July 28, 2020

"Vast Majority" Of Nationals Vote Against Traveling To Miami This Weekend, Setting Up Possible Wildcat Strike & Confrontation With Manfred

A "vast majority" of Washington Nationals players have voted against traveling to Miami this weekend for a three-game series against the Marlins.

However, teams do not have a right to not play games if they think it's unsafe, according to the agreed-upon health and safety guidelines. If the Nationals refuse to play, they will be engaging in a wildcat strike.

Commissioner Rob Manfred's big-ass problem just got much, much bigger.

Will he allow the Nationals to strike, completely undercutting his authority? Or will Manfred order the Nationals to play, showing the players on the other 29 teams that he doesn't care one whit about their health?

On Tuesday morning, four more Marlins tested positive, bringing the team's total to 18 (15 players and three coaches, out of a reported group of 33 people). There are doubts the Marlins will be able to field a team for tomorrow night's scheduled game in Baltimore.

As Craig Calcaterra writes, MLB's response to the pandemic "is mirroring what has happened with America: a lack of strong, clear guidance from above has resulted in reactive, ad-hoc measures below, leading to inconsistency and confusion."

If Manfred and the club owners refuse to make the health and safety of the players and coaches the absolute top priority, the players must take matters into their own hands.

As expected, tonight's Yankees-Phillies game in Philadelphia has been postponed. But all games scheduled for Wednesday are still on.

Vox's Aaron Rupar spoke at length with Dr. Zachary Binney, an epidemiologist at Oxford College of Emory University. It should be read in its entirety.
Can we just have a moment of shared humanity here? A potentially serious virus is ripping through your clubhouse that's part of a broader global pandemic. Can we hit pause here for a minute? Can we deal with that? Can we deal with the psychological fallout and the stress from that? I mean, some coaches are infected. Depending on who they are, there's no guarantee that they're going to be fine. There's no guarantee that all the players will be fine ...

MLB needs to step in and put on its big boy pants and be the adult in the room and recognize that. I would say for two weeks. One day is laughable. If they try to take anybody from that traveling party and have them play Tuesday or Wednesday or Thursday, I don't even have words for how reckless that would be. They know there's a good chance some of them are sick, and they put them on the field anyway? They would just be declaring that they don't care. They don't care about the health of their athletes or their coaches, or the Marlins' opponents — the Orioles — they don't care. And the Orioles, by the way, would be stating that they don't care about the people of Baltimore if that game happened, because they would be bringing in a group with a known raging outbreak to stay in a local hotel.

So everybody needs to take a minute, take a step back, and look at themselves in the mirror for God's sake. We are people — can we act like it for a minute?

4 comments:

GK said...

Med literature says upto 20% of asymptomatic cases end up getting cardiac issues (just like Ed. Rod). While racists at the top have daily testing for themselves at the WH, but they are ruling out doing anything about the pandemic. The defense department knows enough to permanently disqualify people who got infected (and recovered) from ever enlisting. While teachers and students are being asked to go back to school.

betterthanthealternative said...

It may only take 10 wins to take the AL East.

Paul Hickman said...

See that & I will raise you !

How about 6 wins ?

johngoldfine said...

Yeah, what betterthan says--is it too late to resubmit my W-L contest entry?

:)