Steve Cishek: ‘I don't think I could' play season quarantined from family

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There are a lot of things baseball would have to figure out before any of the reported plans the league and the union are discussing can get off the ground.

No concerns are more pressing than how the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic evolves in the United States. Part of the plan involves frequent testing of players, coaches, team employees, and the small armies of workers who will be needed to transport and house a quarantined league, as well as those needed to broadcast games on TV. Baseball needs to make sure it is not receiving tests and medical resources while the general population does not have widespread access, as well as that conditions are safe enough for players to play without exposing them to the virus.

White Sox catcher James McCann said last week that baseball rushing back could be "a recipe for disaster."

But understandably, there is one detail of the reported proposals concerning players as much as any other.

Obviously nothing has been finalized, but one of the scenarios, which would involve quarantining the entire season in Arizona, involved keeping players' families away to reduce the number of people who would need to be tested and kept away from the general population.

And that idea is not sitting well with some.

"That would definitely be a major concern," White Sox relief pitcher Steve Cishek said during a conference call last week. "It kind of sits in the back of your mind where if they ask us to be away from our families for the duration of the season, I would have a hard time agreeing to play under those circumstances.

"I want to be with my family for the whole season. Not only do I not want to be away from them, I just wouldn't feel right leaving my family in the middle of what we would call a pandemic. I just don't think I would be a good husband or dad in that regard.

"Right now, it would be looking like I don't think I could do that."

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While Cishek is taking a hard stance there — a reasonable one, at that — the players are open to ideas that can allow the 2020 season to happen in some form.

Both Cishek and McCann expressed their desire to get back on the field and their willingness to listen to ideas that would confine the season to one or two locations in an attempt to combat the spread of the virus.

But among the issues that could have a larger scale impact on the health and safety of the public and the players, they are rightfully thinking about those closest to them. Leaving our families during the most uncertain times many of us have faced in our lives would be a non-starter, and baseball players are no different.

"Being married and having two young kids, I'm not a huge fan of leaving them for, potentially, five months," McCann said. "If there was something on the table as far as, the first few weeks you're going to be on your own in isolation, but we have a plan in place for the entire country where things will open up, we can isolate for spring training, and then families will be able to join. That's a different story.

"But telling guys they have to leave their families indefinitely to then go isolate themselves, I don't know that that's the right answer."

It's a complicated puzzle for the league right now, trying to piece together a season under unprecedented circumstances, made even harder when the pieces are changing shape and not all present.

Having players' families present during the entire season throws another variable into the mix. The season won't be able to start until it's not only safe for players to compete and for all the above parties to work and live alongside them, but until it's safe for all of those people plus players' families to quarantine together.

Just considering this one potentially deal-breaking issue shows how challenging baseball's effort to salvage the 2020 season is.

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