"I’m sorry, sir, we aren’t certain why your wife’s oxygen levels are dropping, but we’re unable to give her a COVID-19 test at this time. Clayton Kershaw is pitching tomorrow and that test is set aside for him."

By now you’ve heard of MLB’s discussions to bring all Major League Baseball teams to Arizona to play the 2020 season in empty Spring Training facilities and Chase Field. Though talks are in an initial phase and the logistics of such an arrangement are expected to be difficult (if not impossible) to pull off, the fact that MLB has aggressively pursued this plan over the last two weeks speaks to the common belief that baseball will not occur in 2020 unless drastic action is taken. The benefit of such drastic action is reported to be significant as social distancing and quarantining is expected to continue through the summer and fall and baseball could provide a reprieve for those stuck at home for this extended period of time. Just as baseball helped to heal a nation after 9/11, could it help the nation through this tumultuous period occurring in tandem with what is expected to be one of the most acrimonious presidential elections in history?

I’m not so sure - count me as highly skeptical as to the workability and benefit this option provides relative to the cost which will incur. If the MLB releases a thoughtful and effective plan, this skepticism may change, but as I see it today this proposal amounts to nothing more than a desperate grab for lost 2020 revenue by greedy owners, agents, and some in Arizona state government. Since this proposal involves our great state of Arizona and those of us who are residents of the state, I wanted to spend some time to unpack this proposal and detail some of the most significant concerns of this plan. Please bear with me on this essay and be forewarned that it may veer political at times (I am, mostly, an apolitical person but there are some things in which I take strong positions).

Let’s set aside the Arizona heat in June and July from the outset - while it would be an issue for players, it is likely the most manageable aspect of this proposal. Contrary to the opinions of those who have never set foot in a desert before, the dry heat of Phoenix is fine even in its peak - stay hydrated and stay in the shade and you would be amazed at how 110 degree heat really feels (quite honestly, anything above 105 degrees feels like 105 degrees). July may in fact be more intolerable for players as the monsoons arrive and humidity rises in the mornings and evenings minimizing the large night-time temperature swing. The heat aspect to this is a problem of logistics - where to play and when to accommodate the Eastern TV markets; this could effectively be done though.

Let’s move to the most significant requirement for this proposal to work - COVID-19 testing:

Via The Athletic - "Players would undergo regular testing to ensure they are not infected during an initial quarantine period, then begin an abbreviated spring training and continue with regular testing thereafter."

Consider the list of individuals who would require this "regular" testing: players (40 per team as rosters would need to expand to accommodate inevitable injuries), coaches (7 per team), umpires (76 total in rotating 4-man teams), and trainers/medical staff (assume 10 per team)... this calculates to 1,786 people. But wait! This doesn’t include stadium support staff, TV crews, front-office personnel, or the countless others who would support the movement of players between stadiums or hotel staff where players are staying. In all, thousands of individuals would be required to participate in this plan and either quarantine themselves or adhere to an extremely strict regimen of social distancing. Rapid testing (which does not exist today) would need to be made available on a mass scale and all persons involved in this plan would need to be frequently tested.

The availability of tests is one thing but the lab constraints to process those tests would be monumental too. This all occurs at a time when test kits have been in limited supply for the last month, testing has been sporadic and widely considered to be insufficient, and state lab capability for processing tests in Arizona is stupendously limited pushing test analysis to private labs. While commendable of private labs to step up and process COVID-19 kits, who obtains precedence when a kit is sent in from a hospital or from the MLB? (I’m sure MLB would pay much, much more for faster results.) This sets up a conflict for limited resources which are needed on a national scale and at a time when sacrifice has entered back into America’s vocabulary: is MLB more willing to sacrifice the lives of those who truly need this testing or are they willing to sacrifice a year of revenu

According to data collected on COVID-19 cases, the hospitalization rate for coronavirus is around 20% mainly affecting older persons and those with underlying comorbidities such as heart disease, hypertension, respiratory illnesses, and diabetes. According to the CDC, the fatality rate for men in China was noted to be around 2.8% (with women at 1.7%); in NYC, those with hypertension are hospitalized at nearly a 50% rate and China showed 6% of patients with hypertension to die from complications due to the virus (7.3% of those with diabetes died from complications due to the virus as well as 6% of those with cancer). Needless to say, while most recover from the virus, there are subsets of our population who are at tremendous risk of hospitalization and death. How many MLB players, coaches, and support staff are part of that at-risk population?

