Hello! So begins a new writing project. What it will be is hard to discern at present, but given the moment in which we live, it felt like a sensible thing to do.
So: in honor of Major League Baseball’s opening day, here is an essay on why that should never have happened.
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Baseball’s Next Great Moral Reckoning Is Here. And It Is Running Away From It.
Major league baseball has never been washed clean of sin. First, it was segregation. Then, it was free movement of labor. Each was “solved” insofar as they officially disappeared from the ledgers, while in many respects remained in place to this very day. (This is to say nothing of the barbaric treatment of women by players, owners, executives, scouts, and male fans.) Major league baseball in the United States has done a beautiful job airbrushing its own history, a sepia-toned, Vaseline-lensed romance of simpler times and rustic individualism, the American dream played out nine innings at a time.
None of it is true. But isn’t it pretty to think so? The fantasy of baseball—the secular cathedral at which “all” Americans pray—has such a remarkable hold over an ever dwindling number of people, which perhaps makes its hold even stronger (particularly when you factor in the age, skin color, and political persuasion of a majority of its fans). Even the zeitgeist’s own personal Jesus can’t seem to resist it.
As SARS-CoV-2—or in the common parlance, the coronavirus—claims more than three million American victims and its disease, COVID-19, ends more than 140,000 lives, the only man in federal government worth trusting is practically giddy with excitement at the prospect of Major League Baseball’s return. For months, Anthony Fauci has been strangely optimistic about the whole affair, repeatedly stating that frequent testing and the maximum level of achievable social distancing could allow for a baseball season to be played safely. If Fauci said it, who are we to argue?
Consider everything that has happened over the past few months:
The abandonment of multiple proposed “bubble” structures that would have failed anyway, given their proposed locations
The denial of salaries and service time to low-risk players who decided to opt out because they lived with high-risk people
The league’s rejection of a daily testing protocol for players
The disastrous initial rollout of testing over 4th of July weekend
The reports of Freddie Freeman’s degree of COVID-triggered illness, when he stated that he and his family “had done everything right”
Cases exploding in places like Los Angeles, Phoenix, Houston, Pittsburgh, Tampa-St. Petersburg, Atlanta-Cobb County, and Miami
Additional testing labs used by teams in places where testing capacity is overwhelmed, turnaround times for civilians’ test results expanded past the point of usefulness
The death count finally catching up to the rapidly accelerating case count
Both the Canadian and Pennsylvania governments’ refusal to let the Toronto Blue Jays play at the Rogers Centre and PNC Park, respectively
The extraordinary risk about be undertaken by all 30 teams as they travel in and out of cities where the virus is far from under control, where most local health departments have not coordinated with either the league or its teams
Even after all of that, there is Fauci, grinning like a little kid, getting amped up to throw the first pitch at Nationals Park on Opening Day.
A great many fans and members of the media share Fauci’s enthusiasm. You kind of understand such an attitude from the media. After all, they have a vested interest in the existence of a major league baseball season. The sports media industry has taken a beating over the past decade as it is. That process has proceeded at warp speed since March. Without baseball, many people would lose their livelihoods, and possibly their careers. They have to feel excited about the next three months.
Fans, I am repeatedly told, are so desperate for a psychologically nourishing distraction from the horrors of their regular lives, that it can only be fulfilled by sports. Baseball in particular, I am once again repeatedly told, can do this better than anything else, since it is our national pastime. Kyle Schwarber has heard vox populi, and the chorus is unanimous, according to him.
There have been many reporters, columnists, and podcast hosts who have raised numerous concerns about the league’s health and safety protocol, and the ethical breach a baseball season could pose to American life. But, one by one, those concerns appear to have been allayed by every subsequent testing report provided by the league, and every intrasquad game for which the team’s clubhouse attendant must play left field. [Quotes condensed and edited for clarity]
“I’ve had a lot of moments watching these instrasquad games where it just felt really good to have baseball on, to be able to delight in guys doing cool stuff on the field.” - Meg Rowley, Effectively Wild, July 22, 2020
“It’s starting to feel like you could have a season. It doesn’t feel quite as unworkable as it did a few weeks ago. If they can do it and hold it together without people getting sick, why not? I miss baseball.” - David Roth, Beyond the Scrum, July 22, 2020
“Dodging COVID, new rules, a short season … in many ways this is the most unpredictable and unconventional of baseball seasons, which is to say it perfectly suits [manager Craig] Counsell and his Brewers.” - Tom Verducci, Sports Illustrated, July 21, 2020
Perhaps the two most important players throughout this whole crisis—albeit for different reasons—are now not only prepared to play, but have wholeheartedly embraced the health and safety protocols that had initially looked so flimsy.
