Fanatics, officially licensed producer of fan gear for Major League Baseball, as well as all other major North American sports leagues and the NCAA, is pitching in to help ease the expected sting of COVID-19 on medical personnel as the virus continues to spread across the nation.
Michael Rubin, executive chairman of Fanatics, tweeted on Thursday that the corporation — with commissioner Rob Manfred’s blessing — has halted production of all MLB jerseys, pivoting to the production of protective masks and gowns for medical personnel to wear, using the same jersey material.
As is the situation across the globe and in the coronavirus’ domestic epicenter, southern New York, doctors and nurses on the front line of this battle are desperately ill-equipped for this fight. Personal protective equipment, or PPE, such as air-filtering masks and protective gowns, are in dangerously short supply.
Per Rubin, Pennsylvania governor Tom Wolf and attorney general Josh Shapiro reached out to him last weekend expressing the dire need for PPE across the state.
Fanatics got right to work, and as of Thursday afternoon, they plan to produce one million masks and gowns to be distributed across the state and, hopefully, across the region to New York and New Jersey, where the current situation is even bleaker.
We’ll keep you posted with more information as it becomes available.
