James McCann: Baseball returning too soon could be ‘a recipe for disaster'

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The biggest challenge facing baseball's return from its COVID-19-imposed shutdown isn't how players will deal with playing in empty stadiums.

It isn't how realigned leagues and divisions will alter the path to the postseason.

It isn't how much service time will be handed out to players or how many rounds there will be in the draft or whether the universal DH, electronic strike zones and expanded playoffs will be here to stay.

It's whether it will be safe enough to come back at all in 2020.

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The league and the union continue to brainstorm ways to salvage what is already expected to be a shortened season, and there have been plenty of reported details regarding how players could be quarantined, regularly tested and centrally located in spring training facilities in Arizona and Florida.

But as has been seen in Japan, where the season was brought back too soon only for multiple players to test positive for COVID-19, all those measures could be useless if the timing isn't right.

"Everyone wants to get back as quickly as possible, but the biggest thing we’ve done well as a union and a league is step back and realize the current situation is greater than any one game of baseball," White Sox catcher James McCann said during a Friday conference call. "You’re talking about life and death for thousands and thousands of people. And as much as we love the game and want to be on the field, there are priorities, and keeping people healthy and safe needs to be a priority.

"If we rush things, we possibly create a recipe for disaster, whether that is with coming back too soon and people getting coronavirus, or you rush back things to where guys aren’t ready to play and you have injuries that last into following seasons.

"So that’s the big thing, understanding the importance of the situation. At the end of the day, we have a platform with Major League Baseball and as Major League Baseball players. We need to be part of the solution, not the problem."

There seem to be two major roadblocks to even thinking about it being safe to bring baseball back: 1. Would it be safe for the players to compete in an environment without risking infection? and 2. Would measures taken to assure player safety have any impact on the availability of testing or other medical resources for the general population?

Plenty of other questions accompany even affirmative answers to each of those queries, but if Major League Baseball cannot assure either of those things, then wouldn't waiting be a more prudent option?

"Don't get me wrong, I want to play just as much as anyone else, but we kind of have to know what's going on a little bit more first," White Sox relief pitcher Steve Cishek said Friday. "Every time I read something in the news, it's like a different answer. So clearly we don't really have a hold on this virus.

"For me, I definitely want there to be more absolutes to where we can either get testing, or would it affect the rest of the country where we wouldn't be taking tests away from anyone that would really need it. And if there is some sort of vaccine that they come out with, that they know would be helpful or work, to me those two things would be the most ideal to being able to play or start a season.

"If we don't have those two things, and one person gets sick, then the rest of us are going to get sick. There's just no hiding that. And then you ask about the healthcare workers. Obviously, they're our biggest heroes right now, and the last thing we want to do is make more work for them and put them at more risk."

The truth of the matter is that too much is unkown about the future of the situation facing the country and the planet to make any sort of claims about when baseball could return. Hopes of a start date in May or June or July are just that: hopes.

The continued evolution of the situation will tell us far more than any discussions being held between the league and the union, and those parties ignoring that truth could lead to big problems when it comes to player and public safety.

"If we allow things to happen the way it’s going to happen, and we don’t force things, baseball will be back," McCann said. "Whether it’s late 2020 or 2021, whatever the situation may be, baseball will come back.

"We are at the mercy of the virus. Assuming we get a hold on it, I definitely think there will be baseball (this year). As long as there’s no external forces that don’t allow us to play, I’m currently planning on being able to play.

"Unfortunately, we don’t control the virus, and we don’t control how that’s going to play out. ... I’m definitely an advocate for making sure that not only are we as players and our families and coaching staff and everybody doing what’s responsible, but also setting an example for the public that we are not rushing back to play a game just because we feel like we have to."

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