PHNX Arizona Diamondbacks Podcast - Sully explains why it's too soon to bring baseball back

Episode Date: May 19, 2020

Sully, host of Locked on MLB, hops on the show to explain why MLB shouldn't rush back into action. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome into a special edition of the Rattle Podcast. As always, my name is Jesse Friedman, and I'm your host. And here with us today, we have a special guest. His name is Paul Francis Sullivan, but we don't call him that. We call him Sully. Sully is here with us today. And thank you so much for joining us. We really appreciate your time.

Thanks. And we're still doing the Locked-on MLB podcast, and we're still dropping about five episodes a week, even without a season. We did about that same amount in the off season. So go subscribe to us, lockdown MLB. And I also have another podcast, which is more for the movie lover, but has baseball connection, obviously, which is called Bull Durham in it,

where we're analyzing the film Bull Durham and bringing in lots of guests to talk about it. And my intense love for that movie, which is my favorite baseball movie of all time. I just think it's wonderful. And we've got some really great guests and comedians and baseball rock. writers and film critics talking about it.

And it's your fan of the film. It's a lot of fun. We go on some very strange tangents. But it feels like hanging out with some friends chatting about a movie, just like locked on MLB. It's about hanging out talking baseball. So still in the podcasting world, even though there's no ball games being played right now.

Sure. Well, hey, baseball fans, I think we're all pretty desperate for some form of entertainment at this particular moment. So, absolutely. It's getting old. Yeah. It is certainly getting old. But hey, Sully, we wanted to talk to you about that very topic today.

Baseball has been kind of in this weird, this weird limbo position for the last couple of months. Spring training was kind of stopped right in the middle of things. People were hoping that some sort of a baseball season could still be played. As of now, we've heard of a proposal that Major League Baseball has put out there that would have baseball starting sometimes. at the beginning of July. I know you've been very vocal on Twitter about your personal take that you're just struggling to understand the case for why baseball is rushing to come back.

Sully, I would love to hear just a synopsis of your perspective on this situation and why you think baseball might be making a mistake in trying to rush things back. Well, I mean, I have to preface this because people have accused me of a couple of things by being so vocal on this on the podcast and on Twitter, I want baseball back. I'm a rabid baseball fan. I was yesterday listening to the radio broadcast of the 1939 World Series. I mean, I'm desperate to have baseball come back.

I miss it. But the expression of, oh, we're dying to see baseball come back is not supposed to be literal. and I want it to come back and not have it get shut down again immediately. Sure. I don't want it to be, you know, John Oliver said it should be a unifying thing, not a cautionary tale. And the thing that's a gigantic red flag for me is the people who are banging the drum the loudest for it to come back and almost every argument I've heard for it to come back, none of them are doctors. none of them are scientists saying this is the right thing to do they're all people talking about

the bottom line and the money this or getting back to normal you know everything like that well we're not at normal we're not at normal we don't know if things are if we don't know if we don't know if we don't know if things aren't suddenly spike and spread like crazy we don't and you have to look at what's, you know, what it's a risk reward. The risk is you spread this to people where you didn't need to do that. The risk is we still don't have a cure for this. The risk is we would be creating more work for a healthcare industry that's already strained to the limits. And the reward is we have something new to watch. Now, yes, there's. There's all the financial stuff and everything like that, but that should not supersede the fact that this is a scientific and health crisis.

And as bad as it has been for many people and for industries and everything like that, what is to gain by coming back and infecting people that don't need to be infected by it? Sure. We've heard the analogy like crazy of jaws of the mayor opening the beaches, even though they knew there was still a shark problem because we need those summer dollars. Well, and you saw all the people complaining, don't close the beach, don't close the beaches, and then they open the beaches and someone gets eaten. And then they have to shut down for the rest of the summer. Now, of course, it's not as cut and dry as that in a way. Sure. But it kind of, it's a pretty parallel point of view that we all saw that movie and all agreed that, well, the mayor is being short side and everyone else is being dumb.

But here we say, oh, let's just open it up. We don't know which players have it. We don't know which family members have it. And also think of the people who have to come back to work, who, even if it's in an empty stadium, okay, then. there still has to be ground crew members. There has to be technical people working at a stadium, even with nobody there. I mean, thinking back when they played the games in Camden Yards, what was that, three or four years ago, because there was all the riots going on in Baltimore.

