Front Burner - The return of MLB: No spitting, fans or games in Canada

Episode Date: July 21, 2020

After a four-month suspension due to COVID-19, Major League Baseball returns for a condensed 60-game season on Thursday. The old ball game, however, is going to look a bit different: there’s social distancing in the dugouts, no fans in the stands and no games in Canada. This weekend, the federal government announced that the Blue Jays can’t play in Toronto during the pandemic. Today on Front Burner, The Athletic staff writer Kaitlyn McGrath tells us where the Jays could go, and what baseball’s tumultuous summer could mean for the future of the MLB.

In the Dragon's Den, a simple pitch can lead to a life-changing connection. Watch new episodes of Dragon's Den free on CBC Gem. Brought to you in part by National Angel Capital Organization, empowering Canada's entrepreneurs through angel investment and industry connections. This is a CBC Podcast. Hi, I'm Josh Bloch. Major League Baseball is back this week. But if you're hoping Thursday's opener will make it feel like a normal summer, you might be out of luck.

Because this season is only 60 games, there's new rules, no fans in the stands, and absolutely no games in Canada. We're not taking decisions as fans. We're taking decisions on the basis of evidence and the advice we receive to protect the health and safety of all Canadians. We'll still get to watch baseball. We'll still get to watch the Jays play, and we'll do so with a lot of pride. It'll just be broadcast from a different location. This weekend, Ottawa decided the Blue Jays can't play in Toronto during the pandemic.

The Jays now have less than two weeks to find a new home in the U.S. They'll be playing a season COVID could end at any time and in a league that couldn't agree with his players about how to come back at all. I know the owners are 100% committed to getting baseball back on the field. Unfortunately, I can't tell you that I'm 100% certain that's going to happen. Today, I'm talking with Caitlin McGrath. She's a staff writer for The Athletic, and she'll give us her outlook for the future of the Jays and the future of the MLB. This is Frontburner. Let's play ball. Okay, okay, Blue Jays, let's play, play, play ball!

Hello, Caitlin. Hey, how are you? I'm well. I want to start by asking you that the entire NHL is coming back to Canada next month. It's resuming play in Toronto and Edmonton. And can you help me understand the distinction here? Why is that okay, but the Blue Jays playing in Toronto isn't? Yeah, so there is a fairly significant difference between the return to play plan with the NHL and with MLB. And that big difference is travel. So when you talk about what the NHL is doing, and the NBA as well. They're using hub cities or bubble cities,

however you want to put it. And essentially that's collecting all of the players and personnel and teams, putting them in a bubble and not letting them out. Essentially, they're all kind of quarantining together. And the sort of terminology that I've learned throughout this whole process is like a modified quarantine. So that's kind of what they're calling it. The difference is that MLB is traveling. So MLB's return to play plan allows for major league teams to play from their home ballparks. To go on the road and to be a visiting team, you have to travel to that team's home ballpark.

So essentially, it's not really that much different than a normal major league season and that there's a lot of travel involved. The one difference, they did modify the division. So teams in the AL East and the NL East just play each other. So there's not a lot of cross-country travel. But essentially, that is the big difference. We've got a statement from Marco Mendicino, who is the Minister of Immigration, Refugee and Citizenship.

And he says, based on the best available public health advice, we have concluded the cross-border travel required for the Major League Baseball regular season play would not adequately protect Canadians' health and safety. Right. Well, tell me more. So Marco Mendicino,

tell me more about his reasoning and Ottawa's reasoning about not allowing the Blue Jays to use Rogers Stadium as their home base. Yeah, so to kind of give like a full little context or background here, there was a scenario in which the Blue Jays had a backup plan, which was playing at their spring training facility, which is located in Dunedin, Florida. Of course, now we know that Florida is not a great place to be in terms of rising COVID-19 numbers. The state's total case count to more than 350,000. And Florida's death toll is now over 5,000.

We have embers and we do have flames. Florida became more flame-like, but it's going to be under control. And actually the Blue Jays were impacted. They had an outbreak at their spring training facility, a little bit ahead of when this new summer training camp was going to start. You kind of understand why the Blue Jays were pretty eager to come to Toronto. It just felt like a safer place. So a few weeks ago, all levels of government, but ultimately the federal government and Public Health Canada said it was okay for the blue Jays to come and hold their summer training camp here. Why that worked is essentially because that was like a bubble environment.

