COVID Cancellation

[nymr83]

maybe MLB should invite the 100 best players to a complete 'bubble' environment and have them play exhibition games for the rest of the summer.

[ashie62]

https://www.cbssports.com/mlb/news/marlins-orioles-game-postponed-due-to-covid-19-outbreak-resulting-in-at-least-11-player-cases/https://www.cbssports.com/mlb/news/marlins-orioles-game-postponed-due-to-covid-19-outbreak-resulting-in-at-least-11-player-cases/



Marlins are down, as are Baltimore, the Phillies and Yankees for now



2 postponments today

[kcmets]

http://www.thecranepool.net/phpBB32/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=29544http://www.thecranepool.net/phpBB32/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=29544

[Johnny Lunchbucket]

Thanks for reading the Crane Pool Forum!

[Lefty Specialist]

So how exactly are college football and the NFL going to work? Offensive and defensive lines have to stay 6 feet apart? If a non-contact sport like baseball can't pull it off.....

[Benjamin Grimm]

I doubt that the disease is spreading on the field, although it might be. It's more likely happening in airports and restaurants and night clubs and other places.

[ashie62]

White Sox manager Renteria will not manage tonight. He woke up ill and has been tested



The White Sox may be "on the bubble"

[batmagadanleadoff]

Every sport has a coronavirus plan. MLB's lasted four days.

By

Thomas Boswell

Columnist

July 27, 2020 at 4:44 p.m. EDT



The title of this piece reminds me of the line Mike Tyson, in his prime, had about his opponents: "Every one of my opponents has a plan. Until they get punched in the face".



Excerpt:

Cancel the MLB year, maybe by the end of this week. Forget about the NFL season; it's never going to happen. The idea of attempting a college football season — putting amateur athletes at risk — is obscenely unthinkable. Within days or a couple of weeks, we also may find out just how feasible it is for the NBA, in its Florida bubble, or the NHL, playing in two hub cities in Canada, to finish truncated seasons and crown champions. Sure, none of that is certain, but Monday morning's news that at least 14 members of the Miami Marlins and their staff have tested positive for the novel coronavirus in recent days was a Category 5 covid-19 hurricane alert. You couldn't have a worse MLB start or a grimmer predictor for other games. With lots of inherent social distancing, baseball was supposed to be the easiest major American team sport to resume, just as leagues in Japan and South Korea have functioned smoothly for months. But MLB couldn't go even a week without the serious prospect that its 60-game season should be canceled.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2020/07/27/every-sport-has-coronavirus-plan-mlbs-lasted-four-days/https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2020/07/27/every-sport-has-coronavirus-plan-mlbs-lasted-four-days/

[batmagadanleadoff]

Benjamin Grimm wrote: I doubt that the disease is spreading on the field, although it might be. It's more likely happening in airports and restaurants and night clubs and other places.

It's probably a combination of both. Young, socially popular athletes, single and with lotsa money going out and getting infected. Then bringing the virus back to their teammates and opponents, spreading it on the field, in the clubhouse, on the plane/bus and at the hotel.

[nymr83]

Benjamin Grimm wrote: I doubt that the disease is spreading on the field, although it might be. It's more likely happening in airports and restaurants and night clubs and other places.

and the clubhouse, where players take it less seriously away from cameras

[nymr83]

The idea of attempting a college football season — putting amateur athletes at risk — is obscenely unthinkable.

a college football season would indeed be outrageous.

[Frayed Knot]

Just the whole idea of colleges saying that it's NOT safe for regular students to come back to campus but it's mandatory for football players to do so is too outrageous for words.

On the other hand, the college Presidents and the like have very little control over the football teams that their universities sponsor so I could see it happening and it's not like the

players have much in the way of power to prevent it.





On the flip side, it's never crossed my mind that the NFL wouldn't play.

- no sport has more of a history of 'the show must go on'. They played a full slate less than 48 hours after the death of JFK even as the entire country shut down. When the players went on

strike in the '80s the NFL was back 12 days later with players they found off the streets and called them real games.

- no sport is less dependent on a live gate. They already pretty much don't give a shit about paying customers so as long as they have their TV money they'll be fat and happy

- and, let's face it, pro players might have more power to demand safety from the owners but no union has shown less ability to come to a consensus and make it stick. Plus it's not like the

players don't already put their health at risk every week. A virus?!!?, Hell, that's about 15th on the list of of concerns which starts with brain deterioration and goes through the prospect of

being in pain and limping for the rest of your life.

[Edgy MD]

https://twitter.com/JonHeyman/status/1287767407092801541?s=19https://twitter.com/JonHeyman/status/1287767407092801541?s=19 How has this changed from before covid?

