wealth) to not work if they choose to. A lot of the non-essential workers supporting MLB *do* need the income - I’m more interested than what they think than the players (who can make their own choices). It’s as complicated a situation for baseball as it is for the rest of the economy.
The way common illnesses get passed through a clubhouse made the attempt to play highly questionable from the start. I don’t know how they can complete the season. At least there’s golf.
It is hard to put myself back to 23 and athletic. I think I would have opted to play. Not sure the odds of getting Covid-19 increase by playing and traveling. Don’t think I would have lived as a recluse at that age.
As relief pitcher Sean Doolittle said, “sports are a reward for a functioning society”.
We aren’t, shut it down before things get worse.
As for “we need it”, now we know who’s voting for Curran.
Baseball is a smouldering fire of positive cases. I’m hopeful that the NBA and NHL will be proven right by operating in a bubble. Those seasons have a much higher chance of finishing than MLB does at this point.
Shut it down for two weeks. Three bubbles, East - NYC, Central - Chicago, West - LA. Round Robin season within Division and then best of 3 all the way through playoffs for top 8 teams in one bubble.
If any big market team (aka, New York, Boston, LA, Chicago) begins getting positive tests, then the season is kaput. And if you think all the players isolate themselves after the game….
That Governors and State health departments didn’t order the season not to even be started is amazing. It is only a matter of time before the other leagues catch up to MLB’s rocky start. Cancel league sports in 2020. We have a pandemic on our hands to get through.
MLB - 2-3 more weeks
NBA and NHL - 4 weeks or after several major stars get COVID
NFL - 60-80 (players/staff) a team and traveling. The sports camps could not make it.
College FB - gonna lock 19-21 year olds in a dorm?
So it turns out there are (non-PCR) tests that have been prototyped that cost less than $10 to produce and give results in an hour. When we have these, we can test the ball players every morning *before* any communal activities start, and isolate anyone who is positive. This protocol can be used for resuming in-person school and other activities. Meanwhile everyone wears a mask at all times unless eating or sleeping.
=MLB Commissioner Manfred has warned the MLBPA of a possible shutdown if they don’t do better containing virus exposure.=
Since we’ve changed so many other rules of the game this year and the length of the season, why not deem the last team capable of filing out a line up card the world series winner.
- charles in charge - Friday, Jul 31, 20 @ 4:44 pm:
Attempting a baseball season this year was a foolish decision driven by greed. I don’t think the season will be completed.
- unclesam - Friday, Jul 31, 20 @ 11:35 am:
Depth will be key
- 1st Ward - Friday, Jul 31, 20 @ 11:37 am:
It will be canceled not if but when. How do you make-up all of these games that have been canceled in an abbreviated season with minimal off days?
- Smalls - Friday, Jul 31, 20 @ 11:38 am:
Not looking good for MLB. Yet the NBA and NHL have gone over a week without a positive test, in their bubbles. I am guessing the NFL is looking hard at the bubble concept right now.
- Oswego Willy - Friday, Jul 31, 20 @ 11:38 am:
Baseball will face a reckoning around August 15ish… we’re looking at one, two teams, couple series rescheduled, “see me around August 15th” that might be a benchmark where baseball as a league can’t function.
- walker - Friday, Jul 31, 20 @ 11:39 am:
Guessing it cannot continue much longer.
- Big Jer - Friday, Jul 31, 20 @ 11:41 am:
MLB needs to end the season now before someone suffers the severe effects of COVD-19 or dies.
I like what Jessica Mendoza of ESPN said here.
http://www.espn.com/video/clip?id=29571020
- Pundent - Friday, Jul 31, 20 @ 11:41 am:
A week in and multiple games have been cancelled due to Covid with two teams losing about a week. Can’t see how that’s sustainable.
Like everything related to Covid why would we think that baseball would be “different.”
- Bruce (no not him) - Friday, Jul 31, 20 @ 11:42 am:
I’m not sure how much longer this going to go on.
