On Friday, Major League Baseball sent a 67-page draft of its health-and-safety manual to the MLBPA, which outlines a staggering number of protocols that the league feels necessary to implement for baseball to start up amid the coronavirus pandemic.
The manual, which was first obtained by The Athletic, covers everything from travel to testing to quarantining, and it contains a bevy of rule changes that would change the complexion of the game itself.
Spitting, for example, is prohibited under the league's proposal, as are high fives, fist bumps, and hugs. Fielders are encouraged to retreat several steps away from baserunners between pitches, and any ball touched by multiple players should be replaced by a fresh one. Any players and other team personnel not participating in the game are asked to sit in the stands, separated by at least 6 feet. Postgame showers at the stadium are discouraged.
Ultimately, the subtext of the document is as glaring as the masks (that absolutely should be) on our faces: It's not safe or responsible to play baseball right now given the trajectory of the coronavirus pandemic in the United States, which will have seen more than 100,000 fatalities from COVID-19 by the end of May, according to Dr. Robert R. Redfield, the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The relaxing of social distancing protocols in virtually every state - coupled with inadequate testing - threatens to exacerbate the outbreak.
"We're not reopening based on science," Dr. Thomas R. Frieden, a former director of the CDC in the Obama administration, told the New York Times. "We're reopening based on politics, ideology, and public pressure. And I think it's going to end badly."
Yet, even as MLB explicitly acknowledges the risk involved with putting on a season in that climate - under this plan, after all, players wouldn't be hermetically sealed in an Arizona bubble and would travel regularly, giving them ample opportunities to be exposed to the virus - baseball's owners are in the process of asking their players to suit up at a further discount, having seemingly reneged on the agreement reached in March to pay them pro-rated salaries for each regular-season game staged in 2020. With no gate revenues to count on (fans almost certainly won't be allowed to attend ballparks for most, if not all, of the shortened season), the owners were set to propose a 50-50 split to the MLBPA.
The galling proposal is a non-starter for the players. For one, they already agreed to take pay cuts in 2020. They would also be assuming all the risk. Moreover, as Joe Musgrove of the Pittsburgh Pirates aptly noted earlier this month, players don't benefit when butts are in the seats, so why should they suffer when they're not? As such, it came as no surprise when MLBPA executive director Tony Clark preemptively shot down the possibility of revenue sharing, rejecting it before the idea was formally proposed.
Sadly, though, the vitriol that's simultaneously being directed toward Blake Snell, the Tampa Bay Rays ace who made it abundantly clear last week that he's unwilling to take another pay cut, is equally unsurprising. "I'm not splitting no revenue," Snell said during his Twitch stream. "I want all mine. Bro, y'all got to understand, too, because y'all going to be like: 'Bro, play for the love of the game. Man, what's wrong with you, bro? Money should not be a thing.' Bro, I'm risking my life. What do you mean, 'It should not be a thing?' It 100% should be a thing."
In response, Mike Wilbon, the co-host of ESPN's "Pardon the Interruption," called Snell "offensively unplugged from what is going on in the world." John Romano, a columnist at the Tampa Bay Times in Snell's adopted hometown, said the former Cy Young Award winner's comments "border(ed) on cutting-edge stupid." Social media pundits were even more ruthless.
And each of them should be ashamed of themselves.
Only in a society tragically warped by capitalism could Snell be framed as tone-deaf or stupid for championing his own interests - and, more broadly, the interests of labor - in response to billionaires seeking financial relief. Yes, it's true: Baseball's owners might lose money this year if the season is played without fans, but Blake Snell has no obligation to mitigate those losses. He has no obligation to anyone other than himself and his family.
Some of Snell's critics, like Wilbon, imply that the hardship and suffering of others should be part of Snell's equation. And while baseball could serve as a mild salve for those devastated by the pandemic, providing a flicker of normalcy in these difficult times, America doesn't deserve baseball more than baseball players deserve to not die. As widespread and profound as America's collective suffering may be, financial or otherwise, it shouldn't compel Snell to undercut himself while also putting himself at risk.
Only in a society with a deep-seated contempt for labor would such a notion be considered controversial.
Snell himself may not be among those likeliest to develop serious symptoms or require hospitalization should he contract COVID-19, but the risks are still significant, and perhaps greater than even we know; the virus is still in its infancy, making it difficult to determine the long-term health effects of the disease. "While some patients may fully recover," wrote Lois Parshely at Vox earlier this month, "(some) experts worry others will suffer long-term damage, including lung scarring, heart damage, and neurological and mental health effects."
Ultimately, baseball isn't some inalienable right. It's a business. Teams commonly invoke that very refrain, in fact, to justify all manners of nefarious behavior, and Snell, for his part, should be allowed to treat the sport as a business, too. He ran his own risk-reward calculus, accounting for a second pay cut, and determined it isn't worth it to play. He has that freedom, and he has that right. Given that MLB needed 67 pages to articulate only some of the protocols necessary to keep its players safe, it seems like he exercised them wisely.
Jonah Birenbaum is theScore's senior MLB writer. He steams a good ham. You can find him on Twitter @birenball.
