Today in Fort Myers there was a big-league game as well as
some minor league intrasquad action. Across the entire landscape though, it was
the fallout of Coronavirus that was being felt. Major League implications were
now in place, and minor league changes had come as well.
With the Governor of Washington, Jay Inslee, placing a ban
on public gatherings in an attempt to cease the spread of COVID-19 the Minnesota
Twins had officially felt their first 2020 impact. Scheduled to play the
Seattle Mariners for their second series of the season, those games must now be
relocated. Talk has been that they could happen in Arizona, where the Mariners
hold their Spring Training, but the situation remains fluid.
This isn’t a one city ordeal either. San Francisco has
limited public gatherings of more than 1,000 people, and with Oakland just
across the bay, a disruption of Minnesota’s Opening Day affairs could soon
follow. The NCAA has determined a fan less March Madness will take place, and
many individual conferences have followed suit. In response to the newly
discovered health scare, many are erring on the side of caution.
It wasn’t until today that the Twins decided things would
translate to the minor leagues as well. I talked with a couple of players
earlier in the week, and they’d noted having been given instruction and direction
relating to Coronavirus. On Wednesday however, the Twins had roped off
significant portions of the minor league fields at the Lee Country Sports
Complex, and ushers were put in place to interrupt the flow of foot traffic. A full-on
quarantine of the athletes from bystanders had now been instituted.
#MNTwins have newly installed (as of today) yellow ropes up all over the back fields to keep players separated in a COVID-19 response.— Ted (@tlschwerz) March 11, 2020
I’m not old enough to understand what the SARS outbreak
looked like, and regardless of any research, living this is bordering on
interesting to say the least. It feels akin to something like a video-game-esque
zombie apocalypse and I feel as though we’re just beginning to see the total
fallout. Having had discussions with those more in the know, I’d be greatly
surprised to see Major League Baseball play a full 162-game slate in 2020. The logistical
hurdles ahead are going to be immense, and without clarification on what could
be yet to come, a simple delay could be more straightforward that the nightmare
of reactive decisions.
We likely won’t know the overall societal impact of this
situation for years to come, and it’s almost assuredly going to be a benchmark
in history books. While sports play a very small part of the overall social
landscape, they are front and center when determining what many citizens
gravitate towards.
Unfortunately, I think this gets worse before it gets
better, and the fallout we see from that could be unprecedented.
