MLB commissioner: Baseball won't return until public health improves
MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred discusses how coronavirus has impacted the league as a business and a pastime.
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Major League Baseball appears to have several plans at its disposal for reopening and starting the 2020 season, weeks after the coronavirus pandemic shut sports down.
One plan that has been floated is starting the season in about a dozen states or in as many as 20 ballparks, The Athletic reported Tuesday, citing sources. Another plan also reportedly includes opening in Florida, Texas and Arizona, and then taking a five-week break to reassess other locations.
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CBS Sports reported last week that MLB could start games in ballparks in Florida, Texas and Arizona without fans in attendance.
MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred downplayed what he called “ideas” to start the season in an interview on FOX Business Network’s “Mornings with Maria” earlier this month.
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“We have a variety of contingency plans that we have talked about and worked on," he said. "Plans may be too strong a word. Ideas … may be a better word. All of them are designed to address limitations that may exist when businesses restart – travel limitations, limitations on mass gatherings that may still exist. We thought about ways to try and make baseball available to all the fans across the United States in the face of those restrictions.
“So from our perspective we don’t have a plan, we have lots of ideas. What ideas come to fruition will depend on what the restrictions are, what the public health situation is. But we are intent on the idea of trying to make baseball part of the recovery – the economic recovery – and sort of a milestone on the return of normalcy.”
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He added that any plan could be contingent on getting the OK of health officials.
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