And so there were no fans in the stands. It doesn't mean there was nobody in Camden Yards. It wasn't like the Orioles and I think it was the White Sox got a key and broke into the field and just played there, like breaking into a playground to play on the basketball court. And there's no way you're going to be able to, you know, you can't quarantine everybody. There's still going to have to be travel, right? Even if everyone's playing in, you know, Arizona or Florida or wherever, you still have to have people travel there. So this is not going to be quarantined.

And what happens if, A, a player on a team tests positive after we start the season? you have to quarantine the team what happens to those games are they all forfeits do you have to call them up from the minors are there minor leagues what happens if a player says do you want

hold my salary I'm not going to go and risk myself for that which I think is what I would categorize as a reasonable point of view to have sure we're already seeing Mike Trout saying I don't know what am I going to do my wife is pregnant with my child, am I supposed to leave her and be quarantined? No, I won't do that. Then you have the angels playing

without Mike Trout? What if a star? What if a manager? What if a coach gets tested positive or one of their family members? Do they get quarantined then? And the cacophony of rules that you have to do, there's no spitting, no high-fiving, no celebrations, no, you know, the, you have to stand far away from base nurse. Think about the leads you can get in terms of trying to social distance while on a baseball field. And this is unreasonable, even if every single player complies by it. And you know they won't. Because A, old habits will die hard. Also, there's a lot of what I call phony tough guidance going on in the world right now. We're like, I'm not going to wear a mask. I want to show how brave I am, as if the coronavirus is a human being who can understand how brave you're being.

No, you're being dumb. And you know there's going to be some phony tough guys in baseball. Gee whiz, I wonder if that's a breathing ground for phony tough guys. A bunch of jocks who have been told to write their whole life, and you're going to tell them to change their habits, the people, baseball players, the athletes with the single greatest number of superstitions and habits, you're going to tell them to change everything the way you're doing. doing. And it just every time you look at these plans that are clearly not

enough by scientists or doctors are clearly written by people saying like, we're going to lose a lot of money. So every time you look at them, it falls apart. It's what I call fractally stupid. You know what a fractal is when you look at a, it's a shape and the closer you look at it, you see it's a shape made of other shapes, are made of other shapes. Well, this is something stupid. And the more you look at it, you see, not only is the whole plan stupid, but the parts of it are stupid. And those parts are stupid. The more you magnify it, it's stupid upon stupid, and it just becomes this mosaic of idiocy. All for the purpose of we want to get the games on the field as fast as possible.

I have not heard a single thing that has a reasonable answer to. the main questions of what will happen when, not if, when a player test positive after the game start. What happens? What's the quarantine situation? Sure. And all of this is just, I don't want you to get a explicit rating, but this is a cluster truck. It rhymes with a cluster truck. waiting to happen. And it is a totally unnecessary cluster truck, just like opening the beaches and jaws was totally unnecessary. And all of this for what purpose? And of course, it always comes down to money. And that's what almost all these are. We've got to open these business for money. There's so many safeguards that could be put in that you can say, what are we doing that are

causing people to make the choice between I got to pay my bills or risk my life. Shouldn't there be some safe? I mean, this is more of a social question about our country. And like always, baseball is a reflection of our society. And it's a microcosm of our society. Of course we want, we all want to see sports come back. We all do. I'm out of my mind. I was so excited for this season. This was going to be a great season. I know you were. You guys got freaking Madison Bumgarner, for God's sakes. Sure. You know, I mean, you were going to see, you know, Mike Trout had someone battened behind him finally with Anthony Rendon.

