MLB, MLBPA reach agreement allowing players to head home if so desired

I’m having quite the odd time trying to focus on writing baseball-related articles at the moment, so bear with me for a bit. Obviously, baseball is completely irrelevant in the midst of a growing international pandemic, and just as obviously, writing about baseball when there is no baseball nor any clear path towards baseball is a bit, I dunno, anticlimactic.

That said, the news that broke earlier this week about spring training games being cancelled and at least the first two weeks of the MLB regular season being postponed got a bit of clarity today, as the MLB and MLB Players Association reached an agreement that will allow players who have been in their respective camps to head either back to their team’s city or back to their offseason residences should they so choose. The Athletic’s Ken Rosenthal relayed the details, including some opinion about when we’ll see baseball again that pretty well echoes mine at the moment.

You can do the math as well as I can. Players go home, players do their home thing, COVID-19 does the damage it is going to do, MLB and MLBPA decide it’s finally safe to do some baseball again, players have to plan to get back to their spring training facilities, players have to again begin to ramp up their fitness for the grind of the coming season, etc., etc., etc....

Yeah, it’s going to take awhile. That’s the prudent way to let it play out, though, and obviously letting players get away from the sweaty crowds where they and 50 of their peers workout every single day is probably good for helping contain the spread of this disease and keep the greater good healthier, all that on top of the fact that letting them spend this time with their likely self-quarantined families being the most important aspect in all of this. If their spouses, kids, parents, etc. are all being asked to stay home because of the potential spread, it’s silly to ask the players to do something 100% opposed to that, especially when there is no baseball for them to play.

As a side note, I promise that I do not plan on writing coronavirus updates on the regular anywhere, let alone at Red Reporter dot com. There will be baseball content here, there, and everywhere again soon, provided we all ever get any sort of direction from the powers that be in this country when the thing can be accurately observed, tested, and countered so that we can all get back to as close to normal as possible. Man, how refreshing a concept that is. When we get that - hopefully soon - we’ll again turn our eyes towards a 2020 baseball season that we still expect to take place, even if it gets run on either a modified schedule or is one that gets completely reconfigured altogether.

I want to write about how healthy Nick Senzel feels, how Luis Castillo is set to break the hell out in his final year before arbitration, and how Joey Votto is going to turn back the clock and simply refuse to make outs. It’ll be back at some point, I assure you. For now, though, it’s going to sound something like a baseball triage blog, and I’ll try to do my best to focus on the most recent, relevant bits of news that may be us all inching closer towards the 2020 MLB season.

Wash your feet as often as you was your hands, folks. Getcha some loofahs while you’re at it.