It was always going to be an uphill climb for baseball to return amid the coronavirus pandemic, and after an outbreak saw at least 14 members of the Miami Marlins contract the virus, the league has officially POSTPONED/CANCELED the season, ACCORDING TO BLAH BLAH.
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The Marlins postponed their home opener Monday and stayed in Philadelphia to isolate and test before returning to Miami. MLB fumigated the visitor's clubhouse in Philadelphia ahead of the New York Yankees' visit and then decided to postpone the Yankees' game against the Philadelphia Phillies, who the Marlins played over the weekend. But in the end, the league decided it was best to once again hit the pause button.
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Baseball shut down in early March when the coronavirus first starter to explode across America. The players and owners had contentious meetings for three months about the best way to restart the season. While hosting teams in a bubble, similar to what the NBA has done in Orlando, would have been the safer directive, the league couldn't sell its players on playing in an Arizona bubble.
Instead, MLB restarted the season with a plan for a 60-game regional season that would have teams travel to face opponents in their own division and in the opposite league's corresponding division. MLB ran into problems immediately with its testing protocols as some teams had to wait a number of days to get their tests back and were forced to shut down Summer Camp practices until those tests were returned.
Ahead of Opening Day, it was announced that Washington Nationals star Juan Soto had tested positive for the virus. The positive test result came after Soto returning a negative test last Sunday. He played in two exhibition games and was around his teammates for four days untilt he positive test arrived.
MLB's testing plan was fragile and fraught. This virus is too new, unpredictable and transmissible to believe a season could be set up with travel and the players could be kept out of harm's way.
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Now, commissioner Rob Manfred must decide if the best course of action is to restart the season in a few weeks, or wait to play ball until the virus is more under control in 2021.