You were going to see some, you know, there was going to be, the Yankees were going to be really great, the Mets are going to be really improved. You're going to see an absolutely airtight National League East. You don't know what the heck's going on in the Central. I mean, it's probably going to be the Brewers and the Cardinals again, but it's going to be. knows. The Reds made a whole bunch of big acquisition. The Chicago White Sox made a whole bunch of big acquisition. There were a lot of teams that were like, hey, let's put our chips in the center of the table and go for it. After that absolutely thrilling, fantastic, classic world series that we had last year with Washington and Houston, and you had all the baseball just ready to boo the tar

out of the Astros. You don't think I want to see that? But first of me, of all, is it really going to be a season if they're playing in like an empty chase field in Phoenix? And of course, you know, I was thinking this would of course be the year the Indians win at all is in front of no fans and not playing a single home game in Cleveland. Of course, the World Series would be like Cleveland versus Pittsburgh and it would be spectacular. But I think the risk reward, the risks are so astronomically high. And I think it would destroy a lot of things financially as well. If you start everything up and then have to shut it back down again.

I mean, the amount of, and the horrible press and everything that you could get if you were the the, you know, if you're the canary in the cage and say, we're going to start the league again, and then you look disastrous, then baseball is forever associated with stupidity in the face of the COVID-19 crisis. Sure. I'm going to, I'm going to bring up the last time there was something like this in this country, and baseball was a great positive force, was in September 11. was in September 11th.

Obviously, people have made that case for baseball being a healing power then. I lived in New York when that happened. I was in Manhattan when that happened. And I did what everyone did. We all tried to do stuff. We all pitched in. I became a volunteer at the Red Cross.

I was one of the people down at Ground Zero. I wasn't doing like rest of the people with food down there late at night. serving food to the firemen and the firefighters and the rescue workers. And everyone did stuff to get together and also went to the stores and the businesses in Lower Manhattan to make sure that we're getting back to ourselves. You haven't knocked us down. And, of course, baseball, I hate the Yankees. I truly hate the Yanke.

I know you're a Diamond Vex fan and it turned out really well for Arizona. But the idea of baseball coming back and the great races with the Yankees getting to within an inning of winning the world's, a very thrilling world series. And also the Mets played great down the stretch. And there was the memorable home run, the Piazza hit on the first day back that was like, okay, okay, we finally have something to be sure about. Sure. That was different because that was standing up. to an enemy who deliberately attacked us and attacked our way of life. And that was a sense of saying, you have not knocked us down.

That was imperative that we showed that sense of unity and coming together. As I mentioned before, there is no personified virus here. Coronavirus isn't a person. It doesn't care if you are a Democrat or Republican. It doesn't care if you're German, French, American, Chinese, Dutch, or, you know, Malaysian. It doesn't care. It doesn't care if you're showing how strong you are. And we also don't know enough about it.

And so the idea that we would be banging our chest to show how strong we are against the virus that doesn't care and that we don't understand. and it is not the scientific experts who are saying this is smart to do, then what are we talking about? What is the counter argument? Yeah, I want to, I'm curious, there's a few things I want to bring up. So I am, I am, my position on this is that the money issue should not be a deterrent of baseball coming back. I think that would look very, very bad. for the game, especially in a time like this when so many Americans are struggling financially,

you know, for baseball of all, you know, an enormous multi-billion dollar entity to not be able to solve its financial problems. I think that would be a really bad look for baseball. But I do agree that health is the one factor in this scenario that I think is a completely valid reason for baseball to not come back. And I totally see your case that it certainly feels like it's not medical experts at the forefront of the plan making. But I will throw in there that Major League Baseball has said that they will not proceed with any plan unless it's signed off by medical experts. So, you know, maybe we have to take that with a grain of salt and, you know,

who exactly they're looking to and all of those factors. But I really do think that it's very reasonable to say that Major League Baseball is too big and too reputable of a company to just kind of make up their own thing go for it. So I think that's that's one point I'll throw out there. Another point I'll throw out there is I think a lot of people and especially this has come on more recently as, you know, the search for a vaccine for the coronavirus continues. And a lot of people are starting to realize and a lot of medical experts are starting to warn that this may be our reality for the foreseeable future. And, you know, a cure or a vaccine or whatever that looks like, those things are all far from a

guarantee. And so I think some people might look at the situation and say, you know, like what, what exactly are we waiting for when it comes to bringing baseball back? Because a cure for the virus is certainly not, you know, is not a guarantee. We could very well come back next season and be in the same boat. Or we could come back in 2022 and be in the same boat. And at that point, you kind of have to ask yourself the question, you know, are we really willing to kind of, you know, put baseball on a hold for, you know, multiple years. Uh, if that is indeed the case. And I certainly think, you know, there's a, there's a viable argument there that maybe it should be. But I also don't think that, you know, if we, you know, wait this season

out, we're certainly not in a situation where we can guarantee that next year things will actually be any different. So yeah, I'm curious your thoughts on, on the outlook of baseball, maybe given given some of those details. I don't know enough about 2021 and where we will be. I don't know if there will be a stabilization. You're seeing spikes in cases whenever there's places being reopened. You're seeing, I don't know the number of tests that have been done. I've not been tested.

