Coronavirus and the 2020 Season (Season Postponed, pg3)

[sighyoung]

Baseball shouldn't have canceled.

They should play the games without fans.

That's not going to help. They're saying players shouldn't even be practicing together. The seriousness of this issue is being severely understated. It's bad. Like, really bad.

But why are players being held to a different standard than every day Americans? My sister has to take a train in and out of NYC each day to work at a school. Isn't that significantly worse than playing baseball, as far as spreading the virus is concerned?

They shouldn't be held to a different standard. Everyone should be in the house but the US has shown bad leadership in this time. Everyone is still more concerned about money being lost than the wellbeing/health of society. Your sister shouldn't have to risk taking the train everyday at this moment. NYC should be in shutdown mode.

++ Of course we are concerned about your sister's welfare. She shouldn't have to go in. In fact, there's widespread criticism of Mayor De Blasio concerning this.

[sighyoung]

drmarx114's comments raise additional points: 1) economics (beyond human welfare) likely is playing a role in the shutdowns. All would agree that fans shouldn't gather together because of the risk, although player risk is certainly there because of proximity to others in games, locker rooms, hotels, and when traveling. But (and I'm not trying to be nasty or paranoid) owners also view players as investments, and don't want anything bad to happen to those investments. What Bill de Blasio is thinking is anyone's guess, but I wouldn't say it's informed by the best in public-health practice.

2) There is great social value in entertainment/sports at a time of crisis. I don't wish any player/coaches/reporters/broadcast crews put in harm's way by this, but many leagues will likely begin thinking through what can be done in the future to try to continue games while trying to minimize risk. What that looks like, who knows.For instance, click here for an opinion piece by Tyler Cowen on the subject.

[Magneto2.0]

Baseball shouldn't have canceled.

They should play the games without fans.

That's not going to help. They're saying players shouldn't even be practicing together. The seriousness of this issue is being severely understated. It's bad. Like, really bad.

But why are players being held to a different standard than every day Americans? My sister has to take a train in and out of NYC each day to work at a school. Isn't that significantly worse than playing baseball, as far as spreading the virus is concerned?

They shouldn't be held to a different standard. Everyone should be in the house but the US has shown bad leadership in this time. Everyone is still more concerned about money being lost than the wellbeing/health of society. Your sister shouldn't have to risk taking the train everyday at this moment. NYC should be in shutdown mode.

++ Of course we are concerned about your sister's welfare. She shouldn't have to go in. In fact, there's widespread criticism of Mayor De Blasio concerning this.

I just saw they’re shutting down all NYC schools until at least April 20th. That’s a start at least.

[Magneto2.0]

So MLB season may not start until Memorial Day weekend
https://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2020/03/ ... ekend.html

[jagtrader]

Good luck with that, MLB. Maybe just keep quiet until we have some clue how bad this is going to become.

[BottenFieldofDreams]

WRT Sigh's post, on Bill Simmons' podcast Malcolm Gladwell had some interesting things to say about the resilience of people and how sports could be good for people in a situation like this with some historical perspective. That part starts at roughly 40 minutes. Worth a 5 minute listen from there.

The episode does get political, immediately after that discussion (Gladwell has some interesting points about Trump/Federal failures: think "I'm tired of listening to these 'so-called' experts." -or whatever that Brexit quote was).


https://www.theringer.com/the-bill-simm ... m-gladwell

[BottenFieldofDreams]

The Astros are winning the Coronavirus for sure.

[Famous Mortimer]

Gladwell is a charlatan and I wouldn't trust him to tell me what colour the sky was.

[Jocephus]

[BottenFieldofDreams]

Gladwell is a charlatan and I wouldn't trust him to tell me what colour the sky was.

Simmons and Gladwell is a pair of guys who get more credit for intelligence than they deserve. But I appreciated this conversation. I like Gladwell. I think he's a great storyteller. I don't always buy his conclusions, but I've never been upset by them. In this case he's drawing on his reporting of AIDS, the flu meeting, and the German blitz on London for reference.

'Charlatan' is a strong word. What's your beef?