I hope, if the season gets cancelled, this five-finger death punch of a post still gets to count.

[batmagadanleadoff]

Inside the Phillies' evolving response to the Marlins outbreak



Excerpt:

In the minutes preceding Sunday's game at Citizens Bank Park, a few people in the Phillies dugout glanced across the field and had a sobering thought. It became a conversation, albeit a cursory one in the moment because there was baseball to play. Should we even be here? They wondered about it. They knew something was wrong, just from the information relayed by the Marlins that morning. But some perceptive Phillies had been alarmed all weekend by how the Marlins had appeared to not stagger their arrivals and workouts and how few people in the Marlins dugout were wearing masks.

https://theathletic.com/1955394/2020/07/27/inside-the-phillies-evolving-response-after-the-marlins-outbreak/https://theathletic.com/1955394/2020/07/27/inside-the-phillies-evolving-response-after-the-marlins-outbreak/

[Benjamin Grimm]

Well, apparently MLB plans to soldier on, at least for now. I haven't seen very much about makeup games. The Marlins could, in theory, play two doubleheaders against the Orioles in Baltimore on Wednesday and Thursday, and the Yankees and Phillies can do the same in the Bronx. But I'm getting the sense that that's not going to happen. There's really no room in the schedule to make up these games. Assuming the season completes, I suppose the Yankees, Phillies, Marlins, and Orioles will be ranked in the standings with 58 games played instead of 60. This is also assuming that these are the only four games that will be canceled, which doesn't seem at all likely. I can easily see a scenario where the season ends with a wide disparity of games played among the 30 teams, and also among the 16 playoff teams. And we'll just have to accept that this is the way it is in this unorthodox season.

[Benjamin Grimm]

The Daily News is reporting that four more Marlins have COVID as of today, and that the Nationals players have voted against going to Miami for their upcoming weekend series.



https://www.nydailynews.com/sports/baseball/ny-marlins-coronavirus-20200728-f6mvwcygczdvtkuuxa24fdlhy4-story.htmlhttps://www.nydailynews.com/sports/baseball/ny-marlins-coronavirus-20200728-f6mvwcygczdvtkuuxa24fdlhy4-story.html

[LWFS]

Funny. Those living in states/localities where directives have been vague or nonexistent may be acting less responsibly than those living in, say, NY or NJ. Go FUCKING figure.

[nymr83]

Benjamin Grimm wrote: Well, apparently MLB plans to soldier on, at least for now. I haven't seen very much about makeup games. The Marlins could, in theory, play two doubleheaders against the Orioles in Baltimore on Wednesday and Thursday, and the Yankees and Phillies can do the same in the Bronx. But I'm getting the sense that that's not going to happen. There's really no room in the schedule to make up these games. Assuming the season completes, I suppose the Yankees, Phillies, Marlins, and Orioles will be ranked in the standings with 58 games played instead of 60. This is also assuming that these are the only four games that will be canceled, which doesn't seem at all likely. I can easily see a scenario where the season ends with a wide disparity of games played among the 30 teams, and also among the 16 playoff teams. And we'll just have to accept that this is the way it is in this unorthodox season.

In other words, we will push forward in whatever fashion necessary to get to those national television playoff TV contract dollars.

[kcmets]

We're going to plow ahead until such time a player or two expire due to failing organs or whatnot and then consider our next best course of action.

[Lefty Specialist]

Not a few people have said, 'what if it was 15 players on the Yankees or Dodgers?' Would you shut the season down? The Marlins are almost expendable.

[nymr83]

The Marlins are only necessary to give the good teams someone to beat up on. They could hire the Long Island Ducks to fulfill the same role in a pinch. its like the non-name colleges that all the good schools schedule their home opener against.

[Chad ochoseis]

Aaaand...the Marlins have "paused their season", meaning that they're still in the 2020 hunt in much the same way that Amy Klobuchar is still in the running for the Democratic nomination.



https://www.bleachernation.com/cubs/2020/07/28/miami-marlins-season-now-paused-mlb-and-other-teams-scrambling-to-figure-out-schedule/?fbclid=IwAR2RdYhyIEjp-zbz4AX2K0yZtRXGDQP0JgAexiyiLEPp7tvNVyDmlyF_1sMhttps://www.bleachernation.com/cubs/2020/07/28/miami-marlins-season-now-paused-mlb-and-other-teams-scrambling-to-figure-out-schedule/?fbclid=IwAR2RdYhyIEjp-zbz4AX2K0yZtRXGDQP0JgAexiyiLEPp7tvNVyDmlyF_1sM

[Frayed Knot]

Well what's going to happen for the immediate future is that the Marlins won't play through (at least) Sunday, and while the Phillies have all passed their first round of Covid tests (all negative) they still

need to be tested further, so the Yanx, idled due to the Phillies being on hold, are going to play the Orioles on Wednesday and Thursday since the O's are suddenly free from their 2/2 home/home series w/the

Marlins. Yanx & O's weren't scheduled to play each other this week but of course they would at some point so this creates a couple of open dates later in the schedule for make-up possibilities. Perhaps the

Phils & Nats will do the same this weekend if the Phightins' get a green light. The regional schedule and the closeness of all these northeast teams certainly makes last minute adjustments like this easier.