Virtually nobody I know has been tested. I know a handful of people have been tested. And so we don't even know what the numbers are. We don't even know what we're dealing with at this point. Now, of course, a vaccine doesn't happen overnight. And so, I mean, I think 2021 is probably an overly optimistic time to think when there could be a vaccine. But when the fact that not enough people have been tested, the fact that we don't even know what the numbers are, we can't even be sure at this. point is looking at saying we don't know what the data we're dealing with now. Now, of course,

when this ultimately will plateau in one way, shape, or form, and we'll look back, and there's some things probably that we'll look back to now and say, oh, you were paranoid about this, or that didn't turn out to be true, but we don't know what things are true or not at this point. Sure. Now, will there always be COVID-19, much like there's always a flu? Maybe. That may be the case. Yeah.

Will we be at a position later on to know better how to treat it, to be in a better position to handle spikes in it? Probably. If provided the money goes in the right place and the research goes in the right place and we don't overwhelm our hospitals and everything by needlessly getting infected. Okay? I'm hoping that we're going to be in a better position in a bunch of months to be able to say, okay, we have an idea of how many people have the stuff.

We have an idea of how many can respond to it and be cured by it or at least be able to have it stabilize or whatnot, but we're not there yet. If we're saying, well, if the argument is, well, it may be the same next year. So we might as well just run into it now. I said, we don't have enough data right now. It's like, well, that fire may be still going on tomorrow. So we might as well just run into the fire right now. And I also, I'm sorry, I, over the years I've grown to not always trust our illustrious owners. In the past, almost every single labor dispute has had intense dishonesty from the owners. Remember, the owners were caught colluding in the 1980s. They never opened their books in the 1990s when they claimed, A, they claimed

they were going to contract teams and, B, expanded four times, which is an interesting dichotivor. We have to tear teams apart and build them up at the same time. I've never, when you are people who have that much money and are dealing with that much money, I'm sure they can find someone to sign off in a medical community, just like in Jaws. They got the medical examiner to change it from shark attack to boat accident. So I'm saying they had someone signed off. I'm sorry, I don't see at this point when we're dealing with the unknown. You know, to use another analogy for a movie in 300 when they kicked that the dude into the big pit.

He said, this is Sparta and he kicks him into the pit. And you can't see the bottom of the pit. That's kind of us with this pandemic right now. We don't know enough. We don't know. And that, to me, is the biggest problem I have with all of this. And when I have people say, well, I think it's coming down. I think it's moving, I think it's we're on the, we're at the end of it.

Where are you getting that data from? Where is, this is not about opinion. This is not about toughness. This is a scientific and a medical question. And quite frankly, scientists. and doctors are the only people who should be speaking about at this point. Because it's the only people who have any knowledge of this. Now, yes, the Will Ponds may lose some money.

You know, they're like, oh, man, it's, it's made off all over again. But I feel that if you rush into it, it will cause irreparable damage to baseball. And it may cause irreparable damage to some people's lives. And that's not enough for me. And it's harsh, but this is a harsh reality. And I'm not going to get into the politics of it. And I'm not getting into the philosophy. I'm just saying when you don't have data, you don't go around saying, well, I think I know what's happening.

I've had a bunch of people, some people who's calling this stance anti-Trump. I never brought Trump's name up. I don't care who the hell is in office. And a person said to me, a very smart person said to me, I think we're at the end of this. I'm not a medical expert, but I think we're at the end of this. And I responded, what are you spacing that on? Show your work.

And so I'm hoping that by next year, by 2021, we have made some significant progress on this. That would be great. I would love it. So would you say, I want to be watching baseball reader. Oh, I think we all would, solely. I am totally with you there. So would progress in your mind be mostly just kind of understanding the virus better?

