Monday, February 8, 2021

Are Baseball Players (and a percentage of the support staff) Essential Workers?

As Mr. Duque points out, the opening of Spring Training will coincide with the next spike in Coronavirus. 

It’s interesting how American holidays seemed to be perfectly spaced out to create artificial must gather events that make getting this under control much much more difficult.  Just in the last three months we had Halloween, the election, Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Years, and The Super Bowl. I guess next up is Valentines Day but that seems like it has a different set of diseases.

As far as Spring Training goes, obviously the solution is to vaccinate all the players, coaches, and trainers. But this would entail having them jump to the front of the line. Then again, it’s Florida and as far as I can tell there is no line. Hell, if you listen to their, Governor Covid 19 isn’t real anyway.

So, my question for today is, “Are baseball players (and a percentage of the support staff) essential workers?"

Part of me, the part of me that was watching marble races and old Super Bowls during the first third of the quarantine says yes. Getting sports back was very helpful in combatting my moods which fluctuated between ennui and out and out depression. Sports shortens my day. I’m sure this was true for a lot of Americans so keeping the players on the field improves our collective mental health.

Also, who is next? I’m assuming the front-line health care workers are getting shots, as are other essential workers such as police, firemen etc. Anyone over 65 can at least get on a list in most places. So, who is next? Is it fair to give it to people who are basically entertainers?

Plus, as football just showed, you can apparently breathe on, spit on, and huddle up with each other and still get 700 games played all the way to the end of the season. BTW – Wow!!!! I would have bet big money against this back in May. Well done!

Is it better to just let nature take its course and not give them priority? I’m sure it comes down to manufacture and availability anyway, but getting the players vaccinated goes a long way to insuring a full and uninterrupted season.

As to the fans… 

I guess we will have to wait until Citibank Vaccination Day May 3rd against Baltimore. All fans 14 and over receive a Corona Shot and a commemorative syringe honoring a Yankee player. 

Among the proposed syringes are:

The Mickey Mantle B-12

The Jason Giambi

And The Roger Clemens

 

17 comments:

Local Bargain Jerk said...


On your list of commemorative Yankee syringes, you forgot "The A Rod".

There is no truth to the rumor that receiving a shot from the A Rod syringe causes you to run immediately to a mirror to kiss your own image.

HoraceClarke66 said...

Indeed! With the Clemens shot, you fly into a rage. Giambi? Each shot comes with its own brain parasite.

The Mantle? Well, you get the same stuff he got when he had to be carried into an Oklahoma hospital for osteomyelitis by his brother, and came out ripped to all hell.

(Think the government was experimenting with something down in OK mining territory in the 1940s?)

Anonymous said...

LBJ,

Yes! The A-Rod. Good catch.

Doug K.

el duque said...

Don't forget the Andy, which comes with the blessing of God.

And if you want both dosages in one... the Big Papi.

Alphonso said...

I think...once the first waves of essential workers are pricked, we open it up to anyone willing to be stuck. Those who think the vaccine is designed to limit their future earnings or health, can wait it out and take their chances.

Even some of the ball players will likely reject the vaccine, unless their salary is dependent upon it

Does the players Assoc. have such a clause in their contract?

We need baseball and we need more fans.

TheWinWarblist said...

Everyone should get vaccinated. It's either vaccination now or wait to get COVID. With a case fatality rate of close to 2%. And a much higher rate of long term illness and possibly permanent disability. So 2 (or 1) shots in the arm or risk being a pulmonary cripple for life.

TheWinWarblist said...

Yes, players are essential workers. Anyone who risks their health to bring the hoi polloi bread and circuses is fucking essential, dammit.

TheWinWarblist said...

Yes, players are essential workers. Anyone who risks their health to bring the hoi polloi bread and circuses is fucking essential, dammit.

Anonymous said...

Good luck with that, I’m a first responder in ny and can’t get close to an appointment

HoraceClarke66 said...

What?? Oh, Warbler why should we ever worry about a 2 percent death rate? Why, in the whole United States, that would mean ONLY...6.6 million dead. A mere bagatelle!

Not to mentions many more dead because of overstrained hospitals, and chronic conditions. Or when the variants come, and multiply further.

To quote Gen. Buck Turgidson, "I'm not saying we won't get our hair mussed!"

Anonymous said...

We are just culling the herd in the Lottery that no one wants to win

Anonymous said...

Follow the science.
NY State, shutdown ; 45,129 deaths, Florida, basically open; 27,822 deaths (Source RCP 2/9/21.)
Fla has a larger senior population, but they have targeted seniors for protection from the start. Example, my two 70+ in-laws on the Gulf Coast have already received both dosages and do not have co-mobidities. NYS preening Emmy- winning Gov, will circle back to us later about the death rate in senior living centers and sent a Federal hospital ship back cuz it wasn't needed. Yes, I know, everyone wants to go to NYC, that's why the rate is so high. Not like"The Villages,"
Players clearly safer in Fla., than in NY
Facts is Facts. Don'y gnash your teeth, it leads to gum erosion
Godot

JM said...

Godot, that is incredibly misleading. NYC was THE early epicenter of early Covid cases, before anyone knew much of anything about the virus. We racked up a lot of deaths before most states even had a reported case. So the state figures are wildly inflated, in that sense.

At this point, I think it's hard to make a case that FL is now safer than NYC. The rest of the state, I don't know, but NYC is doing pretty well since those Black Death days of last Spring.

On the other hand, Cuomo--who was strangely reassuring in the early days--has since got my goat. So no argument there. And making sure seniors get the vaccine and get it fast may well be better executed in FL than in NYS. That doesn't seem like a very high bar to beat, given the lack of doses at least here in NYC. Totally FUBAR.

13bit said...

That’s not science

HoraceClarke66 said...

Oh, God-o, God-o, God-o.

Yeah, those Florida stats are dead on. That's why your governor fired the woman who would not stop sending them out, then sent armed officers to hold her and her family at gunpoint while they searched her house.

But I know, I know: yours is the party of civil liberties.

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