They had rigorous testing before they arrived in Canada. They all had to be tested twice and have two negative tests. They traveled in private charter, private buses went straight to the hotel that is attached to the Rogers center. So they weren't allowed to leave the boundaries of the hotel and the stadium, but those two things are connected. So essentially, you just kind of imagine the hotel and the Rogers Center is a giant house, and they were quarantining together in that giant house.

Right. They didn't have other teams coming into that house. It was just the Blue Jays training. Exactly. So that is why the government and public health officials felt comfortable with the training plan, because there was no other travel. It was just coming in and staying in. But the minute you start bringing in teams from the road or you send the Jays on a road trip, that bubble has popped. But then the other element was, will they be allowed to play games here? So that's when it gets more complicated. So that's when you would have the Blue Jays leaving that bubble to go play in the United States. And then you'd also have teams from the United States, including teams that are based out of Florida, like Miami and

Tampa Bay, they would be coming into Canada, and they would be playing at the Rogers Center. Ultimately, what the federal government said was that they are also particularly uncomfortable with the Blue Jays traveling to certain hotspots, including Florida. The advice that we got was that there were serious risks that remained, and therefore, we concluded that there was not a principal basis on which to issue Okay, so with or without Rogers Centre, the Major League Baseball is back on Thursday. The Jays have their first game scheduled for next Wednesday. Are you surprised that this announcement comes so close to the start of the season? I would say that I'm a little bit surprised maybe the decision took so long just because the plan always involved travel. So if that was a no go from the get go with the government,

right? Why is it a week before their first home game that the final decision came down? Exactly. There was, you know, an interest in development just even a few days before Saturday, the provincial government Doug Ford, and Mayor John Tory came out pretty strongly in favor of the Blue Jays playing here. And in fact, Doug Ford was fairly enthusiastic that he wanted to see the Blue Jays play in Toronto. And he, you know, said that he had seen their Blue Jays protocol and MLB's protocol. Folks, have you seen the protocol? I think the Major League Baseball was 150 pages. And I don't think the NHL was far behind them. Talk about strict.

They're even probably stricter than our chief medical officers, but they have great protocol, great guidelines for the players to follow. He felt comfortable with the team playing here and public health officials at the provincial level felt comfortable. We discussed it with the chief medical officer of Canada and along with the deputy prime minister and we made sure that we discussed it with Mayor Tory as well. And that was again a cooperative effort between all three of the governments to make sure that that happens. They have an excellent plan in place to protect the players. That was also a little bit of a kind of surprise that you had the disagreement,

I guess, amongst the levels of government. Right. Well, so here we are a week out that Toronto doesn't have a home yet. What are their options at this point? I would say Buffalo is the site of the Blue Jays AAA affiliate. It's a very nice facility, but that facility is not even built for major league baseball. The stadium lighting isn't up to MLB standard to broadcast night games. And then another element to this is that it's just a smaller ballpark and it's a smaller clubhouse. It's a smaller facility that's inconvenient at the best of times. But during a pandemic, it's very problematic because MLB's protocols call for, you know,

significant physical distancing. The Blue Jays would have to get really creative in terms of repurposing space. So they might have to use like suites and the concourse. And of course, that's doable because there's no fans, but it would still be a lot of work. And then there's another scenario, which is that they would share another major league ballpark with another club. There's logistical challenges of that as well, just because you're balancing two team schedules. I want to understand why it's taken so long to get this season up and running.

I mean, the season was suspended in March because of COVID, but at that time there was a lot of hopes that they would be the first sport to come back and they would have this captive audience. And they forged a deal, and a deal that allows them to now look forward and figure out what a schedule is going to look like once games do resume. It's great, Jeff, to see a collaborative spirit here. What happened? Realistically, the league, MLB and owners, and the Players Association, the union,

really just couldn't come to an agreement on a return to play plan. So there was a kind of base agreement established in March. It really boiled down to both sides interpreted that agreement differently. What the league was offering in terms of number of games and pay cuts was not acceptable from the player's point of view. They wanted to play more games and they wanted to be paid full prorated salaries for those games whereas the league was coming back with offer after offer after offer where they were insisting on pay cuts and not enough games that satisfied the players players association said saturday it would no longer discuss a restart plan after it