Would that be kind of notable progress? Okay. Yeah, that makes sense. I mean, that's what the, if it's all boiled down to one fact is we are still in the dark on this thing. So why are we acting like we know what's happening? Now, if we find here's the better ways to treat it. Here's the way to hear the effective forms of either quarantine or ways to treat that don't require quarantine. Here are the better ways to understand the antibodies and everything.

I don't even understand all the stuff. And the fact that we're not hearing clear, concise ways of dealing with like you do with the flow. and people keep bringing up the flu and the fact that people get the flu and there are people who die from the flu but we do know how to treat it we do know the precautions we do know how when someone

comes to the hospital with the flu we do understand how to get to the other side of it and we have it once we get to the other side of this you know maybe by the time my kids are my age oh man I got a bad case of COVID-19 oh man you know what to do but we're not there yet.

And so until we're there yet, I'm sick of people talking as if we are there yet. Sure. And that comes from all aspects of living, including going to the beach, including going to the restaurants or going to the movie theater. I want to do all of those things. It's May. It's going to be Memorial Day weekend. It's just my birthday last week. And every year, either on my birthday or just the day or so before, day or so after, I go to a major league game.

And because I've lived in New York and in San Francisco and now in Los Angeles, I've always been near a – there's always been a home team playing. Because everywhere I've lived has had both an American League and a National League team. So I'm going to go to the Giants or I'm going to go to the A's or, or go to the Dodgers or a year or so. I went to the Angels game or, you know, Mets or Yankees. There's always a home team playing. And that's always my treat for myself. And sometimes I've gone by myself. Like, nope, I can't find it.

And sometimes it's better to go by yourself because if you're with someone you don't know that well, let's say, hey, let's go to a ballgame and sit next to each other for three and a half hours. You know, sometimes I'd rather go, sometimes I'd rather just enjoy it by myself. Sure. And I wanted to do that for my birthday. And I can't. But we have to come to grips with the ideas and we want to get back to normal. Well, we're not normal yet.

And hopefully we'll be a lot closer. But I would much rather they just say, let's just scrap the season until we know what's happening. And if some big breakthrough happens in the next couple of months and we can have like a 40 game tournament of champions or something like that, I'd be, I'd be, for. that. But we have to have data first. Because without data, you're just, you're playing whackamol. And you're playing whackamol with people's lives. And I don't think that's a crazy left-wing point of view to say, you have to have data and facts to make your decisions. Sure. I'm curious solely, I think, like I mentioned, baseball is certainly, you know, at least at least saying that they will, you know, seek medical advice on this and they wouldn't move

forward with a plan without medical advice. From my standpoint, the other thing they absolutely have to have is there are, you know, many players in baseball today that we at least do have enough data with the coronavirus to know that people in the age bracket of MLB players are generally at a much lower risk than, you know, other other different demographics across the country. but there are still certainly players in baseball who have, you know, immune systems that are somewhat compromised or have different conditions like diabetes that have been shown to maybe put you at a little bit more risk of the coronavirus. So from my standpoint, I am fully on with you that we should not play baseball without at least the consent of all of those people, them understanding the risk, them, you know, having, you know, talk to the doctor. with their teams and everything to understand at least what we know about the coronavirus and

as much detail as they can have. And if those players and those coaches and, you know, all of the personnel involved in the game, if we can get all of those people to consent to that, and frankly, there's going to be a certain amount of risk in just about anything. But in my view, if you can get all of those people to say, hey, you know what, I'm willing to take. on the risk. Then in that case, I would be okay with baseball going ahead with their July plan. And I'm curious, would you see any holes in baseball having the approval of medical professionals and also having the consent of the people at risk? In my view, that's the one, the one situation where I think baseball should go through with this. Would you agree or disagree with that?

I don't understand what people's consent on that has to do with anything. I don't, you might as well talk about did they have bananas earlier today. You're asking people we're not medical experts to make medical decision. You don't know, we don't know, A, if you don't have the symptoms, but you're carrying it. Do you carry it on to their family members? You carry it on to people. We don't know where people have, what family members they have been interacting with. We don't know if you're going to be there with a coach or an umpire.