Fauci’s on board. Sean Doolittle and Mike Trout are on board. Only wealthy veterans on the decline and a smattering of players concerned about injury recovery have opted out. Smart, savvy, clear-eyed members of the media have come around to the idea of a baseball season’s safety and inherent value.
It’s all starting to feel so normal.
Except, we have other reporters and pundits saying things like this:
Those aren’t fans venting their frustrations. Those are writers for major national publications with wide readerships, who help shape the discourse around a public health crisis. According to men like Tom Verducci and David O’Brien, we should sit down, shut up, and be thankful to have a baseball season, because everything else is so much worse. And because everything else is so much worse, how bad could baseball be?
I take Doolittle and the players at their word that they have done a superlative job self-policing in order to ensure that all players stay masked up, socially distanced, and self-isolated when not on the field. I imagine that they will continue the practice when the season kicks off.
But we are entering uncharted waters when the season does start. I’ve been tracking the spread of COVID-19 in the 28 localities in which major league teams play. The management of the disease isn’t getting better; it’s getting worse. [Data courtesy of covidactnow.org]
Counties mid-outbreak (7)
Cobb & Fulton Counties (Braves)
Harris County (Astros)
Los Angeles County (Dodgers)
Maricopa County (Diamondbacks)
Miami-Dade County (Marlins)
Milwaukee County (Brewers)
Pinellas & Hillsborough Counties (Rays)
Counties & cities on the verge of an outbreak (14)
Allegheny County (Pirates)
Baltimore (Orioles)
Cuyahoga County (Cleveland)
Denver County (Rockies)
Hamilton County (Reds)
Hennepin County (Twins)
Jackson County (Royals)
Orange County (Angels)
St. Louis (Cardinals)
San Diego County (Padres)
San Francisco County (Giants)
Tarrant County (Rangers)
Washington, D.C. (Nationals)
Wayne County (Tigers)
Counties & cities where the virus is spreading (6)
Alameda County (A’s)
Cook County (Cubs & White Sox)
King County (Mariners)
New York City (Mets & Yankees)
Philadelphia County (Phillies)
Suffolk County (Red Sox)
The virus is not under control in a single place where Major League Baseball is played, and that includes all of the reported options for the Blue Jays’ new home.
But, you may argue, if players continue to behave as they have for the past three weeks, everything should be fine, no? We could even go further and say that grounds crews, clubhouse attendants, cleaning staffs, bus drivers, airline crews, hotel staffs, and players’ families and loved ones will all obey the necessary protocols: masks, social distancing, isolation whenever possible, and plenty of hand washing. Let’s say, for the sake of argument, that this behavior continues among the tens of thousands of people in baseball’s ecosystem for the next three months.
Such a setup could withstand a breach. A couple players could get sick—hell, even a few players—and so long as there aren’t any clusters on a single team, infected players could be quickly isolated and an outbreak could be prevented. The season would be played along a tightrope, but perhaps it could succeed. Players not only looked out for themselves, but for each other and their loved ones. Even a sports epidemiologist has more hope now than he did two weeks ago.
We now wade into the territory of testing ethics and mental health. An example from another league can be used as a potent illustration. The National Women’s Soccer League was the first contact team sports league to return in the United States, and by all accounts, their health and safety measures were even more stringent than any men’s league. Because of their stringence, players could bring their families inside the bubble. By playing in Salt Lake County, Utah, the league avoided a bubble setup in a hotspot like Orlando (NBA, MLS) or Maricopa County, Arlington, Houston, and other areas in Florida (MLB’s proposed bubble setups). They cut a team before it entered the bubble, demonstrating a proactive approach to a possible outbreak. Not a single person tested positive for the entire month of the tournament. Salt Lake County’s testing capacity was also never overwhelmed that players’ high volumes of testing and rapid turnaround times threatened civilian access to tests.