Should Jack McKeon (80 years old) or Phil Regan (82 years old) be worried about putting themselves at heightened risk when the season starts? Should Brandon Morrow (Type 1 diabetic) be banned from participating in games because of his risk factor? How many players, coaches, or support personnel are totally unaware of underlying health conditions and would they need to be thoroughly screened before the season begins? Would MLB ban those with high risk factors or is that discriminatory? Would they allow all to play under a liability waiver or would the death of a beloved coach be too much even for MLB’s lawyers to hand-waive away? This factor alone should prevent this proposal from ever becoming reality and it would be dangerous and irresponsible to put at-risk people at risk for little more than entertainment in a world of limitless options for entertainment.

Via The Athletic: "Under a plan supported by some leading members of three federal agencies, major leaguers would not sit bunched up together in a dugout but six feet away from each other in the stands, practicing social distancing."

This is utterly and completely silly and highlights that those involved in discussing this proposal are not thinking through the most critical aspects of making it happen. Assessing where players need to be sitting during games is akin to interior designers on the Titanic arguing how the furniture should be arranged as the boat is sinking. Taking this statement seriously at face-value actually reveals something else entirely - MLB games would be unbelievably long and boring (even for die hard baseball fans). The precautions that would need to be taken during games for social distancing would add excruciating time to game length (filled by everyone’s favorite TV filler - commercials); is there really "nothing else on" that casual viewers would put up with 3+ hour-long games of droning announcers, little action, and plenty of zoomed in angles of Mike "Rat" Rizzo sitting all alone in the stands? I don’t see it.

9/11 occurred during a different media era and at a time when baseball, quite frankly, was the only thing on. There was no competition for precious attention of viewers which exists today. To say that baseball will heal the nation in the time of coronavirus is bull; we might as well give a Presidential Medal of Freedom to programmers at Disney+ or Netflix. That statement is a way for the proponents of this plan to justify programming revenue that they’ve otherwise lost this year; that they’ve demonstrated their commitment to player safety by removing the dugout shows just how shallow and greedy this plan truly is.

If the MLB is allowed to move forward with this plan, what are the owners of the NBA, NHL, and, ultimately, NFL going to think? "Gee, it’s great we can all sit down and watch baseball together as a community and focus on our national pastime rather than the economic and health crisis occurring today." No, they’re going to think: "What the hell? Why are they getting all this money? We can play in college gyms, Texas high school football fields, the Arctic region of Canada! Hey, America, look at us and let us heal you too through your pocketbook!"

The cascade of greed will be overwhelming as "we’re so concerned" billionaire sports owners work to get their own recovery plan off the ground to minimize revenue loss in 2020. This will only place more risk to their players and staff and place greater stress to an already-overtaxed system all for the benefit of an astoundingly small group of people. I absolutely guarantee that other sports organizations are closely watching the outcome of this plan in the MLB and, if it is allowed to go forward, will immediately begin to formulate their own plan to resume their seasons. This plan is nothing more than a predatory action by wealthy stakeholders to guard against losses of their own fortune. It would do nothing to heal our country in this critical time, would place undue risk and hardship on players, staff, and those outside the MLB who would be necessary participants, and could severely damage people’s faith in our national pastime if test kits become even more scarce or resources are constrained even further.

It assumes total social distancing of everyone which is impossible - players and staff will come into contact with those outside of the bubble and control of fans at stadiums or hotels could be difficult to manage (if there’s one thing I know about Cubs fans it’s that they’re all morons and you just know crowds of them would be gathered outside of whatever facility the Cubs were playing at gawking at their favorite players and Kyle Schwarber). The state of Arizona has already demonstrated its almost complete ineptness in their response to the virus and to assume Doug Ducey and his administration would magically become competent to manage this situation is a tall order to believe. Logistically, this proposal is impossible to execute.

Morally, this proposal is despicable to me. Those who suffer the most from this virus are those who are the most disadvantaged in society - the elderly, the poor, the sick. That time and attention of government and healthcare workers is spent entertaining the whims of a handful of extremely fortunate individuals is frustrating as it is time which should be dedicated to more critical things. Quite frankly, this isn’t a time to unite with one another - it’s a time to unite with those who are disadvantaged and ensure they survive this whether it’s simply living through 2020 or recovering from the economic calamity to follow.

Sacrifice in this time means something different to all of us - maybe its meaning is that of Fr. Don Giuseppe Berardelli who refused a ventilator in favor of giving it to another patient and paid for that decision with his life or maybe it’s being a volunteer at a local food bank watching the ever-growing line of people week-by-week or maybe it’s donating to great causes and charities to help communities and people recover from this or maybe it’s as simple as visiting a local Arizona restaurant struggling to make ends meet. But to witness a beloved aspect of my life, baseball, to refuse the covenant of sacrifice is hurtful and I hope they see the necessity of doing what’s right for all of us rather than only a few of us.

Thank you for reading and go D-backs.