We’ll get a 2020 MLB season only if the players, coaches and staff members go to extra lengths to ensure they stay healthy.
It not only benefits them personally, but benefits their team and the entire league.
Just how far will they go to keep the coronavirus from destroying the season?
MLB’s manual is over 100 pages. Among the rules are a few we think will be difficult to enforce. Among them:
1. Keep your fingers out of your mouth
It’s so simple but so difficult. Watch a baseball game and players are licking their hands and biting their gloves often throughout the 3½ hours. Can they really stop licking themselves for that long? And who will be policing this rule? It’s hard to imagine an umpire stopping a game after a pitcher licks his fingers before throwing a key pitch in the late innings. Will there be a penalty?
Good luck with this one.
As an alternative, the league will allow pitchers to bring a wet rag in their pockets.
“Wet rag is laughable,” Brewers lefty Brett Anderson said on Twitter.
2. No extracurriculars on the road
There won’t be a ton of travel, only 30 road games in a 60-game season, and the travel will be limited to the region. But on those trips, players are being asked not to do anything on the road. They’re supposed to simply go from the hotel to the park, back and forth, and nowhere else unless they get prior approval from the team. That means swimming pools, bars and restaurants are off-limits. No mingling.
How will teams police this? Seems like a suggestion more than a rule. And it’s easy to imagine a scenario like summer sleepaway camp — see what you can get away with while the adults aren’t looking.
3. Stay 6 feet apart
On the field and off it. Social distancing will be “encouraged” on the field. In the heat of the battle, with elite athletes who have been trained to do anything to win for their entire lives, how much attention will they be paying to how close they get to their opponents? Watching some KBO games, it seems like normal baseball for the most part. Social distancing isn’t really happening on the field, but the game lends itself to social distancing, so players don’t have to do that much to keep distance.
Players seem to get that elbowing or fist-bumping is better than high-fiving and hugging. That one might be OK.
The hard part will be enforcing this off the field. Lockers need to be separated to keep guys 6 feet apart. Players will be asked not to lounge in the clubhouse, to stay away from the park until five hours before gametime and leave 90 minutes after it ends. There’s no buffet and showers are also discouraged.
The last part seems laughable; sliding in the dirt is part of their jobs. As soon as they get off the field, they always head straight for the showers. Will players really wait until they’re home to clean up? And again, who is enforcing this?
4. Non-playing personnel wear masks in dugout/bullpen at all times
Anyone who has taken a walk in the park or tried entering a recently reopened retail store knows that mask-wearing is a sensitive subject these days. Wearing a mask is meant to protect not you, but your neighbor. So many don’t feel the need to participate. It can be somewhat uncomfortable, especially in the heat, and people seem to take liberty with removing it at their leisure, or wearing it around their neck, as if that’s meant to do anything.
Now the league is asking all folks in the dugouts and bullpens to wear a mask for a game that takes 3½ hours to play. It’s a nice thought. We can hope it happens, for the safety of all involved and the survival of the season. But we already know what’s going to happen: Some people won’t wear one.
5. Spitting, smokeless tobacco and sunflower seeds are all prohibited, but chewing gum is allowed
As long as there’s been baseball, there’s been spitting and chewing. Some players have vocally come out against these rules, including Rockies All-Star Charlie Blackmon, who told Sports Illustrated in May, “I’m 100% gonna spit. That’s ingrained in my playing the game. Whether or not I’m dipping or chewing gum, I’m still gonna spit. I have to occupy my mind. It’s like putting things on autopilot. You see it like with Hunter Pence, where he would constantly be adjusting his uniform. I don’t have this idle time where my consciousness wanders. I fill my time with thought processes that are like a cruise control.”
Just this week it was reported that Blackmon has tested positive for the coronavirus, along with some Rockies teammates.
While players may not want to adhere to these rules, they seem quite important if the season is to go on safely.
The umpires have their work cut out for them.
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June 26, 2020 at 04:21PM
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5 new rules that look difficult for MLB to enforce - Boston Herald
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