That's right Arizona. Chase Field in fact, and the 10 spring training facilities located in the Phoenix area might become the home to all 30 major league clubs should a federally approved plan go into effect.
According to Jeff Passan, ESPN's Baseball Insider who broke the story on SportsCenter early Tuesday morning, Major League Baseball and the players are looking to start the season in May in Arizona, and they have support of "high ranking federal public health officials," Passan writes.
All 30 teams and league personnel, umpires, for example, would play a make-up Spring Training and regular season games in the Desert all while being sequestered at local hotels. Travel will be limited to the stadium and the hotel. That's it.
One major stumbling block according to ESPN is the availability of Coronavirus testing and a quick turn around on results. Another issue, of course, is logistics -- such as a full buy-in from all the players. Passan estimates that all 30 teams would be sequestered in Arizona for 4-1/2 months. So if the season starts in May, we wouldn't see the Mets or Yankees return to New York until September, maybe even October if either is so fortunate enough to qualify for the playoffs. And of course if the City is no longer a Coronavirus hot-zone.
Additionally, Passan reports that MLB and the MLBPA will discuss economics of the plan in which the league will "forego gate receipts that account for the largest proportion of its annual revenue that exceeds $10 billion."
How many games will be played is still a question. There has been discussion of seven-inning double headers in order to assure a 162 game season. In addition, there is talk of placing the players in the stands six-feet apart from each other, rather than in the dugout. Of course, roster expansion is going to be apart of this discussion.
In other words there will be no fans in the building at all this season.
This plan sounds very similar to an idea that has been kicked around by the NBA where basketball would finish its regular season and play the postseason in Las Vegas. Of course that is speculation at this point, since the NBA announced Monday it will not make a decision on whether it will finish the season or not until May at the earliest.
The NHL has also been willing to re-start the season in the summer and name a Stanley Cup Champion in August, while also affecting the start date of the 2020-21 season. However ESPN has reported that it's looking less and less likely by the day. So who knows at that this point if the NHL will resume at all.
Meanwhile the NFL is mandating that teams hold their drafts virtually this month, even though it will not postpone the rookie draft which takes place April 23-25. There is no indication if the season will be delayed. Even President Trump has been pushing the NFL to keep to schedule. The NFL Schedule reslease, which takes place in mid-April might get delayed til May.Anyway, back to baseball.
So forget seeing the Mets and Yankees playing in New York at all this year. And considering the situation that the Tri-State area finds itself, as the epicenter of the Coronavirus pandemic, it wouldn't be practical for Major League Baseball to allow its teams to travel to this area as the pandemic continues. Putting all 30 teams in one isolated location is the most practical move to make until a solution to stop the virus is made.
Of course perhaps the best move of all would be ... dare I say ... to have no season at all, and cancel the 2020 baseball season altogether and regroup for 2021, when a vaccine for the virus hopefully will be available.
We'll see, but it sounds we will have baseball in some form this summer.
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