With COVID-19 still making its way through the United States, professional sports leagues are putting a great deal of thought into how things will look when their seasons begin.
As for America’s favorite pastime, Major League Baseball and the MLBPA finally agreed to a 60-game season, which is expected to begin on July 23, which Spring Training 2.0 (or whatever you want to call it) beginning on July 1.
We have learned that adults over the age of 60 are at higher risk when it comes to COVID-19 and in response to that, the Minnesota Twins have decided that Bob McClure, 68, and Bill Evers, 66, will not be on the coaching staff this year because of health and safety concerns with the coronavirus.
The question is, should the Detroit Tigers go the same route with manager Ron Gardenhire (62) and some of the older coaches on the team, including pitching coach Rick Anderson (63), and bench coach, Lloyd McClendon (60)?
Gardenhire, who has had some health scares, says he is ‘uneasy’ about what lies ahead.
“40 years I’ve been in baseball. Once it gets taken away from you and we had to stop spring training, poof, everybody was gone,” Gardenhire said. “There’s a fellowship in baseball that’s second to none because we play so many games and we’re around each other. You miss those things. Like I said, the biggest thing is health.”
“I would never want to jump ship from my team,” said Gardenhire. “We’re hopefully going to do everything right as far as protocol goes and keep everybody healthy as best we possibly can. But yeah, I’m definitely a little uneasy about it, just because we got 60 guys coming through a clubhouse and a whole bunch of coaches too. We know how this thing happens, we’ve seen it happen. Hopefully we’ll be able to keep it away from our ballclub.”
Nation, what do you think the Tigers should do? Should Gardenhire make the decision to stay away from the team?