Is it going to pass on to them? are going to pass on to, we don't know. So the players saying, well, I'm fine with it. Well, no kidding. You know, that's the equivalent of Grady Little saying, well, hey, I asked Pedro if he wanted to come out of game seven, and he said no. You know, of course, there's a bunch of competitive people who are bored out of their skulls who want to be playing.

So, you know, yeah. But I'm much more interested in the medical staff. signing off on it and I would want to know what they're basing it on are they basing it on this is real data that we have or is we basing this on the owners pressuring them to to to sign off so I you know I don't I there's I understand to a degree what you're saying but to me the the the my original point stands that we don't know enough So we need to know more. We need real data.

So I, in July, to start in July, it's late May now. You'd have to get started in spring training to get everyone back up to speed. What, in a week? Yeah, I think about, I think they would wait about three weeks from now because they were planning a spring training of about two weeks from my understanding. Yeah, okay, fine, fine. But we don't know where the players have been and who they've been infected by. Sure. We don't.

And I've been to a virtual memorial for someone who died from COVID-19 over this week, someone I knows. And it's not a hoax. It's not a game. It's not silly. It's not a political ploy. and the idea of increasing that without the data to me is to me that's the definition of insane and so as much as I want to say I mean I'm being a broken record here and I understand where you're saying and the point is is I understand some of your point some of it I don't it all comes from doctors

and scientists who show us the data that this is a smart thing to do And, you know, if you want to say, you know, if we may know more by the fall, and if, you know, who knows, we may know by the fall. And if you want to say to have some sort of abbreviated season in warm weather places, I'd be more, I'd be much more open-minded for that, provided we've had a few more months of understanding where things are. But, I mean, it's the rush to it and the fact that, you know, we're talking about start, would start a season in what, six weeks?

Yeah. What have we seen in the last two months to think that in six weeks will be in a good place? Hmm. And that's my main point. And I'm sure some of your listeners are tired of me. hitting this point again. Trust me, I'd much rather be talking about, you know, I was fascinated by what kind of effect Anthony Rendon would have on Mike Trout's season. Either he would be on base ahead of Trout or he would be protecting Trout in the lineup. And are we going to see a monster

season from Trout? Are we going to see a monster season from Francisco Lindor who's basically in his walk year and where is he going to wind up? And I was fascinated by a team that really fascinated me in the offseason were the White Sox, because they have a ton of young talent. Yeah. They have a ton of really good young talent that's blooming at the right time. And they've added a couple of key players, you know, not the least of which is Dallas Keikle, who could be that, you know, to go along with Gialito could be that veteran anchor in that rotation.

And in a very winnable central, yes, the twins are a good team, but they're potentially volatile. The Indians seem to be taking a big step back. The Royals and the Tigers are in full rebuild. You could have seen revival for a potentially young, fun, exciting White Sox team and a bunch of other teams. I'm so excited for this year. But, you know, it's disappointing, but it's a disappointment for everyone. So, I mean, that's my stance. And, you know, I don't think it's a radical stance. Yeah, no, I don't, I don't think so either, Sully. I certainly see where you're coming from. And, you know, there's certainly, you know, going to be some risk in this no matter what, even if you have the, you know, the signing off of medical professionals and all of these things that baseball is looking to get before they move forward with this. There's, there's certainly going to be some risk. And obviously baseball should, should err on on the side of caution. And so, yeah, we certainly appreciate you coming on and sharing your point of view. And, yeah, thank you so much. for your time today.

Hey, man, and I really hope the next time it'll come on, we could be talking about some fun stuff, especially with the D-backs are, you know, man, they pulled off the Goldschmidt trade and got back the key, whenever you trade a veteran for young players, anyone could trade a veteran for young players, but they got back talent. Yeah. And they were a really fun team last year. And even after trading Grinky, they still remained really good.

And to think of that young team with a contending season under their belt and adding Bumkarner to that rotation was, I mean, I would love to be talking to you about the devax and how much fun they could be and, you know, exciting and scrappy. I want to be talking about Ketel Marta. I don't want to be talking about coronavirus. virus. So, and I'm sure you do too, man. I'm sure you do too. Absolutely. But we'll make it happen soon, Sully. We appreciate it.