Major League Baseball Commissioner Rob Manfred said Tuesday there are "lots of ideas" in play for returning players to the nation's ball fields this summer, but everything hinges on what happens with the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.
“From our perspective, we don’t have a plan,” Manfred said on Fox Business' "Mornings with Maria." "We have lots of ideas. What ideas come to fruition depends on what the restrictions are, what the public health situation is, but we are intent on the idea of making baseball a part of the economic recovery and sort of a milestone on the return to normalcy.”
"Ideas may be a better word,” Manfred said. "All of them are designed to address limitations that may exist when businesses restart. Traveling limitations. Limitations on mass gatherings that may still exist. We thought about ways to try to make baseball available to all the fans across the United States in the face of those restrictions."
The "only real plan" is that baseball won't return until public health improves to the point that games can be played in a way that is "safe for our players, our employees, our fans and in a way that will not impact the public health situation adversely," Manfred said. "Right now, it’s largely a waiting game."
Manfred suspended spring training on March 12, while postponing the season indefinitely. The season was to open on March 26.
The most recent ideas included quarantining all 30 teams in Phoenix, where they would play in empty stadiums, or having teams play at their own spring training sites while realigning divisions based on where the teams are located.
Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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