On Sunday, Washington Nationals pitcher Sean Doolittle lamented delays in testing, and said we might not deserve sports at the moment.
And since those results still weren’t available Monday, his team decided to call off today’s practice, and their General Manager openly questioned the sport’s ability to operate safely during the COVID-19 pandemic.
“We cannot have our players and staff work at risk,” Nationals G.M. Mike Rizzo said in a statement. “Therefore, we have canceled our team workout scheduled for this morning. We will not sacrifice the health and safety of our players, staff and their families. Without accurate and timely testing, it is simply not safe for us to continue with summer camp.
“Major League Baseball needs to work quickly to resolve issues with their process and their lab. Otherwise, summer camp and the 2020 season are at risk.”
That should serve as an alarm for the NFL, as the ability to obtain and administer testing will be key to be able to bring large groups of players together for anything resembling training camps.
The Nationals were under the impression the results of the tests they took Friday would be available from MLB’s lab in Utah within 24 hours. They were not, leading to Monday’s cancellation. They team has had three days of workouts so far, spreading players throughout their park to try to get them ready to resume later this month.
But the details of the plan were frustrating to Doolittle, since some players still didn’t have the results of their intake tests.
“Yeah, as I sit here talking to you guys, I still don’t have my test results from Friday’s test,” Doolittle said Sunday, via Jesse Dougherty of the Washington Post. “So I got tested again this morning without the results of my test from Friday. We’ve got to clean that up, right? That’s one thing that makes me a little nervous. . . .
“We’re trying to bring baseball back during a pandemic that’s killed 130,000 people. We’re way worse off as a country then we were in March when we shut this thing down. And, like, look at where other developed countries are in their response to this. We haven’t done any of the things that other countries have done to bring sports back. Sports are like the reward of a functioning society. And we’re trying to just bring it back, even though we’ve taken none of the steps to flatten the curve. . . .
“If there aren’t sports, it’s going to be because people are not wearing masks, because the response to this has been so politicized. We need help from the general public. If they want to watch baseball, please wear a mask, social distance, keep washing your hands.”
It would also help if his sport had a competent and effective plan to keep players safe, and that inability could jeopardize the return of the sport.