When will baseball return?

We took up this question during our most recent Power Line program for subscribers. I estimated that it will take three weeks of training for players to prepare for a season. I thought it might be possible to complete spring training by around the end of spring. In that event, the regular season could commence at the end of June.

Spring training and beginning of the regular season would have to occur behind closed doors. Games would be broadcast, but fans could not attend. I held out some hope that, by late summer, fans could be admitted in some fashion, but I don’t think we should count on this.

The “locked down” games would be played in Florida and Arizona where teams hold spring training, and where there are plenty of stadiums in close proximity. This would make traveling easy.

If baseball starts a regular season in July and the season extends well into October, teams could play more than 100 games each. That’s a long enough season to be meaningful.

The playoffs would have to extend well into November, assuming that MLB isn’t willing to truncate them (and I’m sure MLB wouldn’t be). This means, or should mean, that the World Series would have to be played in one or more warm weather venues or else indoors.

To maximize the safety of players, umpires, managers, and coaches, there would have to be constant testing for the Wuhan coronavirus. In the event of a major new wave of the virus, either among teams or in the general population, the season might have to be halted. Players, umpires, managers, and coaches can’t exist for four months in a pure bubble.

A day or two after our program, Dr. Anthony Fauci discussed the possibility of resuming baseball. He set forth a concept very similar to the one outlined above.

President Trump has said he wants to see baseball played sooner rather than later. He complains that he’s tired of the decades-old games being shown on television (the MLB network).

I’m not. I enjoy watching these games. However, they are no substitute for a 2020 season.

In this column, Thomas Boswell of the Washington Post pours cold water on the idea of starting the season in early July. He begins by bashing President Trump. He praises Dr. Fauci, but suggests that Fauci is tainted by his association with the Trump administration.

Having signaled his virtue to the Post’s readers, Boswell cites “the long-term damage to MLB if just one player, or a family member, or team employee, dies of covid-19” because baseball was played. Given the possibility of second and third wave outbreaks of the Wuhan coronavirus, Boswell is making a case that could be applied not just to the 2020 season but to the 2021 season, as well. The “just one life” argument, a recipe for inaction on many fronts, is almost always a bad one.

The chances of a player (or his wife and kids) dying from this virus are extremely small. Last night, Fox News posted a report on deaths by age category that encompassed about half of the fatalities in the U.S. to date. It found that only 0.4 percent were among people age 20-29 and only 1.47 percent among those 30-39. (See also this report from the CDC.) Most of the dead in these categories had dangerous preexisting conditions.

Umpires under the age of 55 also face little risk of dying if they aren’t overweight and have no other dangerous preexisting condition. Some managers and staff members would face a higher risk. They would have the option of skipping the season, as would anyone else involved. In addition, the players’ union would have to agree to any baseball reopening plan.

Dr. Fauci wasn’t presenting such a plan. He was simply sketching one as a possibility, depending on how things play out over the next month or two. That’s really all I’m doing.

Baseball should, of course, proceed with caution, but not as much caution as Thomas Boswell desires.

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