The constant drip, drip, drip of cases. Eventually MLB may have to pull the plug.
- Dotnonymous - Friday, Jul 31, 20 @ 11:42 am:
Didn’t work.
- RNUG - Friday, Jul 31, 20 @ 11:43 am:
Pessimistic. I figure a couple of more weeks before they have to pull the plug on the season.
- Stu - Friday, Jul 31, 20 @ 11:44 am:
Marlins are sitting pretty right now with a .667 winning percentage /S
- Ron Burgundy - Friday, Jul 31, 20 @ 11:47 am:
I don’t think they can go on much longer. The most important issue is safety for the players and staff, but at even a trivial level how is it a fair competition when multiple teams have most of their squads wiped out due to something somewhat outside their control?
- Pundent - Friday, Jul 31, 20 @ 11:47 am:
Mendoza’s spot on about the domino effect here. By the time we’ve realized that a team has positive tests they’ve already played several other teams. The challenge with a season, even an abbreviated one, is that the players keep moving on from place to place and the virus moves with them. The NBA and NHL bubbles at least prevent that scenario. The NFL should consider that scenario or alternatively shorten the schedule, split the league in two and have teams play every 14 days. Half the league is off each alternating week.
- Amalia - Friday, Jul 31, 20 @ 11:48 am:
Let’s see, Phillies, Marlins, Brewers, Pirates, how many more with positive cases? this can’t keep going.
- Gooner - Friday, Jul 31, 20 @ 11:48 am:
It makes we wonder about how the virus is transmitted.
Were these cases of people not following guidelines, or of the guidelines not being effective.
The baseball Covid cases should be something that makes more of us focus on those issues.
A lot of us are nearly religious about wearing masks and washing hands, but I am wondering if that’s enough.
- Chicago Cynic - Friday, Jul 31, 20 @ 11:49 am:
Carpe Diem because I wouldn’t put a lot of money on having a full, albeit shortened, season. This is going to keep happening. Been saying this for month. I love baseball, but logic would suggest that this season is doomed.
- Bob Loblaw - Friday, Jul 31, 20 @ 11:49 am:
Everything happening with MLB right now will be happening in your school district, and then some, next month
- A Guy - Friday, Jul 31, 20 @ 11:50 am:
Play all games in Wrigley. No one catches anything there. /s
- Vote Quimby - Friday, Jul 31, 20 @ 11:51 am:
Toast. Pull the plug now.
- @misterjayem - Friday, Jul 31, 20 @ 11:53 am:
The last team to pop for COVID should be declared the 2020 World Series Champions of Major League Baseball.
Still no parade though.
– MrJM
- Froganon - Friday, Jul 31, 20 @ 11:53 am:
Not to worry sports fans. High school and middle school traveling teams will play on the front lines. Their parents will send them out to exercise their freedoms. If enough children will just step up, we can have a season. Consolidate any teams with short rosters due to Covid./S
- Three Dimensional Checkers - Friday, Jul 31, 20 @ 11:55 am:
Enjoy the games while you can because there is a good chance they won’t finish the season.
- 47th Ward - Friday, Jul 31, 20 @ 11:58 am:
I’m a Cubs fan so I’m quite accustomed to disappointing ends to the baseball season.
They were in first place on August 1. That’s a pretty good year for us, even if it was only 5 games.
- SAP - Friday, Jul 31, 20 @ 11:58 am:
I want a season or whatever this is that MLB cobbled together, but I just don’t see how this is going to work after the Marlins experience.
- 47th Ward - Friday, Jul 31, 20 @ 11:59 am:
And once again, it’s the Cardinals who are going to ruin the Cubs season.
- lake county democrat - Friday, Jul 31, 20 @ 12:01 pm:
I don’t think the season is absolutely fated to be lost, but they need a radical attitude change - players are still not wearing masks or distancing in duggout, probably even worse behavior in locker room and away from game. If they’re -that- unserious then the only question is whether it’s too late to pivot to a bubble.
