Will MLB players decide not to play if baseball returns with safety regulations?
Bruce Levine, Tony Andracki and Doug Glanville joined host Cole Wright on Cubs 360 Daily, presented by Miller Lite, to discuss MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred’s comments about a plan to safely return to play baseball in 2020.
Manfred went on CNN with Anderson Cooper and Dr. Sanjay Gupta to discuss the plan to bringing back baseball safely in 2020 and hoped that they can convince the vast majority of players that it will be safe to return to work. Manfred also went into detail about an 80-page document that was sent out that detailed the steps they would take to ensure that.
“At the end of the day, however, if there are player’s with health conditions or just their own personal doubts, we would never try to force them to come to work. They can wait until they feel they are ready to come,” Manfred said.
If the star players decide that they do not want to play this season, Glanville believes that baseball has a problem.
“You’re talking about the icons of the game. That’s who people come to see. In case they can’t come with no fans, then you want to watch these players,” Glanville said. “These iconic figures are going to be important and plus, they also set the tone. [If] all of sudden Trout is not playing, Bellinger is not playing, then you look and say well the ripple effect of what that’s going to say to the rest of the players about the safety.
“I think the right move was Commissioner Manfred to establish that without forcing you to play, but at the same time, of course they want all these players to do it in unison to be together through the Player’s Association and get all the best players and the brightest players because this is the time when you need eyeballs on the game once it does come back.”
Levine added that he doesn’t expect players to go back to work if they already have pre-existing conditions.
“From the perspective that it’s just baseball players that are at risk, well we are a whole world of people that are going to be at risk going back to work,” Levine said. “Major League Baseball is going to do everything they can and Rob Manfred has talked about the fact that players will be tested two times a week; that if somebody tests positive, they’ll go to isolation. It won’t stop the game.”
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