rejected a proposal for them to make no more than 37% of their salaries for playing 44% of a season. Well, and just seemed to drag on and on. I mean, in June, it took Commissioner Rob Manfred mere days to go from saying he was 100% confident there would be a season and then suddenly flip-flopping and said he wasn't confident that there was going to be a season. Yeah, and that probably was one of the lower points of the whole negotiation process. It's just a disaster for our game. Absolutely no question about it. It shouldn't be happening. And it's important that we find a way to get past it and get the game back on the field for the

benefit of our fans. Rob Manfred and Tony Clark, the the union head they came away from that meeting not even agreeing about what happened at that meeting so the league thought that they had kind of come to a an agreement um at least an agreement in principle and tony clark came away thinking no no it's not a done deal yet i still got to go back to the players and they got to agree and ultimately a few days after that we just saw the league implement the 60 game season we may have a breakthrough major league baseball has sent a proposal for a 60 game season at full prorated pay to the players association there was um kind of still bitterness on either side i think and you know that could have repercussions for years down the road. There's a new CBA needs to be negotiated after the 2021 season.

And I would say exactly. And I would be surprised if it was any smoother than this had been. I would say that this was a bit of a preview as to what those negotiations would look like. Hi, it's Ramit Sethi here. You may have seen my money show on Netflix. I've been talking about money for 20 years. I've talked to millions of people, and I have some startling numbers to share with you. Did you know that of the people I speak to, 50% of them do not know their own household income?

That's not a typo, 50%. That's because money is confusing. In my new book and podcast, Money for Couples, I help you and your partner create a financial vision together. To listen to this podcast, just search for Money for Cups. So given the MLB's new plan that we're going to have the 60-game season, I'm curious to know more about how this season is actually going to operate. How will it look and feel different than past baseball seasons?

The main, most noticeable change will be there's no fans in the stands. You might see some players wearing masks while they play. You'll see coaches and personnel wearing masks. They're encouraging players to not spit. And honestly, there's so much spitting in baseball that that's going to be a huge challenge for players. And so I think I've been at the Rogers Center throughout the summer training camp. And one thing that's strange to me is that when you're sitting there and a player hits a ball out of the ballpark, you just hear the ball clanking on these empty seats. And that's not a sound that you typically hear when fans are there because people are catching the ball or, you know, there's a lot of noise. The ball doesn't just bounce on seats.

And then you just also hear ballpark sounds that are so loud too like the crack of the bat and the ball hitting leather like in the mitt and you you honestly hear player conversations like sitting up a few levels uh we can hear the players kind of talking to each other or kind of encouraging one another on the field and we're not anywhere close to them so that's also And, you know, I'm sure that TV mics will pick up some sound that they're not used to picking up. I've also been seeing in some of the preseason games that there is this canned crowd noise that is piped into the stadiums. Here in New York, the Mets using fan cutouts to fill seats behind home plate

while pumping generic fan noise through the stadium speakers. And it also is quite bizarre to see someone hit a home run to hear the roar of a crowd and then the ball lands in this, you know, in the empty stadium. Yeah, the crowd noise is interesting. I don't know how much of an impact it really has on players. Some of us kind of ask them and some players actually just say they're so honed in and focused in that moment. They don't even notice. It's kind of like they've got adrenaline going on and they're not really even aware of other sounds. They're just kind of focusing on the game sounds. This is what it's

going to be. This is what it's going to be. This is 2020 baseball. So you got to keep a smile on your face and just embrace it. It's like, I mean, you're looking at a pizza, but you know, you're smelling a hamburger. Like it's like you hear noise, but you know, nobody's in the stands.