- Donnie Elgin - Friday, Jul 31, 20 @ 12:02 pm:
Let em’ play the rest of the season. the MLB/MPBPA negotiated this and the clubs have a taxi squads. We need baseball now more than ever.
- Annonin' - Friday, Jul 31, 20 @ 12:02 pm:
Looks like season pretty much winding down
At least they tried
Openers will probably insist they should have played until folks dropped on the field
- HCMcB4 - Friday, Jul 31, 20 @ 12:04 pm:
I give the season two more weeks.
- Oswego Willy - Friday, Jul 31, 20 @ 12:05 pm:
=== Let em’ play the rest of the season. the MLB/MPBPA negotiated this and the clubs have a taxi squads. We need baseball now more than ever.===
The health of ball players.
That’s what this is about.
Ball players, umpires, support staff.
In this environment, they’re not there to risk their lives… for you… so you can feel good.
Yikes, how selfish a thought.
- Captain Obvious - Friday, Jul 31, 20 @ 12:07 pm:
I fear the domino effect with team after team having to quarantine till they can’t play any more games.
- Back to the Future - Friday, Jul 31, 20 @ 12:08 pm:
At this point it is really up to the players.
I like my Sox, but not enough to not be worried about the health of all the people that could be affected.
- Downstate - Friday, Jul 31, 20 @ 12:09 pm:
I don’t see a point in continuing. A 60 game season was already silly. Call it off and pick up in the Spring.
- Ducky LaMoore - Friday, Jul 31, 20 @ 12:12 pm:
I’m hoping for the best and expecting the worst. I’ll just enjoy it as long as I can get it.
- Mr. K - Friday, Jul 31, 20 @ 12:13 pm:
Cancel MLB, cancel NFL.
It’s the rational, safe thing to do. We’ll get this stuff back eventually. But now is not the time.
- pete4illinois - Friday, Jul 31, 20 @ 12:20 pm:
Illinois is an island in a sea of Covid. I can see the tidal wave on the horizon. I also see way too many people waxing their surfboards. I am just not looking forward to having them wash up on my front lawn.
- Just Wondering - Friday, Jul 31, 20 @ 12:27 pm:
It sure doesn’t look good. Unless Mark Curran’s staff is in charge of setting the schedule.
I think it will end up the last two teams without COVID play the World Series best 2 out of 3 and call it a season.
- lake county democrat - Friday, Jul 31, 20 @ 12:29 pm:
MLB players are non-essential workers with the ability (and, for nearly all, sufficient wealth) to not work if they choose to. A lot of the non-essential workers supporting MLB *do* need the income - I’m more interested than what they think than the players (who can make their own choices). It’s as complicated a situation for baseball as it is for the rest of the economy.
- ChuckIL - Friday, Jul 31, 20 @ 12:32 pm:
World Series is now the NPB champion vs KBO champion. All games played in South Korea.
- JoanP - Friday, Jul 31, 20 @ 12:38 pm:
= We need baseball now more than ever.=
YOU need it, so the players, umpires, coaches, everyone involved should risk their lives and health? That’s pretty selfish.
- annon baseball fan - Friday, Jul 31, 20 @ 12:42 pm:
This entire sports season will be uncertain and unpredictable.
- @misterjayem - Friday, Jul 31, 20 @ 12:49 pm:
“We need baseball now more than ever.”
need — verb. require (something) because it is essential.
es·sen·tial — adj. absolutely necessary.
– MrJM
- SSL - Friday, Jul 31, 20 @ 12:49 pm:
The way common illnesses get passed through a clubhouse made the attempt to play highly questionable from the start. I don’t know how they can complete the season. At least there’s golf.
