NBC Sports’ Peter King often takes trips to baseball games on his vacation, but his trip to the Bronx on Thursday night didn’t end in a trip to a ballgame.
King was supposed to watch the Yankees host his Red Sox, but instead, the game was postponed after the Yanks had three positive COVID-19 tests and three more pending, including one All-Star that was reportedly Aaron Judge. And King joined Moose & Maggie on Friday to vent his frustrations about the league’s decision to postpone the series opener.
“This is a big game, and two hours and 20 minutes before the game, they call it,” King said. “We could get very political right now and talk about vaccinations, and how it’s absolutely, categorically, patently absurd that vaccines have become a political issue in this country. It’s just stupid downright stupid. Get a vaccine. And if you don’t get a vaccine and test positive, and we’ve heard that maybe some of these guys that have been vaccinated test positive…so again, I don’t know what happened. My only question is this: did the Yankees have enough position players who were COVID free to play a game last night? And the answer is apparently absolutely, categorically yes.”
The Yankees would have been without three pitchers due to COVID-19 test results, while Judge, Gio Urshela and Kyle Higashioka were reportedly waiting for their own test confirmations, but King believes if the Yanks still had enough players to play the game, then it should have happened.
“They could have fielded a team last night with Voit at first, Odor at second, Torres at short and LeMahieu at third,” King said. “And an outfield with Locastro, Gardner and the new guy who they called up from Scranton, and Sanchez at catcher. That’s the thing that ticks me off. Play the game.
“I’m not mad at the Yankees, I’m mad at baseball. Baseball should say ‘If you have enough players to play, you play the game.’”
There were other concerns outside of the Yankee clubhouse, as Judge was at Tuesday’s All-Star Game, along with five Red Sox All-Stars, who had to be tested after news of Thursday’s postponement.
“You test those five guys, and if any of those guys are positive, they don’t play,” King said. “That’s it.”
King, who covers the NFL, wasn’t shy in expressing his opinion that MLB should implement a system like the NFL, which had teams play their games as long as there were enough players to take the field.
“Whoever tests positive doesn’t play, and the other guys on both teams, whoever it is, put them out there,” King said. “How do you think the Denver broncos felt last year when their three quarterbacks couldn’t play in a game, and they played the New Orleans Saints with some guy named Kendall Hinton, a practice squad wide receiver…you think they felt good about that? They were ticked off. But the NFL said ‘We told you. If you have enough players, you play the game.’”
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