Meanwhile, Andrew Cuomo is saying https://nypost.com/2020/07/28/andrew-cuomo-invites-all-mlb-teams-to-play-in-new-york-state/C'mon up to New York y'all and play all your games here.

It won't happen of course as a "bubble" set up was the first thing the player's assoc rejected, but it allows him to brag about his 'lowest rates in the nation' status.

Edited July 28, 2020 by Guest

[Benjamin Grimm]

Joel Sherman wrote: Heard MLB would like to get 60-game season in for all teams, but not wedded to it. If some teams play 58, 56, 55, etc, winning pct would determine playoff spots.

There's really no other alternative. It wouldn't be nearly the worst decision that has been made about the 2020 season.



They're also talking about the Yankees and Orioles playing each other instead of the Phillies and Marlins, respectively. This actually makes a lot of sense. The teams that aren't directly impacted might as well get games in while they can. The future dates when the Yankees would have played the Orioles might then be used to have them get in the games with the Phillies and Marlins. (Easier said than done, of course, because that would impact whoever the Phillies and Marlins would have been playing on those dates.)



This is all insane. It would actually be kind of fun if not for the annoying fact that people's lives and health are at risk.

[Benjamin Grimm]

Frayed Knot wrote: Meanwhile, Andrew Cuomo is saying https://nypost.com/2020/07/28/andrew-cuomo-invites-all-mlb-teams-to-play-in-new-york-state/C'mon up to New York y'all and play all your games here. It won't happen of course as a "bubble" set up was the first thing the player's assoc rejected.

And the proposed "bubbles" were in Florida and Arizona (and Texas), states where the disease is thriving.



According to some reports, the commissioner has the ability to change venues as necessary, so he may be able to impose a limited bubble for the Eastern Division teams. There's no need (at present) to move the Orioles or Nationals or Red Sox or Blue Jays or Mets or Yankees or Phillies, but he should definitely be considering moving the Rays and maybe the Braves if he can. And the Marlins too, if they still exist.

[Marshmallowmilkshake]

Seems like the Marlins always have a way to wreck just about everything.

[Frayed Knot]

Benjamin Grimm wrote: Frayed Knot wrote: Meanwhile, Andrew Cuomo is saying https://nypost.com/2020/07/28/andrew-cuomo-invites-all-mlb-teams-to-play-in-new-york-state/C'mon up to New York y'all and play all your games here. It won't happen of course as a "bubble" set up was the first thing the player's assoc rejected. And the proposed "bubbles" were in Florida and Arizona (and Texas), states where the disease is thriving.

Right, although those were also the proposed spring time bubbles when both the Covid and weather situations in the south were vastly superior to those of New York

By now both things have reversed themselves as the virus is the one who will continue to dictate terms. Or it'll all go away in April when it gets warm ... or when we

start gargling bleach and injecting fertilizer (or whatever Tweetopotamus was suggesting back then).

[whippoorwill]

In all honesty, I thought COVID would disappear when the weather got warm And we could all go outside

Honestly I'm worried

[Frayed Knot]

Yanx are busy congratulating themselves https://nypost.com/2020/07/28/yankees-make-powerful-statement-during-coronavirus-turmoil/to anyone who'll listen for their own braveness in the face of the Covd crisis and the "powerful statement" they made by agreeing to go to Baltimore for the

next two days even though they weren't originally scheduled to do so. Apparently there's no truth to the rumor that SS Gleyber Torres stuffed the ballot box with 'Yes' votes given that 13 of his 38 HRs

in 2019 came vs the O's. I doubt he even had to vote more than once though, mainly because his teammates were too busy doing it themselves. The Yanx finished 2019 17-2 against the Orioles and

carried a team OPS of over 1000; in Camden it was a cool 1123. I think a team poll that they'd eventually have to leave Baltimore would be the vote more likely to fail.

[G-Fafif]

No Phillies hosting the wandering Blue Jays this weekend. No nothin' at Citizens Bank Park.