- Just a citizen - Friday, Jul 31, 20 @ 12:54 pm:
2 weeks tops before it’s over
- Donnie Elgin - Friday, Jul 31, 20 @ 12:58 pm:
2 weeks tops before it’s over
MJM indictment or MLB season canceled?
- Retired and still in Illinois - Friday, Jul 31, 20 @ 1:06 pm:
It was great while it lasted.
Will there be any different results when schools reopen in a couple of weeks?
- Last Bull Moose - Friday, Jul 31, 20 @ 1:08 pm:
It is hard to put myself back to 23 and athletic. I think I would have opted to play. Not sure the odds of getting Covid-19 increase by playing and traveling. Don’t think I would have lived as a recluse at that age.
- Dotnonymous - Friday, Jul 31, 20 @ 1:36 pm:
I’ll take the under.
- GregN - Friday, Jul 31, 20 @ 1:57 pm:
As relief pitcher Sean Doolittle said, “sports are a reward for a functioning society”.
We aren’t, shut it down before things get worse.
As for “we need it”, now we know who’s voting for Curran.
- Cool Papa Bell - Friday, Jul 31, 20 @ 2:07 pm:
Baseball is a smouldering fire of positive cases. I’m hopeful that the NBA and NHL will be proven right by operating in a bubble. Those seasons have a much higher chance of finishing than MLB does at this point.
- Curious George - Friday, Jul 31, 20 @ 2:12 pm:
Seems safer than large parties , indoor dining or protests
- AD - Friday, Jul 31, 20 @ 2:22 pm:
Shut it down for two weeks. Three bubbles, East - NYC, Central - Chicago, West - LA. Round Robin season within Division and then best of 3 all the way through playoffs for top 8 teams in one bubble.
- bogey golfer - Friday, Jul 31, 20 @ 2:39 pm:
If any big market team (aka, New York, Boston, LA, Chicago) begins getting positive tests, then the season is kaput. And if you think all the players isolate themselves after the game….
- revvedup - Friday, Jul 31, 20 @ 2:41 pm:
That Governors and State health departments didn’t order the season not to even be started is amazing. It is only a matter of time before the other leagues catch up to MLB’s rocky start. Cancel league sports in 2020. We have a pandemic on our hands to get through.
- Pundent - Friday, Jul 31, 20 @ 2:54 pm:
Whether it’s baseball or bars, starting and then stopping before the virus is managed and contained serves no purpose. This was inevitable.
- Willie - Friday, Jul 31, 20 @ 2:55 pm:
If A billion dollar ball club with 25 players and unlimited resources can’t stay healthy how do we expect our schools to do it?
- zatoichi - Friday, Jul 31, 20 @ 3:00 pm:
MLB - 2-3 more weeks
NBA and NHL - 4 weeks or after several major stars get COVID
NFL - 60-80 (players/staff) a team and traveling. The sports camps could not make it.
College FB - gonna lock 19-21 year olds in a dorm?
- Groundhog Day - Friday, Jul 31, 20 @ 3:50 pm:
So it turns out there are (non-PCR) tests that have been prototyped that cost less than $10 to produce and give results in an hour. When we have these, we can test the ball players every morning *before* any communal activities start, and isolate anyone who is positive. This protocol can be used for resuming in-person school and other activities. Meanwhile everyone wears a mask at all times unless eating or sleeping.
- Ron Burgundy - Friday, Jul 31, 20 @ 4:20 pm:
MLB Commissioner Manfred has warned the MLBPA of a possible shutdown if they don’t do better containing virus exposure.
- Pundent - Friday, Jul 31, 20 @ 4:28 pm:
=MLB Commissioner Manfred has warned the MLBPA of a possible shutdown if they don’t do better containing virus exposure.=
Since we’ve changed so many other rules of the game this year and the length of the season, why not deem the last team capable of filing out a line up card the world series winner.
- charles in charge - Friday, Jul 31, 20 @ 4:44 pm:
Attempting a baseball season this year was a foolish decision driven by greed. I don’t think the season will be completed.