You don't see anybody. So, um, I think it was dumb. So the Canadian government's decision is obviously a reminder that coronavirus is still there. It's still a threat to the season. COVID-19 cases have significantly diminished over the past several weeks. I think that that is largely attributable to the sacrifices that Canadians themselves have made. And so the last thing we want to do is see a setback. Tell me more about the kinds of measures that are being put in place to stop the spread within the

league. Yeah, so the league has a pretty thorough kind of health and safety protocol. Every player gets tested every other day, as well as staff and personnel that are interacting with the players. If they were positive, then they would go into a quarantine. And in order to be back playing, they would have to have two consecutive negative tests. And then they would have to pass sort of other health checks as well and have no symptoms and all that. There's other things like social distancing, clubhouses are being expanded. They're trying to not have guys even give high fives or handshakes. So you'll see a lot of like elbow bumps and stuff like that. You have this expectation that players will be

responsible when they're away from the ballpark. It depends, it might change from team to team, just depending on where they're located. But the overarching kind of sentiment that I've heard from players is that they all have to be accountable to one another. As players, I think we're all just trying to rally together and just keep ourselves in shape just to be ready for the regular season. We just have to get used to a new environment and wherever we end up being, we have to get used to that place. Well, there's already been 80 players who have come back positive for COVID since they started testing in June. I mean, is this a sign that these measures might not be enough or that certainly it's a real risk to push ahead with the season?

It will be really interesting to see what those numbers are like the first week or two once you have travel happening, because we don't know what it will take for maybe the season to have to be shut down, whether it's a team having an outbreak, whether it's multiple teams having an outbreak. At some point, if there's too many teams having outbreaks, this would be a worst case scenario, but you would have to stop the season because then you get into conversations, not just about health and safety, which would be paramount, but then you also get into like, what's the competitive integrity of the season if you have teams that aren't even able to compete? Even before COVID, the MLB was in a tough spot. I mean, the league had a million more empty seats last season.

There was the Houston Astros cheating scandal, which brought a lot of negative attention to the league. which brought a lot of negative attention to the league. The owner of the Houston Astros fired the team's general manager and manager after an investigation found that the Astros cheated by stealing signs during their World Series championship season. And now the league and the players have obviously really struggled to come together and return to a season this year. What does this all say to you about the future of baseball? I think the baseball has been struggling for a number of years

in terms of engaging a young audience. And baseball just really hasn't done itself any favors lately, especially after this kind of tough-to-watch negotiation period where you had two sides that were fighting amidst a pandemic, which was ravaging parts of the United States. And it was under a backdrop of also civil unrest in the United States. And I just think a lot of people looked at baseball and thought, you know, they haven't really impressed me with the way that they've gone about. And, you know, I'm out. You know, I wouldn't be surprised if some people who, you know, weren't huge fans just decide maybe baseball's not for me.

There's still a lot of passionate people that love baseball, don't get me wrong. And I think there's a lot of just interest on what baseball will look like, what will it be like watching games where there's no fans there. So you'll have a lot of people watching, I'm sure. But I just think like this sort of the reputation of baseball has definitely taken a hit. So what happens when the league has to sit down and negotiate that collective agreement again? You know what? I don't know what's going to happen. It could result in some work stoppage. It could result in a strike. It's definitely possible that more than a year's time from now, we're again talking about how these two sides can't come to an agreement and how these two sides can't seem to work together. And optically, it could be another mess for MLB.

Well, I want to come back to the Blue Jays before I let you go and to this season. It's a 60-game season, as we've mentioned, which is very short. And I think that means that any team could get hot for a few weeks and make it into the postseason. What do you think the Jays' chances are at another World Series run? Heading into this season, the Blue Jays weren't exactly a contender. They're still typically referred to as a rebuilding team. They signed some veteran starters this offseason, but the core of their team are young players,

so they're still developing. But they're a really competitive group, and they really believe that this 60-game season could work to their advantage. They think that their objective chances have increased. You do have a tough schedule for them over the 60 games. But, you know, I think they're a team to watch. I think they could surprise some people.

Well, I know many, many people will be watching no matter where their home ends up being. Caitlin, thank you so much for your insights into this. Thank you for having me. Before I let you go today, some news on the ongoing protests in the U.S. There have been more than 50 days of unrest in Portland, Oregon, following the death of George Floyd. And last week, to the ire of local officials and protesters, President Donald Trump sent in federal law enforcement. Since then, there have been many reports of police violence. Multiple videos posted online show officers without clear identification badges using

force and transporting those arrested in unmarked vehicles. Trump responded to widespread criticism, saying he would continue the crackdown and threatened to send in more troops to protests in other states. More federal law enforcement, that I can tell you. In Portland, they've done a fantastic job. They've been there three days, and they really have done a fantastic job in a very short period of time.

No problem. That's all for today. I'm Josh Bloch. Thanks for listening to FrontBurner.