Baseball Hall of Famer Chipper Jones wants there to be some sort of 2020 MLB season, but he's not entirely sure that COVID-19 will allow it to take place in a safe manner.
"The bottom line is, I don't think anybody is going to feel comfortable until we have a vaccine...we have a cure that is going to be able to knock this thing out right away," Jones said on The Zach Gelb Show. "If baseball comes back and one person tests positive, then you have to shut everything down again. I would just much rather we get this thing fully in the rearview mirror, we get a clean grasp on what it is that's going to help cure this thing and continue to flatten the curve, so to speak, before we get back to playing sports."
As part of the Arizona proposal that ESPN's Jeff Passan reported on, MLB apparently doesn't agree with Jones' assessment that if a player or someone with a team tested positive for COVID-19, it would force baseball to halt or cancel the season.
However, it's one thing for baseball to leak that thought pattern. It would be another for them to actually keep playing if a player or more was diagnosed with COVID-19. After all, the turning point for many in terms of recognizing the severity of the threat of Coronavirus was when Utah Jazz center Rudy Gobert tested positive in March and the NBA suspended their season. It's hard to think if a player - especially a notable one - tested positive that MLB would be able to just continue their season without significant public backlash.
As far as the aforementioned Arizona plan - one that would require players being sequestered from their families and all of the public to at least begin the season - Jones isn't a fan.
"No, to answer quite simply," Jones said when asked if he would support the plan if he was still playing. "I wouldn't be all for that. I think they are throwing around a lot of ideas and just hoping that something sticks...hoping that something makes sense to everybody. I don't know that this is particularly what's going to stick. I would have to think that something such as that would be a logistical nightmare for the league to try to put together."
Jones, the 1999 National League MVP, isn't alone in his thinking. Three-time American League MVP Mike Trout called a plan of being sequestered for all or part of a season "pretty crazy" when asked this week. Trout's wife is expecting the couple's first child in August. Philadelphia Phillies right-hander Zack Wheeler, whose wife is also pregnant, also has voiced opposition to the plan. There are some, like Braves' lefty Cole Hamels, willing to do anything to play in 2020. Whether there are enough players that would be OK with leaving their families for an indefinite period of time to play baseball is unclear.
You get the sense, though, that over the course of the next 10 or so days, we'll get an idea of if there's likely to be some attempt at a 2020 season, and what form that attempt would take. Jones, who made eight All-Star teams during his illustrious career, says that he fears that there is a scenario where there won't be a season this year.
"Yeah, there is a fear [that there won't be a 2020 season]," Jones admitted when pressed on the topic. "And I can only think back to when I was 27, 28, 29 years old and I was in my prime and how I would have been so disappointed to miss out on a year's worth of playing with my buddies and a year's worth of stats. This is pretty devastating to a lot of people...whether it's small business owners around the world...rookies just coming in for the first time...seniors in high school...seniors in college...I mean it's affecting a lot of people...[there's] a lot of pro athletes losing money, which is obviously secondary to everyone's health...but it affects a lot of people in a lot of different ways and man, I really hope that somebody a heck of a lot smarter than me comes up with some kind of solution...some kind of vaccine to help get this thing in the rearview mirror. I really hate to see what it's doing to people all around the country and it would certainly be a welcome site to get this thing in the rearview mirror and hopefully behind us as quickly as possible."
"Look, I miss sports...all sports...golf, football, basketball, baseball...obviously. I miss them all and I want to see them all on TV. But it really isn't worth it if we don't have a clean grasp on the Coronavirus."
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