TORONTO – All 30 Major League Baseball teams will train in their regular-season stadiums for the pandemic-shortened season after the Toronto Blue Jays received a waiver from the Canadian federal government on Thursday to train at the Rogers Center.
Toronto will relocate the camp from its spring training complex in Dunedin, Florida, where the players performed for the admissions tests. The Blue Jays will create a quarantine environment at the Rogers Center and the adjoining Toronto Marriott City Center Hotel, which dominates the field.
Canadian Public Health Agency spokeswoman Marie-Pier Burelle said players and staff received a waiver from the mandatory isolation order on “grounds of national interest.”
This exemption does not cover the regular season and player travel between the US and Canada. Blue Jays president Mark Shapiro said the team hopes to know within 10 days where it will play the regular season games.
“They felt better about being here,” Shapiro said of the players. “Toronto was a more comforting and safe place for them.”
COVID-19 cases are on the rise in Florida, as health officials reported a record one-day total of 10,000 new cases, and earlier this week several players and Dunedin staff had tested positive. Ontario reported that 153 new cases and businesses in Toronto are reopening as the number of new cases decreases.
Players must take private charter flights to Toronto this weekend. Each will need two negative tests before boarding the plane, and each will be evaluated every day.
MLB required a waiver of a requirement that anyone entering Canada for non-essential reasons must isolate themselves for 14 days. The border between the United States and Canada remains closed to non-essential travel until at least July 21.
Burelle said MLB is offering “robust measures to mitigate the risk of COVID-19 importation and spread in Canada.” She said Toronto Public Health and Ontario Public Health also support the proposed risk mitigation measures.
“Based on these factors, the Government of Canada issued an exemption to the mandatory isolation order on grounds of national interest for MLB team members and staff,” he said. “Blue Jays players and staff who have traveled from outside of Canada will be required to stay at the Rogers Center and in the specific areas of the attached hotel for 14 days.”
Burelle noted that they have approved the MLB only for the preseason training phase and that regular season games have yet to be evaluated. “Players and staff must comply with the MLB public health plan,” he said.
The border is expected to close well past opening day in late July.
“We have a plan for that,” Shapiro said of the regular season. “We still have some areas to address. I would say we are 80% of the way with pure public health issues, but then there are travel related issues.”
Shapiro said the visiting teams would not leave the confines of the Rogers Center and the hotel attached to the stadium if the regular season plan is approved. Shapiro said the Major League Baseball Players Association supports the proposal, but players union spokesman Chris Dahl said the association had not yet signed the plan.
“Never leaving that footprint until they finish playing a three-game series would be the expectation of a visiting team,” he said.
The Blue Jays will wear four locker rooms and employ social distancing during training camp. They will not play exhibition games with other teams during training camp. Hotel precautions include contactless check-ins and discouraging the use of elevators.
“I don’t think we can do it more safely than we are,” Shapiro said.
Shapiro acknowledged that the plan is not without risks, but said that no player or staff has chosen not to participate.
Dr. Andrew Morris, professor of infectious diseases at the University of Toronto and medical director of the Antimicrobial Management Program at the Sinai-University Health Network, said the government and MLB will face significant setback from the medical community of Canada if they approve a plan that allows players to come and go between the US and Canada to play regular season games. He said the United States is a disaster right now, particularly in the south and southwest.
“The Major League Baseball has basically said that we are ignoring all the concepts of a bubble, and we are going to have a virtual bubble in motion, and I just don’t see it as viable,” Morris said.
“You can wait, want, and want as much as you want. What COVID has really shown the Americans is that hope is not a strategy or a plan. I would really oppose the plan for players to come and go between Canada and the States United without any kind of quarantine. It just doesn’t make sense to me. It’s just crazy on my mind. “
Federal and local health authorities in Canada have approved a plan for the NHL to play in Toronto or Edmonton, Alberta, but the plan does not involve traveling back between the United States and Canada. The NHL is selecting core cities, most likely two, where all teams will play.
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