We still don’t know if baseball will be back this season. Talks have started with the players, but nothing has been decided yet. But on Thursday night, MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred spoke with CNN’s Anderson Cooper to give us some more insights. Most of it are things that we have already heard, but, it does not sound like the league is giving up hope on a 2020 season just yet.
Manfred stated that he had “great confidence we can reach an agreement with the players that it’s safe to come back to work and we can reach agreement on the economic issues involved.” Their plans do involve playing in empty stadiums.
In terms of “forcing” players to play, Manfred said that won’t happen. “We hope we will be able to convince the vast majority of our players that it’s safe to return to work… We would never try to force them to return to work.”
How are they going to handle testing players? By testing them multiple times a week, Manfred said. The COVID testing would also be supplemented with the antibody testing, but this would be occurring less frequently. This testing would happen using a facility in Utah that MLB helped to convert into a COVID testing lab. It would take 24 hours to get results on these tests. However, instant testing would be available for players who are showing symptoms.
If a player does test positive, rather than making them quarantine for 14 days, they would quarantine until they test negative twice.
Of course, money came up as well. According to Manfred, the monetary loss not having a 2020 season would be to the owners “could approach $4 billion.”
Manfred did also acknowledge the impact that baseball has on the fans, saying that “historically baseball’s played a role in the recovery from difficult events.” He’s definitely not wrong there.
Watch part of the interview here.