And yet, Salt Lake County’s positive test percentage danced around the 10 percent threshold for all of July. If an area’s tests are coming back positive at least 10 percent of the time, that means the area doesn’t have enough tests to proactively track and manage the virus’s spread. In other words, had the NWSL not played its tournament, they may have freed up tests for the public.
That most likely didn’t happen. What may have happened, however, were slower turnaround times for the public’s test results. Athletes need their test results 24-48 hours after being administered. There is an extremely high chance that such a timeframe slows down turnaround times for others.
All of that is circumstantial without further reporting. We do have reporting on the effects of the tournament on players’ mental health. It was, by all accounts, a grueling affair. Weekslong isolation, the stress of a global pandemic, and a spotlight firmly fixed on systemic racism and police brutality weighed on players. One such player even had a panic attack in the middle of a game.
Major League Baseball will face similar problems. Players may be getting more comfortable with the testing protocols, but that doesn’t change the persistent uncertainty they must endure every single day for the next two to three months. They may be recovering from COVID-19. They may have a family member who is recovering. They may have to sit out a few days to wait for their test results, not knowing if they got infected and then spread it to others without knowing it. They must walk through buses and hotel lobbies, wondering if an infected member of the cleaning staff coughed with their mask off, the virus aerosolized and swirling through their hotel room.
The theoretical testing issues experienced by the NWSL will be very real for baseball teams, too. Positive test rates in many teams’ communities are far higher than 10 percent. The Diamondbacks have even used alternate testing sites, which they claim do not deprive the public of access to tests. They provide no evidence for such a claim, and even if it’s true, it’s hard to imagine players’s tests not slowing down results turnaround for others.
This is a classic dilemma of moral philosophy: when resources are scarce for all who need them, who deserves them? It’s possible to argue that baseball players need their test results faster than a member of the general public. What if that member of the general public works on a farm and is integral to keeping the food supply chain intact? What if that person works at a grocery store or pharmacy? What if they work at a hospital? Can Major League Baseball, all 30 teams, and the labs they work with honestly argue that their testing protocols won’t disrupt the public’s tests in any way at all?
The league’s supposed morally sound position on using their centralized, refitted doping lab in Utah doesn’t hold much weight if you consider that, while that lab may not be taking any tests away from the general public, it could be adding tests into a national marketplace desperate for them. There is no direct incentive for Major League Baseball to do this, but that doesn’t mean there is no moral imperative for them to do it.
That finally gets us to the dark and unsavory underbelly of this whole affair: capitalism. Specifically, the kind of unregulated, unchecked-by-strong-labor-unions type of capitalism that is so prominent in the 21st century. The dollar you could make tomorrow matters far more than the hundred dollars you might lose next month. The health, safety, and psychological wellbeing of your labor force, as well as the general public who consume your product, matter very little in the face of wealth accumulation. Major League Baseball is holding a season because a collection of billionaires who have the ability to cover their losses and turn a profit down the line don’t want to lose out on the tens of millions they stand to make right now. That’s why they want fans back in the seats, despite ICUs bursting at the seams in Houston and Miami.
The players’ backs are against the wall, too. Why are no otherwise healthy young players opting out? They don’t have financial security yet. For all the owner- and league-driven propaganda about greedy players, the fact is that professional athletes have an incredibly small window to make the money they will need for the rest of their lives. The system is already constructed to ensure that most players won’t get there until they turn 30, and perhaps never get there at all. For most baseball players, they’ve been forced to choose between their and their families’ health and a paycheck this season. It’s a similar tale to that being told in meatpacking plants, Amazon fulfillment centers, and other so-called essential businesses that have made no effort to protect the health or the finances of their employees. To put it succinctly, “It’s not consent when you place someone in a situation where they don’t have another viable choice.”
Athletes are being offered up for our own entertainment, most with a gun to their heads. When we attempt to normalize the impending season—or describe the challenges presented by COVID-19 as just another quirky rule change to maneuver around—we minimize the enormity of the situation at hand. We erase the very real dangers the players are placed within, and the psychological burden that they must carry thanks to those dangers.
