A reporter who asked Cubs manager David Ross about the COVID-19 news that came out of Atlanta on Saturday used the word “shocking” to describe him.
But there is nothing that surprises us about this pandemic: not increasing the rates of coronavirus infection in large areas of the country, a national death toll of 132,000 or even one of the biggest stars in the National League that is affected by what which seems like a difficult case of the virus.
The Freddie Freeman case, which prompted the Braves’ first-base wife to go to Instagram to plead with Americans to take the virus seriously and wear masks, is a sobering reminder that needleball is trying threading during a pandemic and potentially instructive for the Cubs and other teams
He’s also especially personal to the Cubs like Ross and right fielder Jason Heyward, both of whom are former Freeman teammates.
“It definitely hits closer to home,” said Heyward, who texted his former roommate.
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But shocking?
If anything, the most shocking part of Saturday was that the Cubs played a game of baseball, though it was a short game within the squad that featured scoreless pitching performances by Kyle Hendricks (three innings) and Yu Darvish (two). , and fold to the center left hole. outside Darvish by Javy Báez.
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For an hour or two of practice before that, and the hour or so of “play,” it seemed almost normal.
Then the skins returned, the players washed and scattered, and planned to try to make this happen without incident once again on Sunday. Then Monday. Then on Tuesday and so on.
“We all know that some of us are going to test positive on this,” Heyward said.
In fact, that’s the most shocking part of kicking off MLB summer training camps this week: Only 1.2 percent of the first 3,185 player and other staff admissions tests produced positive results – a clear victory for the discipline throughout the league and apparent respect for safe practices.
On the other hand, these results did not include all the admission tests carried out during the week. They also didn’t include positive evidence from players and staff the teams already knew about, including at least 12 Phillies more than two weeks ago.
And a precautionary detail of Freeman’s case is that his result was reportedly negative during admission tests, before the virus hit him “like a ton of bricks,” according to his wife’s Instagram post.
“We literally just take this day by day,” Ross said. “To some extent, we are all concerned with what the next day may bring. So this is additional stress for the season.
“All the boys agree to follow the protocols and understand that this is what is needed to keep everyone as safe as possible.”
The Cubs have done a good job of sticking to protocols and preparing for this 60-game MLB season moon shot this summer like anyone in the game. They did not have a positive player test during the admission tests.
“We know it will be very different this year,” said Hendricks. “But we are embracing all the changes, following everything we can follow, and fortunately we can be playing baseball again.”
But even when the Cubs experienced what Hendricks called his “a little sense of normalcy with everything that’s happening” during a drama-free baseball day under sunny skies at Wrigley Field, the Phillies added pitcher as Aaron Nola to COVID- 19 Injured List, the Yankees reported that former hitting champion DJ LeMahieu was one of two Yankees who tested positive, and the Dodgers announced that former Cy Young winner David Price had become the sixth known player in Unsubscribe from the 2020 season (after reconsidering health risk for himself and his family).
And even before the Freeman news broke out in Atlanta, which also included three other positive tests and a coach (former Cub Eric Young), the Royals announced that the most decorated receiver in the American League, Salvador Pérez, had also given positive.
Does it all mean that baseball can’t carry out the next 15 weeks of training, regular season, and full playoff schedule?
Maybe not. But it’s at least a clear reminder that MLB had a tenuous understanding at best to control its ability to make it happen, that every day of this process is a high-alert stress test with no guarantees under behavioral conditions. perfect throughout the league.
And then it starts the next morning.
“The pandemic is in control,” Cubs president Theo Epstein emphasized when he spoke about the baseball company a few days ago.
That’s why on a Saturday when new infections in the country topped 50,000 for the third day in a row, news from Atlanta, or New York, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, or anywhere else affected by baseball, was anything but shocking.
Maybe baseball can navigate this unstable moment during startup and prevent enough spread of this virus to have more days like the Cubs on a beautiful Saturday afternoon in Wrigley.
Maybe even enough of those days to make it to October, maybe even enough to turn this “new normal” into something truly shocking.
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