New York Yankees reliever Adam Ottavino speaks on the reported plan to hold the 2020 MLB season exclusively in Arizona.
This week, Jeff Passan spoke the news that increased the level of hope within baseball fans around the country. The ESPN baseball columnist reported that a plan to begin the 2020 Major League Baseball season in May was in the works. MLB’s campaign was put on hold back in March due to the coronavirus outbreak.
The new plan would reportedly include all 30 teams playing exclusively in Arizona with no fans present. Players and coaches would live in hotels and only travel to and from the stadiums.
Surely, these ideas include both support and disagreement, but New York Yankees reliever Adam Ottavino is leaning towards the former category.
“I’ve seen it [the Arizona idea]. I don’t have any good insight but I would be in the camp of supporting the idea,” he told Joel Sherman of the New York Post. “I’m sure a lot would have to go right for it to actually happen but I’m hoping it can work because I want to play.”
We haven’t seen baseball since March 12, the day MLB ultimately canceled the rest of spring training and delayed Opening Day by at least two weeks. The potential new start date of April 9 quickly changed to mid-May at the earliest. And despite this new reported plan, some believe the season won’t realistically begin until June or July, if ever.
The interesting question about the plan is that while there won’t be any fans, what happens to reporters and beat writers for each ballclub? What about photographers as well as radio and TV broadcasters? Would the league allow them in the stadiums or would they have to somehow do their jobs virtually?
If Major League Baseball really wants to go through with a May start date, they’ll need to answer a number of questions in just a short period of time.