Many realize this. The second half of Meg Rowley’s above quote consisted of the “icky” feelings that quickly creep into her mind, once she realizes she is taking pleasure in a baseball game. David Roth went through a similar process. No matter how comfortable we get with baseball, the creeping dread of the pandemic should find its way back into our consciousness.
It is because of that very real threat of normalization that we must emphasize just how abnormal this year is, and not for any fun, clubbie-playing-left-field reason. The fact that the clubbie is playing left field is the problem.
That normalization is hard to shake. Sports fandom offers us a para-familial structure, a community where great joys and great sorrows can be shared with like-hearted individuals. Fandom is tribalism, in the best and worst senses of the word. It brings us together, the bond tightening when we have a common Other against which to inflict our wrath. Sports is a proxy war for these emotions, literal physical conflict wrought in comfort and safety.
But why do we become fans in the first place? Roth described watching the first Mets-Yankees exhibition game of the second spring training as “an autonomic response.” He had no control over his emotional reaction to the game. It just happened. That indicates something deeply primal about our relationship to sports.
I had a professor in graduate school who categorized this response as a reaction to “the only form of live narrative we have.” Sports is unique in human culture because it writes a story—there are protagonists, goals, antagonists, conflict, and resolution. The twist is that neither the audience (fans) nor the authors (the players) have any idea what’s going to happen in the story until it happens. And the other team is attempting to write a completely different story from your team! Human beings recognize this inherent tension, and the thrill of jumping into the abyss with their fellow fans AND the players. The suspense that fills the normal feedback loop between author and audience is what creates such intense emotional reactions to a sporting event. There is simply nothing like it in the world.
I am not immune to these forces, either. All I want is to bask in the glory of Clayton Kershaw’s curveball, or the crack of the bat as Nolan Arenado launches a pitch into the stratosphere. I want to hear the snap of J.T. Realmuto’s glove. I want to watch Jackie Bradley, Jr. lay out for a a catch in the left-center field gap. I want revel in Mike Trout working an eight-pitch walk. I want to feel the tension of an Edwin Diaz relief appearance. Baseball is the most glorious sport, to paraphrase Walt Whitman. I want to drink it in until I can’t see straight.
To do that in 2020 is to blind us to the lives of athletes. Sure, we enjoy the human interest stories that pop up in our feeds once a week or so, the heartwarming tales of youthful struggle and current triumph, the charitable goodwill, the family tragedies recently overcome. What we rarely wish to engage with is the tangible effect of a labor system that treats its workers like assets rather than human beings. This has been going on since the times of Roman gladiators, but only in the past decade has it been given the neoliberal spit shine of modern finance. It makes it even more difficult to let players reclaim their economic humanity in such a system.
Every time we cheer the players on this season, there needs to be that little sting Rowley describes, your superego telling your id that Christian Yelich or Mookie Betts or Gerrit Cole could contract the coronavirus, they could infect someone else, and COVID-19 could potentially ruin their careers if their hearts or lungs are sufficiently damaged.
That is simply the isolated emotional relationship of one individual to another, though. We must also try to counteract the normalization of sports in a world where only the Civil War, the 1918 pandemic, and World War II have killed more Americans than COVID-19. More bodies are going to pile up in the months to come. Baseball will affect testing access or results speed in communities that desperately need them.
Moreover, how will baseball’s arrival affect our ability to reopen schools? The more mass activities like sports—even without fans—arrive in our lives risks depleting resources that would be needed for far more critical social infrastructure. Are fan-less sporting events going to spend our “contact budget” in the ways that bars, indoor restaurants, concerts, and fan-attended sporting events will? No. But the more people move through hotspots, the greater the risk of spread, no matter how stringent your protocols are.
What all of this comes down to is allocation of resources and the psychological health of the populace. Major League Baseball would have us believe that they will not deprive communities of tests or slow down turnaround times. They would also have us believe that there is no way for people to feel comfortable about the state of the world unless they can watch a baseball game at night.
To the first, I say, prove it. To the second, I say that we must become more imaginative in how we find emotional fulfillment amid this hellish year. When we demand a distraction from the world, we forget that a distraction literally means to hide us from reality. We cannot afford to hide from reality. Lives are at stake. How can baseball help a nation heal when so many keep dying?
Major League Baseball must face its next great moral reckoning, not run from it. We must not run from it, either.