Marlins' home opener canceled amid coronavirus outbreak among players, coaches
- by Grant Boone
- in Sports
- — Jul 28, 2020
Major League Baseball's long-awaited return already experienced a setback.
On Monday, two games (Orioles-Marlins and Yankees-Phillies) were postponed after at least 11 Marlins players and two coaches tested positive for COVID-19.
The league will take extra precautions with the news of the outbreak with "additional priority testing for teams who have an outbreak", but there were "no serious talks as of yet (in regards to) cancelling or pausing the season", during a regularly scheduled conference call among the league's 30 owners Monday afternoon, Nightingale tweeted. As the first of the four major North American sports leagues to begin their regular season since coronavirus-related shutdowns began in March, MLB was considered an important test case for others. Price had decided not to play the season with the Dodgers out of a concern for his own health, as well as his family's health.
"The members of the Marlins' traveling party are self-quarantining in place" while awaiting the results of additional COVID-19 testing, Major League Baseball said in a statement.
"After a successful Spring 2.0, we have now experienced challenges once we went on the road and left Miami", Marlins CEO Derek Jeter said in a written statement. No date has been set for the rescheduled game.
The Marlins' outbreak raised anew doubts about MLB's ability to finish a 60-game season barely underway amid a pandemic. The team played the White Sox in Chicago over the weekend, and on Monday the White Sox announced manager Ricky Renteria had cold symptoms and was being tested for COVID-19. Last month, the league closed all of its spring training facilities for intensive cleaning after a flurry of positive tests. So far, no players in the National Basketball Association or NHL have tested positive for the virus which shows just how successful this practice is.
What's next: We can't reasonably expect underfunded public schools to cope as they face reopening with conflicting guidance when a corporation with nearly unlimited wealth is overwhelmed in a matter of days. Many pro football players will be reporting to NFL training camps Tuesday. ESPN's Jeff Passan and Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic were first to report the game would not be played. Since then, however, ESPN has reported that eight more players and two coaches have also tested positive.
